Which of these statements do you agree with: “all games will rot your mind”, or “all games will make you a better person”? Neither? Then you’re picking a more nuanced position than a lot of politicians and commentators nowadays, who seem to think all games are either Grand Theft Auto or the educational edition of Minecraft. Along with being more profitable than TV and movies, games are also far more varied, which means we have to work much harder to talk about which games or genres might have positive or negative effects.
Contrary to popular belief, videogames weren’t immediately demonised when they appeared in popular culture. At worst, they were seen as “a frivolous pastime with minimal benefits”, as Sid Meier recalls in Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games, but not much different from other niche interests, such as jazz music or the work of Frank Gehry. It was only later that they were wrongly accused of fostering violent tendencies. As frustrating as that period was, it is largely over: videogames now dominate the world of entertainment, and fans who were quick to cast doubt on research studies criticising games are now just as quick to champion those that praise their hobby.
There are a few clouds marring this cultural victory, though, including the plague of loot boxes and microtransactions that have multiplied across the industry. Unusually, politicians and players have been united in disliking this kind of exploitative monetisation and gameplay, with proposals to regulate loot boxes receiving widespread support from consumers. Where things become more complicated is when we consider the less harmful but more widespread sin of games that waste players’ time by means of compulsion loops.
‘Compulsion loop’ is a scary-sounding term for a simple process. First,
