Limiting both is a good policy, but understanding the different games is also an important aspect here. When my kids were in elementary school I encouraged them to play Minecraft and I played with them. I didn't prevent them from playing Clash of Clans because so many of their friends were playing, but I made sure they understood how incentives were structured and how the game was designed around that.

That was ten years ago, and I still don't know if I struck the right balance. Parenting is hard. If you have young kids today it's a good idea to understand what games are popular and what their business models are.

>Games are designed to be addictive

It depends strongly on kind of game, and especially on the business model involved. Gacha games, free-to-play, and similar models are very much optimised around addictiveness. Personally I've found that story-based finite games, i.e. the ones you play through and then you've experienced it, are much better in those respects. Unfortunately those seem to become much more rare these days.

> i.e. the ones you play through and then you've experienced it, are much better in those respects.

This has not been my experience at all. It's very easy for me to play a few rounds of rocket league and keep my daily game time to under an hour. When I play stuff like Zelda BOTW though, I have to use the parental controls on myself or else I'll spend half of my day on it.

Short-term addictive, long-term harmless. Like traditional media.

In my observation, the platform matters. The iPad has a noticeable negative impact on my kids mood in ~15 minutes, and I’ve observed similar behavior with other tablets and other kids.

The PlayStation doesn’t seem to do that, although my son gets in trouble more often when it’s time to end because there is a higher level of effort to get out. But it doesn’t seem to zombify him.

I think BOTW, while it has a beginning and ending, is much more open than some other games where you're on a structured path.

However I think it speaks that everyone has a different approach and solution to how they play games. It then becomes interesting to see what they play and how they limit their self.

Are old games designed to be addictive? The original NES and Sega games? Like Mario Bros, etc? I think more recent games added the addictive components

Old games were designed similarly to arcade games, where the "true" goal was to get you to keep inserting coins. Then there was kind of a slow transition away from that, but they still relied heavily on the player spending a lot of time replaying prior levels to get to the harder (final) ones due to the limited amount of content.

IMO it was addictive, but only to certain personality types. Mine is definitely one of them. Others would see a difficulty spike and/or the amount of re-treading they need to do to make progress as a deterrent.

Recent games are more addictive in a way that appeals more widely.

Id disagree that console games were the same as arcade. Arcade often had gimmicks that _required_ more quarters, whereas console encouraged mastery (e.g. learning boss patterns, level layouts, etc). Very few console games would need a game genie to beat, but many arcade games are near impossible with a single quarter.

In reality for certain personalities (myself included) that focus on mastery is actually the addictive bit, and I think its a productive addiction all things considered. Im not addicted to the mind-numbing aspect of playing, I'm addicted to the huge amount of knowledge I need to gain in order to succeed. Its the same reason I was drawn to DOTA and Magic later in life.

A single quarter? Perhaps, though every arcade had a few wizards that, through mastery of the game and its mechanics, could play for much longer on much less money. I couldn't tell you how many were literally impossible on a single play, though I don't see the distinction as particularly important. In both cases, the idea is clearly to have the player continuously retrying, getting more and more skilled, and going further and further. They both absolutely encouraged mastery.

They may not be as refined, or they may not have been mistaken at what qualities were addictive, but they were designed to be addictive.

Of course, the incentives were also a little different. Old arcade, for example, games wanted you to drop in more quarters. So they had to find ways to make you lose. But not just lose, lose when you're just close enough to the next level.

I don't think they were intentionally, but some people can get addicted.

One more level

Just after this boss

I think single player games now are just as addictive as they were then. Especially when you look at indie games (Shovel Knight, Death's Door etc).

The moment interaction with other players happens is when I feel a higher bump in addiction can happen. Loot boxes, seeing a cool skin etc.

whats the difference between fun and addictive?

Some games are addictive and some television is garbage. You have to be picky with both. Older Disney films had some great music, animation, and morals. Good video games make you think or build reflexes.

If I had a kid they'd have a laptop running Linux with all the open source games (and some of the older Nintendo ones on emulators) and probably a collection of older films on DVD.

Yeah. We only let them play offline games that aren't gotcha. The current playlist is Journey, Zelda, Mario, Tunic, Death's Door.