1 hour ago, frob said:I'd put the arbitrary line at the point where it begins to interfere with 'normal life' or disrupt someone from doing the activities they wish, although that too is arbitrary.
That's pretty much the psychology definition. If it's harming you it's a disorder. If you can't identify any harm then you're just eccentric
The scary trend with modern gaming isn't violence, it's gambling.
We've had a generation grow up playing violent games now and no link has been proven.
However, mobile games have spiralled into the free-to-play-but-please-keep-paying model, where the aim is to dig hooks into a small percentage of your users and hypnotise them into paying for the game over and over again. From a purely business perspective, it's a very good thing if you can get players to become addicted... What's worse is that these companies are better at that goal than ever. The gambling industry now has decades of experience in making addictive video games, and those skills are directly transferrable to our industry (e.g. video slot machines are being made with Unity)... And that's scary as hell. Worse still, we've now got unprecedented access to data on player behaviours -- what used to require an expensive focus test run by behavioural experts can now be achieved by an off-the-shelf analytics service. Scientific experiments are routinely conducted on players, grouped randomly into trial and control groups without their knowledge, to test whether a game tweak will increase spending or addiction.
And it's not just mobile gaming either, all this monry-making knowledge and practice is being appropriated by every part of the industry, and meanwhile traditional betting agencies are moving into e-sports. You've got kids who start out betting in-game tradable items on the outcomes of e-sports matches, who then graduate to real money (often with their parent's credit card).
Large scale exposure to violence is such a 90's fear. Large scale exposure to addictive gambling is the new concern