A lot of people watch TV all day.
I’d rather play video games.
How long? I would say at least 50 hours a week.
I try to keep a healthy balance.
My bigger issue just besides the time,
was spending a lot of money,
just spending and gambling in the games.
I can’t condemn a game for wanting to be addictive
because that’s the point.
I’m Ahmed Shihab-Eldin
and I’ve been looking into the dark side of tech,
from facial recognition to fake news.
I wanted to understand how companies
design addictive games that maximize profit.
The global market for games grew from $70 billion
in 2012 to $122 billion in 2017.
By comparison, global box office revenue
for films in 2017 was $41 billion.
So we’re in Boston at one of the biggest gaming
conventions in America,
maybe in the world. And I don’t know where to look.
Gaming has gotten so big
that watching others play attracts massive crowds…
…and two-thirds of American households
now play video games,
according to the Entertainment Software Association.
Do you play a lot of games still?
Yes, not as much as I used to.
Why?
Time.
How much would you,
when you were playing a lot of games?
I would say like 30 hours a week, at most.
That’s it?
Yeah, I know, right? Gotta pump those numbers up.
Those are rookie numbers.
Why, do you play still?
Yeah, for sure.
How long?
I would say at least 50 hours a week.
Wow.
Pretty much all my free time.
Is it tough? Do you ever lose track of time?
Some games can definitely make you lose track of time
more than others.
But it's definitely harder to balance work life,
personal life and video games.
I kind of cut out the personal life part.
focused more on the video games currently.
Do you ever feel addicted
to these games or to one game in particular?
I don’t think so.
I know when to step away because I understand
some games, they’ll make me really upset
and it’s like, okay, I need to step away
and do something else.
One study estimated that nine percent of teen gamers
are addicted.
With an estimated 2.6 billion people playing
video games globally, it’s not a limited issue.
After I heard that the World Health Organization
was classifying gaming disorder as a mental health
condition, my reporting brought me
to a gaming rehab center near Seattle.
You spent 8 weeks here?
Yeah…
So I was playing
on average between 12 and 16 hours a day.
I would either be playing video games,
watching porn,
watching some show
or I would be sleeping. That was it.
Every day?
Yeah.
Jon Jones is in phase two of the program,
living in an apartment provided by Restart,
but free to roam the real world.
A flip phone to start out with.
Computer use would only be at corporate
in the computer lab.
My main excuse of rationalizing was like,
"I'm only playing so much just because I'm depressed.
If I wasn't depressed, I wouldn't be playing."
Do you think games are designed to be addictive?
Yeah and…
You didn’t even hesitate.
Hilarie Cash founded reSTART
after seeing patterns related to gaming
and screen addiction.
My first case was in 1994
and throughout the 90s, you know, people were coming
in for therapy…
Parents are handing their devices to their kids and
it's going to really impact their development and
prime them for addiction.
Even if they're not addicted,
they're going to be primed for it.
So I think it's a growing problem.
The initial seven weeks of resident care at reSTART
costs nearly $30,000,
but Charlie Bracke said it changed his life.
Did you feel anxious, shaky?
Very much so.
There’s very, very real physical withdrawal symptoms
to video gaming.
How serious of a problem is this?
I was so depressed that I started researching how to kill
myself on my phone
because I couldn't get up
and go to the computer to do so.
There are concerns about the affect of games on kids
since nearly half of gamers are under 18,
and mostly male.
And teens who spend five hours a day gaming
are 71 percent more likely to be at risk for suicide
than those who spend less than one hour per day.
it just spiraled out of control
until I was gaming 16 hours a day.
There are few screen rehabs,
and experts are divided on the best routes to health.
At reSTART, a complete digital detox is required.
I don't play games at all.
If it's digital and gaming, I don't touch it,
so I don't even allow myself Sudoku
on my phone.
Gaming used to be all about personal computers
and consoles. You’d buy a game outright and play it.
Then smartphones came along.
The gaming industry went to what's called “free to play,”
which basically you get the game
and you can play the game.
That’s Bill Grosso, a gaming industry insider,
who founded Scientific Revenue to help companies
maximize payments within their games.
If you think about what a really bad game is,
it's the game that is completely non-addictive.
Designing a good game is inherently trying to design
something that people will want to come back to,
will feel compelled to come back to.
It’s also helpful for making more money.
As games transitioned to free to play,
the selling of virtual goods became crucial.
