Over the last few decades, the art of optimising engagement – which is to say, keeping users absorbed in a given task or service – has been given a name: gamification.
By taking advantage of a range of psychological mechanisms in the brain, it’s possible to make even a comparatively dull experience, like running on a treadmill, or learning to do really hard sums, more compelling. If the experience is already reasonably game-like, then gamification might allow for it to be made ‘unputdownable’.
Manipulation vs Motivation: Where Is the Line?
In certain settings, this can present an ethical quandary. It’s long been considered the job of a slot machine designer to keep players in their chairs, ideally oblivious to the world around them, for as long as possible. The designer can do this through visual and auditory cues, creating a sense of progress, and by dispensing rewards in a finely-tuned way.
But it’s easy to do this in a way that jeopardises player safety, by not just persuading players to take an action they might conceivably want to take, but coercing players to act against their better judgement. At its worst, a highly gamified environment can create addiction, more or less from thin air.
Psychological Risks in Gamified Gambling
The ultimate refinement of these principles can be found in modern online casinos. The thing that really distinguishes these places is the fact that compulsion can lead to a player handing over significant amounts of real cash. As such, game designers have a particular responsibility to foresee the danger, and to empower players to protect themselves from it.
Responsible Design Principles for Ethical Play
There are a few principles worth abiding by. The first is that user autonomy should be paramount. Players should be able to make decisions about how much time and money they want to spend before they enter the gaming environment. They should also be able to opt out of gambling entirely, through self-exclusion schemes like GAMSTOP.
Regulating Manipulative Design Practices
Certain practices are deemed so far beyond the pale that they warrant the attention of regulators. In some areas, the worst offenders are those that we might not think of as a casino.
You might think of loot boxes in a free-to-play RPG. Urgency tactics, misleading advertising, and coercive messages to players who are out of the game, might all be considered problematic.
Online casinos are forbidden by the UK Gambling Commission from allowing a slot machine to spin in less than 2.5 seconds. The problem is that many other varieties of game are allowed to benefit from ambiguity – they’re not thought of as casinos, and thus they are granted an ethical licence that, perhaps, is not warranted.