They certainly didn't get so addictive by chance, but not quite by design either. It's a kind of evolution, where some machines suceeed and some fail, with successful techniques carrying through to newer machines, eventually leading to hyper-optimised money making devices. Whilst not disputed that this leads to ethically dubious profits, I can see how it allows the manfuacturers a certain plausible deniability as to their intentions.

I agree with you about the house always winning, and I also don't gamble, however you can consider the activity as a game like an arcade game where the actual playing and spending time costs money, and has value in its own right. I guess the economics is slightly more nuanced, just how you can find addictive computer games which also cost like world of Warcraft I guess

Good point, but the way I see it there are two parts to a gambling game: (a) the physical rewards (blinkenlights, twinkly noises etc) and (b) the monetary rewards.

If the physical rewards were enough of a draw in and of themselves, I think we could reasonably expect there to be a market for games that don't involve money. For instance, I could imagine smaller, cheaper slot machines sold directly to players, to take them home and feed them coins all day, just to see the pretty lights (I mean they could get their coins back at the end of the day).

The fact that there doesn't seem to be any serious interest in that sort of game machine tells me that the monetary rewards are the primary purpose of play.

You've basically described a lot of mobile games though. Candy Crush for example. At first you just play for free but then cleverly they put in a level that most people can't get through so you buy the in-app purchase to let you bypass that level to get to easier addictive levels. I ended up deleting the game when I realized what was going on, but I ended up paying $20-$30 dollars before that -- it really is a similar psychological draw as to gambling -- except you can't make money in Candy Crush -- only spend it.

>> You've basically described a lot of mobile games though. Candy Crush for >> example.

I guess I have and I totally believe games like Candy Crush are exploitative, perhaps even at the same level as gambling.

I remember reading an interview with Tarn Adams (I can't find it anymore) where he pointed out that games that make people perform repetitive actions for some in-game reward are exploitative. At least that was the gist of it. I think he had Cookie Clicker in mind- although maybe I misremember that, because Cookie Clicker is more like the opposite, a game that doesn't hog up your time (it plays itself).

In any case, I think what he said is true. A game that makes you want to press the same key 100 times is just stealing your time. There's always rewards, of course, but if you think of what you could be doing with your life in the time it took to press that key 100 times, it starts to sound a bit pathetic.

The worse thing about this for me was realising that many of my favourite games are exactly that kind. I play lots of shmups, for example. In fact I used to play shmups since I was a kid, when you could find them in arcades and you had to pay to play. I played some of them long enough that I got to the point where I could finish them with one or two coins, so I could say I had some sort of control on the game, but the truth is that each one of those games I liked as a kid was specifically made to draw me in and hook me up, by plugging into my reward centres. And there's no escaping, either, that no matter how good I got I couldn't play if I didn't pay at least one coin.

So, yay, I do 100% think that there are other games besides slots that we're used to think of as bening, but that are also designed to hook you in to some useless rewards and to make you waste your time and your money.

And I haven't even touched on my one true addiction: Magic the Gathering. You don't want to get me started :)

> For instance, I could imagine smaller, cheaper slot machines sold directly to players, to take them home and feed them coins all day, just to see the pretty lights (I mean they could get their coins back at the end of the day).

Already exists, in a way, and are quite popular. Check out the slots games on the Apple and Android app stores; the ones that are created by subsidiaries of slot machine manufacturers (and therefore can make their slots in the likeness of real machines) rake in an astonishing amount of money, despite the fact that the player is just playing for virtual tokens rather than real cash payouts. A couple are in the top 10 by revenue in both app stores.

Utility of money is nonlinear, so it could be rational to throw out a small amount of money for the expectation of large payoff. Of course, it means you should never play again, when you have thrown out sufficiently large quantity of money.