Video Games and Their Addicting, Yet Frustrating Qualities
Dylan Gerber, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Abstract: This paper will begin by examining what traits make a video game successful. The qualities being tested in this section include the framework, or layout, of the game, the intended audience, pre- and post-launch aspects of marketing, and more. By analyzing these traits, a link can be found between the successful qualities of a video game and the games that players actively dislike, seeing if they even possess successful attributes. Next, the idea of video game addiction will be addressed while analyzing what traits are and are not addictive to the player. This data can be compared to the data previously mentioned about what traits make a game successful, to address the link between what makes a good video game and what makes an addictive video game. Establishing a link between success and addiction is crucial to understanding what keeps the consumers coming back. Finally, two very controversial business models in video games will be analyzed. These models, the battle pass and the loot box, are widely disliked among video game communities, yet show massive success for the game itself. Ultimately, the argument being made is that players continue playing games they dislike because of a combination of all of these points. Specifically, these games possess good qualities that make a game successful, but likely contain some bad aspects like unfavorable business decisions that cause players to dislike them while also possessing addictive qualities that keep the player coming back despite not enjoying themselves.
A majority of the US population, including both children and adults, play video games. This statistic is not just limited to the US, however, as video games have become a widespread form of media all across the world. Video games have gone from a niche form of entertainment 30 years ago to generating several hundred billion dollars a year as a whole. With the industry growing at such a rapid pace and thousands upon thousands of new video games coming out each year, it is reasonable to believe that some of these video games will be widely loved, while others will end up hated and forgotten. Strangely, some consumers insist on playing certain video games, even if they actively dislike them. The puzzling situation of why consumers continue to play and support video games that they actively hate can be seen through a combination of factors that make a video game successful, factors that make a video game addicting, and business models like battle passes or loot boxes that keep players coming back.
This essay will begin by first examining what traits make a video game successful. These qualities include the framework, or layout, of the game, the intended audience, pre- and post-launch aspects of marketing, and more. By analyzing these traits, a link can be found between the successful qualities of a video game and the games that players actively dislike, seeing if they even possess successful attributes to begin with. Next, the idea of video game addiction will be addressed while analyzing what traits of a game are and are not addictive to the player. This data can be compared to the data previously mentioned about what traits make a game successful, to address the link between what makes a “good” video game and what makes an addictive video game. Establishing a link between success and addiction is crucial to understanding what keeps the consumers coming back. Finally, two very controversial business models in video games will be explored. These models, the battle pass and the loot box, are widely disliked among video game communities, yet show massive success for the game itself. Ultimately, this essay is arguing that players continue playing games they dislike because of a combination of all of these points. Specifically, these games possess good qualities that make a game successful, but likely contain some bad aspects like unfavorable business decisions that cause players to dislike them, but they also possess addictive qualities that keep the player coming back despite not enjoying themselves.
Firstly, a battle pass is defined as a business model that video game companies can employ in their game. This model consists of many rewards, often things that cannot be obtained any other way, that the player can purchase using real world currency. The battle pass is a one-time purchase for each “battle” the game offers. Next, a loot box is defined as another business model that can be employed into video games. Loot boxes differ from battle passes in that they contain far fewer rewards usually, are usually less expensive, but contain random rewards instead of a preset list. Loot boxes are also many individual purchases, compared to a one-time purchase to buy a battle pass. These also can use real-world currency but may also be purchased with virtual currency depending on the purchase. The rewards of a loot box are also random, as opposed to the guaranteed set of rewards that a battle pass provides. A video game’s framework is the outline in which the developers follow to create the video game. A framework provides a basis for how the game should be for both the developers and the intended audience. Two main types of video game studios exist, AAA studios, and Indie studios. AAA studios are companies like Microsoft and Sony that are massive entities in their field, while Indie studios are independent companies that are often significantly smaller than AAA studios.
