VFX A primer on what makes a game addictive! -

A primer on what makes a game addictive!

Gaming is considered to be one of the biggest entertainment sectors, even bigger than Hollywood films. Robert Downey Jr. starrer Iron Man 3 was the highest grossing film of 2013, but Grand Theft Auto V amassed the same amount in just three days. This speaks volumes of how the games have become the source of entertainment and are crossing the gender barrier.

Gaming right now is not limited to a particular console or desktop. A game can be played on the mobile devices as well. The gaming industry has received a fresh breathe of air with casual games catching up fast with hardcore games that have been popular with the gamers.

Days of Mario, Contra and Donkey Kong have been replaced with Candy Crush, Angry Birds and Temple Run.

The casual gamers are the new market every mobile game developer wants to conquer. Downloads on the aggregators matter on how well the game is and has the game being received well across all the age sections. Today, you see a lot of people on their mobile phones constantly playing some game or the other trying to pass sometime while in traffic or travel.

Games, five years ago were not so popular with all the people, and the reach was limited. With the rise of Facebook, the social games took people by storm. Farmville, Mafia Wars, and other such games were the first among these to make aware the power of gamification. With Facebook available across various platforms, the users turned gamers overnight. The games were just not a thing for the hardcore gamers; they were available across different platforms, played on your beds, offices and even bathrooms.

A research shows that playing these games and achieving the in game goals results in the release of a hormone called dopamine. Dopamine boosts pleasure and perseverance while reducing stress. Dopamine is released inside your brain whenever you are happy or you smell success. Brain is a complex structure and release of dopamine results in the brain wanting more of it.

Games like Candy Crush, Subway Surfer, 2048, Flappy Bird target these parts of the brain, where a small success in the game gives you a rush to play the game over and over again. We ask the industry experts the question

What makes a game addictive and how does one achieve that successfully?

Krish Das of Toonheart Studios

There are two different ways to make a game addictive. One is Content and another is Competition.

Content is when players come back to play again because they want to try unexplored bits, mechanism that can be used differently, basically get more out of the game.

Competition is where players come back because their peer online/social/game-network friends are progressing in the game and they don’t want to be left out in the social climb or bragging rights.

Something common in both the games is the feeling of a “so near yet so far” grasp of achievement, that user gets tempted to do it again and again.

Chirag Chopra of No Lighting Game App

Making a game addictive is hard and also the key to success. Addiction is something that makes you keep doing it again and again without getting bored. There are a couple of factors that makes a game addictive.

Progression: People like to learn and master things. Games like Candy Crush do this the best. If there’s a game which is played by everyone and playing it daily makes me better than everyone. Playing regularly and being the best in the game will make me better than everyone and take me to the top of leaderboard.

Rewards: A good game will always reward the player in one way or the other regardless of a win or loss. This is one of the best ways to bring back the players to the game.

Rajjat Ojha, The Awesome Game Studio

Leveling up is on the top of the list. One has to keep the players leveling up so that they have something to look forward every time a player is upgraded. Another thing is bringing the right balance of unpredictability to the game. Bringing in elements that will make the players want to play the game more to explore the unexplored parts of the game for something they haven’t experienced in the game before. Avatars and Multiple Classes and introducing several Downloadable Content over the time are some of the other factors that add to the repeat value of the game.

Maruti Sanker, 7Seas Entertainment

Game Addiction is usually a multi faceted issue.

In general for game starters: games are designed to be addictive, not ‘addictive’ in clinical sense of the word. In general as game designers we are looking for ways to make our games more interesting and increase the amount of time people will spend playing them. We accomplish this by making a game just challenging enough to keep the gamer coming back for more but not so hard that the player eventually gives up.

As an online and mobile web gaming developer, we want gamers to login once and pick up the suitable game and never want them to stop playing.

Game players should enjoy a game that satisfies the need for control, bestows a sense of one’s progress, and play with friends. Yet gamers differ in their individual needs. Games should be attracted by repetitive actions, difficulty and have a low loss aversion. We also look at the benefits of gaming, which should not be overlooked.

Priyadarshi Chowdhary, Sage Info Labs

Open-ended games have a lot of repeat value. Also, the games that give choice – what character does one gets to play, what path does one want to take, what end does one want to attain. All of this of course depends on whether the game is fun to play with. If there are a number of different playable characters with different playing styles but the game is boring then it is unlikely that anyone would be interested in playing the game over and over again. Randomness is also a great source of repeat value. Puzzle games fit the bill perfectly for the randomness factor.

A common thing you’ll find in a lot of addictive games is that they allow the players to do a lot within the game with a few simple controls. A good fighting game might be fun because you can hit a great looking combo move with combination of maybe two or three keys. Then there are a lot of different characters and each character has its own combo and moves. The game should require some amount of effort to learn its tricks and ways to perform the moves so that it feels rewarding. For instance in Unreal Tournament you can perform a very cool looking shock explosion combo with the shock rifle. It is difficult to execute but it gives you a great feeling of accomplishment once you get the hang of it.

Amit Goyal, SuperSike Games

I personally like the games that provide either a deep story (with many elements to discover through collectibles or in-game events) or something that you build from ground up (a character, a team, or even a city or a base). I think these elements have incredible value.

Modern F2P (free-to-play) games have broken it down to a science. They assault the reward centre of your brain to hook you up and eventually get you addicted. But in the end the game addiction boils down to the game you care about.

Anand Jha, Nilee Games

Game’s re-playability value comes from the long playing hours and power-ups which the user can earn easily. One should be able to compete with one’s self and also with friends and players across the globe. Games like Candy Crush, Subway Surfer and Temple Run do this very well.

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