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[Puck]

Personally, I've hated "addictiveness" right from the very beginning. There used to be a time, about 5 years ago when people would brag about how addictive their games were. Sid Meier does it all the time.

I think there's a little difference involved you are overlooking. When I started videogaming in the early eighties, the good and addictive games were designed to be good games. You got addicted because they were fun. I think this still is true today.

And then you got "social" games (what a bullshit term for something that is really bad for your social life, in every way...). In those "creating addiction" is the actual design goal. By different means.

(BTW, I'm not so sure Cybernations counts as "social game", but I havent played it...)

[Yolan]

I pretty much stopped playing games entirely six months ago, although H&H kept something of a pull on me. Came back to it a few months ago for another round of city making. Got bored/annoyed, then quit. But yeah, the idea of having a kind of 'life' online really doesn't appeal to me at all. Thinking back, the times when I used to be interested pretty much coincided with when I didn't feel like I had any kind of direction/control/joy in my daily activities. The more you are enjoying your actual life (or can see a connection between effort now and future enjoyment) the less reasons you have to try and live in some fake reality for giggles.

[Muz]

Personally, I've hated "addictiveness" right from the very beginning. There used to be a time, about 5 years ago when people would brag about how addictive their games were. Sid Meier does it all the time.

I think there's a little difference involved you are overlooking. When I started videogaming in the early eighties, the good and addictive games were designed to be good games. You got addicted because they were fun. I think this still is true today.

(BTW, I'm not so sure Cybernations counts as "social game", but I havent played it...)

Well, yeah, back in the 90s, addictiveness is a strong indicator that the game was good. But as a game designer, I just hate it when people teach you how to make your games more addictive without adding any gameplay. They give you a hanging story, like TV soap operas do. They give you unsatisfying pieces of the game, to make you crave satisfaction.

Now that I think of it, Cyber Nations doesn't really count, but it's kinda on Facebook. Actually, I don't even really know what a social game is. I thought it's something you log in often, play with/invite friends, and get to show off your pixels on social networking sites.

[Josephus]

Personally, I've hated "addictiveness" right from the very beginning. There used to be a time, about 5 years ago when people would brag about how addictive their games were. Sid Meier does it all the time.

And then you got "social" games (what a bullshit term for something that is really bad for your social life, in every way...). In those "creating addiction" is the actual design goal. By different means.

I dunno, man. One of my best bros and his girlfriend both play tons of Farm Ville, for example, but they still have plenty of time to hit the town with me and the rest of the barkada (sorry, there is no way to translate "barkada" directly into English). And it hasn't exactly impacted their work either. So I'd say, social games and social gaming aren't "harmful" by any means, but they are hopelessly inane.