To be addictive a game essentially just has to be fun. Anything which is enjoyable can be addictive. People in this thread have already described one extremely effective way of making a game enjoyable:
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Original post by PmanC you have the player experince a victory and a loss every few seconds
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Original post by jwthomp you would create brief moments of tension followed by brief moments of victory.
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Original post by krez according to my sister, intermittent rewards are the most effective way to learn a habit or response. meaning, to get a truly truly addictive game, you should make it so the player is rewarded sometimes, but not always.
If you reward the player all the time, it ceases to feel like a reward. If you make them wait and work for their reward it can feel incredibly satisfying. Take eating a meal: you are going to enjoy it a lot more if you haven't eaten anything for 48 hours than you will if you haven't eaten for merely 5 hours. Another example, one that I'm sure everyone has experienced, is that urination feels heavenly if you've been forced to go through the agony of holding it in for a several hours.
Basically the idea is to create tension for the player, make them feel uncomfortable, and then provide enjoyment by relieving them of that tension.
[edited by - Voice Of Tango on October 29, 2003 10:50:04 AM]
MMO's always keep you on your toes, because you can never stop to give someone else the advantage of being better than you. So you have to keep going, and going.... Altogh i have lost all intrest in that boring grind to the top. If i make an MMOPG i'll get rid of some of that.
[edited by - suicide_joe on November 3, 2003 6:43:50 AM]
I''d just like to add the element of surprise to the list. Even if it''s rare, the knowledge that the game is able to do something unexpected(yet logical and "fair" every now and then will keep the player playing it a bit longer than otherwise, I think. "the enemy is smarter than I thought" -experience is a key element in war/strategy games IMO.
I think it is important to consider (maybe obviously) single player and multiplayer addiction differently.
I find multiplayer games far more addictive. Beating a human opponent is far far more rewarding (beating each other is part of our instinctive drive). The human is a vastly more complex opponent that the computer... blah
living is dying, as every second goes by, you get closer to your death
An addicting game is easily defined as striking a balance between work vs reward. The hard part is getting the balance correct. Let me explain - as a designer not a writer you have to come up with a majic time frame that a quest should be able to be completed by the average player and have a reward that the average player would find worth the time invested (ROI?).
Using an RPG as an example, an average player would spend 5 minutes of game time to aquire a short sword to replace his dagger or to get a better dagger that may cause 1 or 2 points more damage but spending 15 minutes to get a slightly better dagger would be intollerable. Players want growth of some kind - either ability growth in game (ala RPG) or recognition of growth by giving the player tougher enemies to fight (ala Mortal Kombat or Tetris).
I guess a simplistic example of addiction could be given by how long would you fish in a storm grate to retreive $1? $5? $20? $100? Would you spend less time if the grate were new? Sloppy? Wet? Located in a bad neighborhood? Or whether it was Raining? Same concept for keeping games addicting/fun - realize the genre you are targetting (rpg, fps, hybrid, fighting, flight sim, etc), what the reward for doing well is, and what design features can you work in to make failure less tedious/frustrating to recover from.
The universal concept to use - K.I.S.S. and to a donkey, a carrot on a long stick looks smaller than a carrot on a short stick.
For a game to be addicting depends on the goals of the player.
If you can provide a player who wants a game, say, that gives them 15 minutes of non-stop action, with exactly that, and not overwhelm them by including too much "bulk" with a huge learning curve to overcome and forcing an enormous range of low-level choices on them(things that affect the play of the whole game, like basic rules of physics or health settings - these will distract the player into working for what he wants, when usually he doesn''t need any changes at all), then you have probably sold the player.
If the player is not interested in that, though, nothing you do can stop him from turning away, at least for a while. But when the urge strikes again, if he comes back to your game, you have succeeded both for addictiveness and replayability.
Occasionally, depending on the player and the game involved, a game can mirror a player''s dreams so perfectly as to bring addictiveness to the next level, send shivers through their spine, and make the game part of the player for the rest of his life, or at least a very long time.
Those games are rare in coming, though. But if you''ve played a good range of games for some years, you probably know the feeling. In my case at least, it''s usually required a story, with characters to identify with, in addition to the gameplay. This, I guess, drives the central thought I often have when I watch a movie or read a book, "What would I do?" right into a setting where it can be answered.
"I know I can do better next time" "I want to try this in that room, see if it works" "Oh, THAT''S how you do that room, why didn''t I think of that while I was playing?" "Oh, I levelled? I forgot I was gaining experience." "This feels like a dance" "Whew, rest time. Ok, back to it!" "Why don''t they make movies like this?"
If you have these kinds of thoughts, then you are at least enjoying the game, if not addicted.
"Maybe if I do one more room I''ll get the thrill I''m looking for. Or maybe the next game they put out will have it." "Everyone else has one, I want one too!" "I better not lose this stuff, I worked a long time for it!" "I have to teach that guy a lesson." "Noone can touch me."
These kinds of thoughts go along with a different kind of addiction, the kind best avoided for most.
Derive what makes a game addicting from what makes you feel and think these things.
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Original post by Voice Of Tango Another example, one that I''m sure everyone has experienced, is that urination feels heavenly if you''ve been forced to go through the agony of holding it in for a several hours.
Basically the idea is to create tension for the player, make them feel uncomfortable, and then provide enjoyment by relieving them of that tension.
I suppose it isn''t appropriate for me to bring up that recent urinal-based japanese video game (saw it in EGM a few months past).. though i''m sure this wasn''t meant to be taken literally..
Disclaimer: "I am in no way qualified to present advice on any topic concerning anything and can not be held responsible for any damages that my advice may incurr (due to neither my negligence nor yours)"
every now and then will keep the player playing it a bit longer than otherwise, I think. "the enemy is smarter than I thought" -experience is a key element in war/strategy games IMO.
