I learned English playing Starcraft Shareware with a bunch of Canadians. I learned about money, economics, marketing, psychology and social skills via Runescape. I used games as an escape from my hell on earth childhood. And yet, I see this and think... maybe they're onto something. Today's games are engineered to rake in and manufacture addicts. People who don't know what dark design patterns are. Forgive my French here, but fuck the "Freedom" bullshit, this is about the one and only thing it's always been about, $$$. I say good for them.
Yes, there is just a massive wave of scam artists and other bad actors that cry freedom to keep their exploitative practices from being criminalized or regulated. We all see it in certain online games, certain social media practices, some NFTs/crypto ICOs, current wave of SPAC/meme stocks, and it goes on. A large portion of them are robbing less sophisticated people. It's a major question of how much protection from their own bad decisions people get (and how equitable that protection is between the rich and the poor).
I also think games and gaming communities have gotten much worse in 25 years. I wouldn't want a child I knew to get involved in most gaming communities at all, now.
And yet, this fights the symptom, not the cause. Regulation should target companies that manufacture said addictive products, not dictate how citizens should behave under the guise of protection
I just don't buy the premise. Got it China bad. We're not acting better at home here in the US of A. You may disagree, but at the end of the day, you're walking with the same style of state surveillance in your pocket as any other. We cannot both be the cause of the problem and the solution. "not dictate how citizens should behave under the guise of protection". Do we live on the same planet???!
I think the author was suggesting that firms such as Electronic Arts and Activision be regulated in how they produce addictive patterns in titles like FIFA and Overwatch.
