Cell Phone Game Addiction: Bookless & Friends Episode

Dr. Bookless & Friends

Episode 789

Topic: Cell Phone Game Addiction

Special Guest: Professor Kaffara Ulanos

Dr. David G. Bouklas: Hi everybody. Today’s guest is a professor of technology at Hephaestus University in Greece, Europe.

Professor Kaffara Ulanos: Thank you for having me here today. I am from Greece, and I am here to discuss matters of technology and psychology.

Bouklas: I am of Greek descent, though an American living in Europe.

Ulanos: I knew this already, not just by your name, but by your unmistakably strong Greek aroma.

Bouklas: Yes, all Greeks can detect each other by scent, sometimes even by a ‘third-eye’ sense from many kilometers away which allowed wild Ancient Greek tribes to either unite or avoid each other in the wilderness. Although my own abilities are somewhat diminished since I was not born a Native Greek.

Ulanos: Man is a bridge to perfection.

Bouklas: So it goes. Alright then. Today’s topic is Cell Phone Game Addiction.

Ulanos: If you have a smart phone, take it out for a moment. Look up some popular/random games on the Play Store. Almost all of the top reviews I’ve seen here include the word ‘addictive’.

Bouklas: Okay I checked out a few. I don’t really understand this. Addictive is generally a negative description. Every top review has a review that includes this word.

Ulanos: For cell phone games, the term ‘addictive’ has become a selling point.

Bouklas: It gets me thinking, is that really what people are looking for? People are going out of their ways to distract themselves, and they want something that’s going to addict them and take up their time – to distract them from existential thoughts and what have you. It totally reminds me of the South Park episode with the Canadian Devil. In the episode, The Canadian Devil is the mastermind behind the formulaic game mechanics that take advantage of the reward systems hardwired into the human brain, persuading them to assign value to certain fake coins or what have you and actually pay real money in exchange fake money. It’s based on the release of dopamine and the perceived value of the fake currency. It makes me wonder.

Ulanos: I am familiar with this South Park episode and I am very grateful that they’re sharing such important information, so these vampiric game companies do not get to feed on as much human blood, sucking people’s wallets and minds dry until they are become hollow shells, isolated and alone, hungry and seething, addicted to digital Skinner Box mechanics and endlessly seeking gratification that never quite comes.

Bouklas: Sounds like Hell. Canadian Devil, indeed. But you know, that’s why we’re here, that’s why South Park is here, to shed light on this situation, vanquishing the darkness. Our backend team did some quick research and found this video of Satan from South Park succinctly explaining addiction. In the episode, it is joked that the devil fears even the Canadian Devil for his merciless diabolic cunning:

South Park Satan explains addiction:

Canadian Prime Minster explains the mobile cell phone business model:

Bouklas: Let’s just do a quick re-cap of that episode because it’s extremely pertinent to what we’re discussing today. In the episode, Canada’s Minister of Mobile Gaming creates a cell phone game that lets players build virtual cities by collecting Canadian coins, known as “Canadough.” While the game is free, it lets users purchase additional Canadough by paying real money.

Ulanos: It is a complete criticism of this “Freemium” gaming business model, which deviously incentivizes users to purchase upgrades and such with real currency. It has become the standard business model for the mobile gaming platform.

Bouklas: The character Stan develops a strong addiction to the game, unmindfully purchasing over $500 on Canadough virtual currency. Terrence and Phillip, an extremely famous and renowned comedy duo from Canada who are also the stars or image of the game, complain in-person to the Minister that freemium gaming will tarnish their image. The Minister proceeds to explain his business model. He uses data analytics to market the game. He explains that game has to be “barely fun” and “boring and stupid.”

The Canadian Minister of Mobile Gaming explains, “If the game were too fun, there would be no reason to pay to make it more fun. The truth is, a very small percentage of people who download freemium games ever pay anything for them….It’s all aboot finding the heaviest users and extracting the most amount of cash from them. That’s how you get addicts to pay 200 bucks for a game that’s not even worth 40 cents.”

Ulanos: Frighteningly accurate to what’s actually happening, but people are signing up for this any time they download this type of game.

