Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> rather than just kill time Yeah, that's something I find really odd about most mobile games. They seem designed as a way to basically put the brain into a low energy state or something, rather than actually being interesting. My personal experience of games like Candy Crush is that people play them on the subway or whatever when there's nothing else to do. If they had a book with them they'd read that, if someone…
It was a tired cliche for describing games even before smartphones existed, but the model for typical mobile game design truly is the Skinner Box. You press a button to get some shiny reward designed to make your brain feel like it accomplished something. It's a remarkably elaborate ruse to disguise the fact that there really is no "game" underneath all the chrome.
Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone
#111More pointedly, it's a way to monetize the dopamine reward. Most modern mobile games, after all, try to induce "fun pain" to get you to buy more turns/levels/clicks etc. There doesn't have to be a "game" -- just the "fun pain", and then a way to settle back into the dopamine bath via paying RL currency. I know I'm preaching to the choir a bit here, but it's important to note that not only is there no "game", but that they know that there's no "game" and that low-energy-with-periodic-bursts-of-reward state is the _point_.