Within the last ten years, video games as an industry have grown rapidly. From starting out as a very niche subset of media, to becoming the global empire that it is today, they have become incredibly successful. With that success, there also comes many unsuccessful video games that get overshadowed by the rest. What exactly makes a game successful comes down to a lot of individual factors that can make or break a video game. The first of these factors is the intended audience of the game. Without having a plan for who the intended audience for the game is, developers can quickly become confused with the task at hand and try to produce a game that appeals to several different audiences. While this can work, it often results in game features that do not blend well together being thrown together in an attempt to satisfy more people. To counter this, developers use frameworks to build a plan for the game. Norita Ahmad, a journalist who has written articles regarding the development of video games, explains two main frameworks that developers use. The first of these frameworks is the MDA, or Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics framework. This framework “was initially designed to…make the process smoother for all the parties involved” in the development of a game, with a direct connection between developers and consumers through feedback about the gameplay (Ahmad, 2017). This framework can be limiting, however, as the audience has no input on other aspects of the game, such as the narrative of the game. The other main framework used by developers is the DPE, or Design, Play, and Experience framework. This framework is very similar to the MDA framework, however it adds “a multi-layer structure to the framework that consists of learning, storytelling, gameplay and user experience that provides an analysis structure for the game’s design” (Ahmad, 2017). The main difference between these is the amount of involvement from the consumers. Another factor that makes people want to play a video game is the developer. Established companies have a lot of credibility to their name, even if it is widely agreed that they do not put out the best games. Having that credibility draws in more casual gamers and thus attracts a wider market than games produced by smaller, indie companies. However, there is not always competition between AAA studios and Indie studios. In the same article written by Norita Ahmad discussing the factors that make games successful, she discusses how “in recent years, Microsoft and Sony, the two biggest video games console manufacturers, have shown their support” for indie studios (Ahmad, 2017). While this benefits both the AAA studio and the Indie studio, the AAA studios still have a larger, loyal consumer base, thus ending up more successful.
A game being successful cannot solely explain why people play games they do not like. It can be a driving reason for some people, as even games that people do not like can have qualities that deem a video game “successful,” but it is much more likely that video game addiction also plays a factor in the answer to this question. Addiction to video games has been observed as being a real phenomenon, one which greatly affects the consumer’s mindset while playing gamesOver 130,000 participants partook in a study that concluded that “video game addiction is likely to cause anxiety, depression, social phobia, and scholastic decline” in both Eastern and Western cultures (Abbasi, 2021). The factors of a video game that Abbasi explored in his own study were dedication, absorption, conscious attention, social connection, enthusiasm, and interaction. It was concluded that dedication, absorption, conscious attention, and enthusiasm all contribute highly to video game addiction, while social connection and interaction less severely contribute to it. Addiction to video games is more than spending a lot of time playing games. Rather, it severely affects people’s lives negatively as well. A study by Askay Atasever aimed to conclude the connection between video game addiction and academic and life motivation and satisfaction. The results confirmed this hypothesis, with Atasever concluding that “digital addiction reduces the positive effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on life satisfaction,” and “increases the negative effect of amotivation on life satisfaction” (Atasever 34). Addiction to video games negatively impacts students’ academic motivation and general happiness in life. Between the factors that contribute to video game addiction and the negative effects on life it has for people who become addicted, it is reasonable to believe that addiction plays a major role in why people play games they dislike.
With potential reasons players will stick with a game, whether it be the good qualities of the game or the addictive nature, there must also be something that people dislike about these games despite continuing to play them. This can be many things, but today is primarily unfavorable business decisions that studios make for their games. The battle pass business model is widely disliked by video game communities all around the world yet is widely successful. One of the first video games to incorporate this, DOTA 2, saw a steady decline in its player base after incorporating a battle pass. The authors of an article highlighting the growth and side effects of the battle pass model, Elena Petrovskaya and David Zendle, claim that “battle passes may have an important relationship with player experience – and potentially, even, player wellbeing” (Petrovskaya and Zendle 3). In a further study done on DOTA 2, Andrei Zanescu discusses how DOTA 2’s battle pass functioned for players. After the battle pass was introduced in 2017, players were “invited to purchase the Battle Pass for US$9.99 in order to access several features and rewards over those months” (Zanescu 2888). An additional bundle was added later on that was US$19.99 for extra rewards. The reason this business model is widely disliked is because of the steep price to purchase extra rewards. Battle passes often appear more frequently in free games, such as mobile games, but the steep price of $10-$20 roughly every month adds up to become much more expensive than a typical game’s price. Another study conducted on battle passes, primarily focusing on the game Apex Legends, conducted by Daniel Joseph, further affirmed these conclusions about the battle pass. Joseph was able to conclude that “battle pass capitalism shows in a sense how games are now shops,” bhighlighting the problem in this successful business model (Joseph 81). Video games are now becoming things where you can continuously purchase new products to get ahead of the other players, which is widely disliked. People play video games to have fun, not to compete in how much money someone can spend on an individual game to get the best results out of it. Despite how negatively players view this, however, it continues to succeed and is incorporated into many online games coming out today.