Bouklas: The Minister says “With every button they click, we get feedback on how to shove this crap right down their throats.” The Minister reveals himself to be the Canadian Devil who has purposely created an evil addiction machine. The episode ends with the Prince of Canada proclaiming, “When you get involved with freemium gaming, you are making a deal with the Canadian Devil.” A not-so-subtle offense against mobile gaming.

Ulanos: I remember when Stan’s friends call him out, he just says the game is simply ‘fun.’ It seems as though the word addictive in this context of the game reviews on the Play Store is thought to be indicative of “fun”, but what people seem to be ignoring is that a lot of these games are essentially Skinner boxes.

Bouklas: Our crack research team at work today: Skinner Box: A box or cage in which a subject (usually an animal), may be isolated from outside influences; used in operant conditioning experiments where the subject can operate a lever to obtain a reward or avoid a painful shock.

Ulanos: Right, that’s the textbook definition, based off of the original experiments by American behavioural psychologist Dr. B.F. Skinner. This is where the player is rewarded – usually with some flashing lights and the suggestion of progression – for performing a mundane task. Many of these smart phone games – especially the free to play ones – have no real challenge, but rather have the player doing relatively simple puzzles, and with games like Candy Crush in particular, the challenge is a programmed inability to progress.

Bouklas: It’s the same in every cell phone game I’ve tried. Progression halts at a certain point which strongly persuades the player to expedite his or her progress through the game by buying fake crystals or some other bullshit.

Ulanos: When people don’t get their Skinner box reward they will continue trying to complete the puzzle, even to the point where they’ll start paying money for more opportunities to complete it. Essentially being conditioned to seek the artificial sense of accomplishment (the reward) In that sense the games take advantage of a flaw in the mind wherein a short term burst of positive reinforcement, elevated mood, and excitement are the addiction, and when letting a player achieve that many times in a row, they’re programmed to want it, and expect it. You can notice that in these games (Candy Crush, Futurama Delivery Drones, any of the matching games, a wide array of different “free” to play games, even Pokemon Go) the first 10-20 levels are easily beatable, but then the player is met with a roadblock, and at this point offered the ability to use money to beat it, satisfying their programming/conditioning. It’s not just smart phone games though, the obviousness of the Skinner box in effect in MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) such as Warcraft and Everquest is apparent, as time spent repeating mundane actions is rewarded with an exciting level up symbol, and to continue receiving that award players will subscribe to access to the game world.

Bouklas: What a manipulative scheme!

Ulanos: People get addicted to positive feelings quite easily, and when they have a simple means of achieving that, they’ll often go for it. Some to much higher degrees than others. It’s the simplicity of what is required to achieve it in these games that makes them addicting, compared to real life progression and feelings of affirmation and progression. For instance, to get a big promotion at work, or get funding for the project you’ve been wanting to do might take months or years of hard work, meanwhile the game may take a couple of minutes, and your reward is enough to satisfy your need for positive reinforcement for a while. On the other hand, getting that big promotion, or project funding will give real tangible rewards, and a much longer lasting feeling of positive reinforcement, but the path to achieve that takes much longer, and doesn’t necessarily offer positive reinforcement along the way, so it’s much easier to slide off that path of progression, and slip into the world of artificial progression in addicting games. It’s oddly transparent when you know what you’re looking for.

Bouklas: Fascinating.

Ulanos: Skinner box mechanics are used in other popular games, too. Look at the game Call of Duty and how it’s made.

Bouklas: I can totally see that now. It almost makes you feel like a pawn being used by the big gaming companies when you realize what’s been going on.

Ulanos: Playing a match of Call of Duty is like pulling the lever on a slot machine. The game is designed for everyone to have a chance of doing “ok”. The analogy might have sucked but you get the point. I remember when getting 2-3 kills in a clip, maybe a couple no-scopes, that used to be awesome. People are used to that now, that doesn’t give them the rush they’re used to, they need more to chase that dragon. So now we have 1080 degree ladder-trick no scopes, and more and more things to unlock to trigger that reward center.

Bouklas: We can see these concepts not only in video games but also with certain food products. It’s also possible that people don’t actually search for “addictive games” or anything like that, but rather they’re pretty much rubbing it in our faces that we are slaves to whatever mixture of ingredients they can legally put on the market and sell as food. Well, not even food. There’s a brand that makes baked goods that calls itself “brand’s food products”. They’re beginning to not call it food anymore, but rather food products.

