Neuroscientist turned gaming consultant Ramin Shokrizade has released a long unpublished article about how game design should be built around knowledge that gaming releases dopamine. Shokrizade admits the topic itself is controversial, but since this information is getting discussed in public circles that it was time to bring it out into the open.
In the most basic terms, dopamine is the chemical released by the brain to induce pleasure. Research has shown that activities like gaming can cause the brain to release dopamine, and game designers like Shokrizade have been using this knowledge to make games more addictive.
In Shokrizade's paper, he proposes that developers change the way they categorize gamers. Instead of labeling them as hardcore and casual gamers, they should be labeled as high dose, medium dose and low dose, in connection with the levels of dopamine it is assumed gamers get a dose of when they play.
Shokrizade contends the new categorization will allow them to overcome long set preconceptions about their audience and design them better to a wider audience. As an example, he explains how game designers are being unfair to label women as "casual gamers." Many of them are in fact new gamers, who can learn to enjoy more complex and deeper gamer experiences than is usually made for them.
Shokrizade's contention is game designers will want to turn low dose gamers into medium dose gamers. In contrast to low dose games produced by the likes of Zynga, medium dose games like Puzzle and Dragons, that sit in the middle in terms of complexity, commitment required and addiction, represent a happy medium that could expand the gaming market. Therefore, resources need to shift from making so many high dose (hardcore) games towards more medium dose games.
I know reading this some of you will be raising objections to the topic now, so I want to make it clear that Dr. Ramin Shokrizade makes a living on this. He teaches developers how to make games that will cause our brains release dopamine, thereby making them more addictive. He makes no disctinction between casual or hardcore games being addictive in themselves, but he wants devs to recognize they induce different levels of addiction. By acknowledging that games are addictive to begin with, we can make experiences that are designed better.
Shokrizade explains in his LinkedIn that he is ethical and does not use his knowledge to hurt people. If you can believe that, you can believe that game design can be made more responsible when it comes to its addictive nature, and that his proposal is a step forward in that direction.
Source: Gamasutra
