You buy a new game, start it and ZACK you have accumulated countless hours of play in just a few days and you always want to keep playing. Of course, this is no coincidence and the developers also play a large part in this. After all, they use various tactics to keep you in the game longer and have a positive experience.
These methods have evolved over the years since gaming began. Already development teams of older games like pong and Co. have thought about how they can make their titles more attractive and thus keep players on the ball. But that’s not the only thing this article is about: Gambling has been around since humans existed, long before the process was electronically converted. And for a number of years, psychologists have been concerned with the meaning and impact of this seemingly “senseless” process. From Siegmund Freud to Lew Wygotski and Jean Piaget, many analysts have theories about what we want to experience when we play.
The well-known and probably just as controversial neuropsychologist Sigmund Freud put forward the thesis that in games you can break taboos that would have consequences in real life. These taboos mark the limits of action, speech and sometimes even thinking in society, they serve as a set of rules for a functioning coexistence, but they are always artificial restrictions.
The banana in the hand that becomes a weapon, the infidelity that is simulated during lovemaking with your partner – with the (quite broad) concept of gaming, social no-gos can be broken. Pent-up aggression can be reduced and secret and actually suppressed desires can be fulfilled.
Playing can also help with conflict processing. Aggressions and conflicts are resolved in the simulated cosmos and are not carried out into the “outside world”.
Dreams come true in Life is Strange too. In her dream, Chloe sees her father William, who is long gone.
Source: PC games
Whether in this context of problem solving with a view to suppressed desires and aggression, or with a more harmless meaning for oneself: in the end, gaming is always a brief attempt to escape from reality; whether it is the raging pandemic right now, or whether you used to want to escape from social constraints.
Jean Piaget, a Swiss pioneer of cognitive developmental psychology, called this a “defense against reality”. We do not adapt to our environment, but our environment to us. In a sense, then, we “resist” reality and social pressures. We build our own beautiful world that nobody can destroy for us. Not only our environment, but also we ourselves are what we want.
Children also use this playful escape mechanism, be it because of precarious family circumstances or other circumstances that bother them. At the same time, however, another aspect comes into play.
According to the Soviet psychologist Lev Wygotsky, adults increasingly seek refuge in unrealistic dreams or wishful thinking. Children, on the other hand, very often use play for imitation, based on the adult world that is alien to them.
They then slip into adult roles. Father, mother, child, cooking on the wood stove, driving around in the bobby car – by observing the adults, children get to know the roles that they will later grow into, resulting in an exciting overlap between play and the de facto learning process. This principle runs like a red thread through the rest of life.
Development progress through play
Alcohol isn’t just an addiction. Computer games can also trigger this addiction. For this reason, too, the federal government has been fighting the system behind loot boxes, which are similar to gambling, since 2021.
Source: Rockstar Games
Many brain researchers also agree that board games, playing with dolls or even gaming are beneficial for the development of an adolescent. Even in old age, such activities regularly keep the brain busy.
These and many other aspects are deeply rooted in us. This does not mean that everyone becomes a gambler, but it shows what thoughts psychologists and brain researchers have had to explain the behavior and actual motivations of a gamer.
But there are also less good reasons to play a lot. Addiction in particular is a constant source of danger for susceptible people. Excessive gambling leads to neglecting social contacts or work. Negative consequences are simply suppressed. In most cases, gambling addiction is related to gambling, such as the classic slot machines in casinos. But computer games can also trigger exactly this addiction.
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