Ulanos: There are tons of brands like that. I think immediately of Kraft Singles. Cheese product. It’s horrifying. And it sells amazingly well. I remember the tub of amorphous lard from Idiocracy, or the marketing slogan for the electrolytes for plants – “It’s what plants crave.” And people just eat it up, completely unmindful to what they are putting into their bodies, putting trust into an entity that just wants your money, a devil wearing a clown mask.

Bouklas: Literally McDonald’s, for that last description, and they don’t even hide that fact. So creepy. Researching into the current food system and working in a few restaurants it’s pretty clear that ‘food’ as labelled by companies may be edible but is not healthy and is potentially hazardous. High fructose corn syrup and some of the oils used for frying/cooking look and smell toxic. With food products in the US, the devil’s in the details. Glyphosate and refined sugar/carbs everywhere to name a few. I recommend that everyone watches the film Cowspiracy. It deals with the food supply in the US and gets to the real truth of many aspects, especially the real cost of our level of animal consumption. MSG is still in everything. Remember the big to-do about it in the 90s? Well now its got at least 40 different names it goes by (“natural flavorings” is one) and once you look for it, you will see it is in almost everything at the grocery store, often more than once per product. Free glutamate (MSG) is a natural byproduct of processing protein. Its in the milk you may feed your children. So much of our food is poison. High Fructose Corn Syrup is insane. Small amounts of HFCS might not be bad. But sodas, candies, and other foods seem to have a really high amount of it. Another area where the Devil’s in the details. Small molecular changes could make a difference in a bigger scale. Altering a molecule slightly can change some from being inert to poisonous. Sugar from fruit (fructose) and honey is healthy, in moderation. Fructose is readily absorbed by the body, while sucrose (from refined sugar) must be processed by the liver first.

Ulanos: Food and games are addictive by design, based on very well-understood principles of behavioural psychology. With the way alcohol, pharmaceutical and street drugs, gambling, guns, food, and coffee are advertised and accepted in today’s society, we may be seeing a destructive normalization of addiction. It’s surely addictive by design. There is a company named SG Interactive that go right out and tell the user how addictive the game is. It is a rare instance of this concept of ‘truth in advertising’, or perhaps a legally-mandated marketing word choice to give themselves cover when people complain about wasting thousands of dollars buying Donuts in The Simpson’s game or on Pokemon Go.

Bouklas: It’s as if they’re outright saying. “Hey – don’t blame us. We told you how addictive this game was!” It’s like they’ve got their bases covered in case someone tries to sue.

Ulanos: That’s definitely a part of it.

Bouklas: Society has become addicted to the black mirror. I have a few previous guests on my show who help introduce me to some of the following concepts. The coincidental connection between the occult practice of scrying through a black mirror, and the fact that many of our technological devices’ screens are effectively black mirrors is very interesting. It’s probably the reason for the name of the television series Black Mirror which is a strong critique on our culture and system. It’s oddly deeper than a simple superficial likeness to the black mirror tool of the occult world. We as a society peer into the black mirror, and out pops information that we could otherwise never know; the year of so-and-so’s birth, or the origin of a word, or even track trends that could offer a good prediction of the future. It’s very peculiar, and it sometimes makes me wonder if the black mirror was inspired by the computers of either some advanced, lost civilization, or perhaps a chance encounter with a time traveller. Or it’s just pure coincidence that things developed this way. Regardless, the idea that we’re so heavily reliant on a facsimile of an occult tool is very interesting to me.

Ulanos: That’s wild, dude. There’s one more point to consider in this. Addictive equals time. Most people want to stretch their dollar on something that draws their attention and makes their investment seem worthwhile. This goes for everything. Addictive is a selling point when people are struggling to keep cash. They want to make small investments that pay out or are considered “worthwhile purchases”.

Bouklas: That’s a great point. Well, Kaffara, that’s all the time we have today. Thank you so much for being on our show today.

Kaffara: Thank you for having me, David.

Bouklas: If you want to know more, you can look up ‘Skinner Box and Video Games’. It’s best to educate yourself so you don’t end up spending your time and money on Pokéballs or something dumb like that. Peace.

Professor Kaffara is a Professor of Technology at Hephaestus University in Greece, Europe. He has two wives and five children. He eats olives every day.