My conclusion is you don't do a lot of research on your own. If you think the words "hook" and "habit" are throwaway words, you haven't heard of Nir Eyal. And I'm pretty sure you haven't, or you would have much more compelling arguments available to you.
Nir Eyal makes the case that all good companies that play in the so-called attention economy have to grab the attention of their customers, and they do that by creating "hooks" that link what he calls "triggers" that people associate with the company's products. These hooks are then rewarded in some fashion using variable scheduled rewards to create activity-based feedback loops, which he calls "habits."
The problem here is that if you were aware of this you would have led with that, because the video you link to is, once again, horribly unconvincing. Although the presenter mentions the hook, habit, hobby framework, his presentation isn't actually about that framework, which you would know if you actually watched it completely. His video is about monetization conversion, not retention. In other words, all of his presentation is focused on designing your game so that players are more likely to spend in the game than not spend, not about how to try to addict players to the game itself. I think he stuck that in his presentation just because it was in vogue at the time: his presentation is a little scattered in general and his stuff goes all over the place.
That's twice in a row you've linked to material that superficially supports your addiction claims, but in actual fact doesn't help your cause at all. The first one falls apart completely, the second one doesn't even talk about addiction.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic: the issue of monetization and psychological manipulation is actually something I've been actively researching and debating for maybe twelve years now - since the very beginning of the microtransaction era in fact. So I'll point you in the right direction. Try starting here: How to use the hooked model to turn your product into a habit. Or if you want to go directly to the source: Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. That's what the presenter was referencing, but didn't actually talk about.
This isn't about games per se, but the games industry is adopting a lot of the ideas in its engagement and monetization strategies. I should point out that Eyal didn't invent any of this per se: he was one of the first to systematically discuss what was being organically invented in many different places simultaneously. And he isn't without his critics, but the point is not that he's right or he's wrong, it is that the line of thinking he promotes has significant sway in the games as a service industry (which MCOC fundamentally is). If you want to argue against psychological manipulation in online games, that would be a good place to start.
That’s a lot of words you are using to say I’m wrong, yet you seem agree with me, despite not making a clear, consise point. Never said hook and habit were throwaway words, I said they were key words, literally the exact opposite if we are speaking the same language. The same words to big tobacco and others use to describe cigarette smokers, addicts. I’m not going to split hairs and argue semantics and everyone’s own “definition” of terms. But if you think these games aren’t designed to impact you the same way drugs do, with malice aforethought, then you don’t understand what billion dollar industries are up to.
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