By 2016, ‘Grand Theft Auto Five’
had sold more than 60 million copies,
but the free version, ‘GTA Online’
made more than $500 million
on in-game micro-transactions.
My bigger issue just besides the time,
was spending a lot of money
– just spending and gambling in the games.
I will joke about it in the games.
Oh really?
Like, "Oh yeah, I just spent $600.
Yeah, they're getting their money,
they're ripping us off."
We would joke about how they designed the games
to get you to play longer,
get you to spend more money.
Now, I get to pay too much money to open loot boxes.
Loot boxes amount to a randomized purchase that may
or may not contain what you’re looking for.
It's very definitely the same thing as a roulette wheel.
It's very definitely aimed at the compulsion
and addiction side of the game,
of the human personality.
I think loot boxes are straight-up gambling.
It's something that keeps people coming back,
keeps people grinding in the game,
playing it longer and longer,
and because you can't just buy what it is you want,
you have to keep forking money over.
Last year, one game company caught so much flack
for the practice that they advertised a game this year
with a simple message:
No loot boxes.
Belgium declared loot boxes illegal gambling in April
and American politicians like Senator Maggie Hassan
have also questioned the practice.
Do you agree that children being addicted to gaming
and activities like loot boxes
that might make them more
susceptible to addiction
is a problem that merits our attention?
So it would be 300, 400 and then it's like,
"Okay, well, I'll keep going until I get it."
And if I don't get it after a couple hundred dollars
then I would get really depressed
and sometimes I would just keep going.
I already spent 400, well, I'm just going to spend
until I get it.
Loot boxes are also one of the best ways
to pull ‘bleed whales’ dry.
What is a ‘whale’?
Whale is industry terminology for someone who spends
too much, fundamentally.
It's one of those really unfortunate things
in that it's really a piece of terminology
that comes from Las Vegas.
Whale was casino terminology for
a really, really big spender.
Bill Grosso caught flack last year
because, as his website brags, his company works to:
“Turn free users into paid ones and keep more whales.”
But during our interview, Grosso walked that claim back.
If you look at some of the coverage
of Scientific Revenue, where people have said,
"Well, they spot whales and then milk them
at the psychologically maximum moments."
There’s no truth to that.
None whatsoever. We’re not that good.
The claim remains on their website.
And game companies remain focused on whales.
They'll spend 10, 20, 30 grand,
they're the people who keep the game alive
because they spend so much money.
You wouldn't call yourself a whale?
No. I was more of a ‘low.’
I did spend a lot with eight grand in a year.
That’s a lot of money.
Of course, it’s not just games.
The rewards systems built
into games are also built into our phones.
And no method is off the table
in the battle for our attention.
My name is Nir Eyal. And I'm the author of a book called
“Hooked, How to Build Habit-Forming Products.”
Nir told me how to use gamification and psychology
to make apps that will keep people coming back.
Every hook starts with a trigger.
A trigger is something in our environment
that tells us what to do next.
A ping, a ding, a ring.
Some kind of notification that tells us what to do.
Then the next step is the variable reward.
It's some kind of uncertain outcome
that we're looking for.
Scrolling the feed has this variable reward mechanism
just like pulling on a slot machine.
And then, finally, the investment phase
where we put something into the product, like data,
followers, content, reputation, that makes the product
better and better with use.
Eventually, we're using the product
because of an internal trigger.
When we're lonely, we check Facebook.
When we're uncertain, we check Google.
When we're bored, we might check the news.
We might check stock prices or sports scores
to satiate that need.
Three out of four American children
have access to a smartphone
and nearly half of American parents believe their kids
are addicted to mobile devices.
For now, both gaming companies and rehabs will profit,
while gaming addicts are left with few resources
for recovery.
There’s lots of evidence to support that contact
with nature is actually very healing and reduces anxiety,
and helps people concentrate,
so we have them out in nature quite a lot.
What was your favorite part of being here?
I tried to diversify,
just not get caught up in one thing and focus on that.
Most of the time was either spent with music.
I started playing piano here.
On Saturdays we’ll go out and hike
and do different games
I think a big part of it has been actually working on
the past stuff and I actually being open and vulnerable
and talking about emotions
and just recognizing my emotions.
Being able to deal with them more,
but also just the, I guess, just that sense of
being a little sad about how much
time has been wasted…
Hey, it's Ahmed.
Thanks for watching, and don't forget to watch
the other videos in this series,
including stories about facial recognition
and fake news.
And don't forget to subscribe to AJ+.