The battle pass is not the only business model that is contributing to video games becoming more like shops. Loot boxes are another business model very similar to battle passes that are also widely disliked among video game communities. Loot boxes also possess another reason that they are widely disliked, however. An ongoing debate has been going on as to whether loot boxes were a form of gambling in video games that children can access. In an attempt to analyze the gambling nature of random reward mechanism, or RRMs, such as loot boxes, Rune Kristian Lundedal Nielsen and Pawel Grabarcyzk reached the conclusion that “only games where the player can turn fiat money into randomized rewards and then turn those rewards back into fiat currency can be considered gambling” (Nielsen and Grabarcyzk, 2019). Although it is not every game with loot boxes, some games that do contain them can be considered gambling. This becomes very problematic as children are able to access games like these and can therefore gamble. This problem could be mediated if parents are the ones to make the purchases for the children, but that is not always guaranteed to happen. Another study on how loot box purchasing affected online behavior, conducted by Soichiro Ide, aimed to find how adolescents were affected if they partook in loot box purchasing on their own. 1615 teenagers, age 14, took part in this study and the 57 who reported that they purchased loot boxes “were significantly more likely to exhibit [a] problem [with] online gaming” (Ide, 2021). This means that the teenagers who purchased loot boxes exhibited other problematic behaviors in online games, furthering the evidence towards loot boxes being a form of gambling. Loot boxes are causing people to exhibit problematic behaviors reminiscent of gambling, which adds to why people do not like this business model. Not only is it similar to battle passes in the extra purchases that add up to a lot of money, but it also contributes to gambling behaviors in young children.
The question as to why people continue to play and support video games that they actively dislike can be answered with a combination of the evidence provided. A game likely possesses some qualities that deem it successful, getting the public’s attention. From this point, addictive qualities of the game kick in and keep people playing the game for an extended period of time. These games only become disliked once the negative business model, such as the battle pass or loot box model, comes in and gets the player spending a lot of money on the game, despite disliking it. At this point, the player is too invested and feels as if they have spent too much on the game to simply drop it, so they continue playing the game. As an aspiring game developer, I recognize that this is a severe problem with the current status of the game development industry that needs to be addressed. Consumers are being severely exploited for money and are not getting an enjoyable experience out of it a lot of the time. I hope to work to rid the video game community of this problem as I continue in this industry.
Works Cited
Abbasi, Amir Zaib, et al. "Predicting Video Game Addiction Through the Dimensions of Consumer Video Game Engagement: Quantitative and Cross-Sectional Study." JMIR Serious Games 9.4 (2021)
Ahmad, Norita B., et al. "How to Launch a Successful Video Game: A Framework." Entertainment Computing 23 (2017): 1-11.
Atasever, Askay Nur, et al. “Mediating Effect of Digital Addiction on the Relationship between Academic Motivation and Life Satisfaction in University Students.” Participatory Educational Research, vol. 10, no. 1, Jan. 2023, pp. 17–41. EBSCOhost, libaccess.fdu.edu/login?url=https://https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1362746&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Ide, Soichiro, et al. “Adolescent Problem Gaming and Loot Box Purchasing in Video Games: Cross-Sectional Observational Study Using Population-Based Cohort Data.” JMIR Serious Games, vol. 9, no. 1, Feb. 2021. EBSCOhost, libaccess.fdu.edu/login?url=https://https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2021-47827-001&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Joseph, Daniel. “Battle Pass Capitalism.” Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 21, no. 1, Feb. 2021, pp. 68–83. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540521993930.
Nielsen, Rune Kristian Lundedal, and Pawel Grabarczyk. "Are Loot Boxes Gambling?: Random Reward Mechanisms in Video Games." Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association 4 (2019): 171-207.
Petrovskaya, Elena, and David Zendle. "The Battle Pass: A Mixed-Methods Investigation into a Growing Type of Video Game Monetization." OSF Preprints, Sep (2020).
Zanescu, Andrei, et al. “Betting on DOTA 2’s Battle Pass: Gamblification and Productivity in Play.” New Media & Society, vol. 23, no. 10, Oct. 2021, pp. 2882–901. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820941381.
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