Imagine a medieval juggler in a market square in Ghent. He tosses flaming torches, and the crowd holds its breath – not because they expect a catastrophe, but because they do not know what will happen next. This tension, this gap between anticipation and resolution, is perhaps the most ancient of all human pleasures. It lies at the heart of what we today call “gaming addiction.”
For a long time, I have observed the people around me – young and not so young, students and engineers, my neighbors on the Chaussée d'Ixelles – spending hours in front of screens. At first, it seemed to me a simple escape from reality. But the longer I watched, the more clearly I understood: something far more complex and, in its own way, captivating is happening here. Not an escape, but an immersion. Not a rejection of the world, but the construction of a new one.
The Reward Loop: An Old Story in a New Interface
Let's start with the most obvious, which, however, does not make it any less profound. At the core of game mechanics lies what psychologists call the reward loop: action – feedback – reward – new action. Slay a monster – get a coin. Solve a puzzle – a new location opens up. Complete a mission – unlock a skin.
This principle was not invented in Silicon Valley. It was described in the mid-20th century by the American psychologist B.F. Skinner in his experiments with pigeons and rats. But long before him, this mechanism was known to merchants, religious preachers, and hunters. Variable reinforcement – when a reward comes not always, but unpredictably – works like a trap from which it is extremely difficult to escape. This is precisely why a one-armed bandit in a casino and a loot chest in a role-playing game operate on the same principle: maybe this time I'll get lucky.
But it would be unfair to reduce everything to neurochemistry. Dopamine is merely a mediator. The real question is: what exactly do games promise us? What lies behind the glimmer of pixels?
The philosopher and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced the concept of flow – a state of complete absorption in an activity, where the task is just one step more difficult than our current ability. Not too easy (boredom), not too hard (anxiety) – but precisely in that delicate gap where effort turns into mastery.
Good games are built around this very principle. Developers – many of whom are excellent applied psychologists – design the difficulty curve so that the player almost always feels they are in a zone of growth. First, you are helpless. Then, a little less helpless. Then, competent. Then, a master. And each of these steps is accompanied by the feeling that you did it yourself.
Herein lies the crux. In everyday life – in the office, in bureaucratic queues, in relationships – we rarely receive such a clear and immediate answer to the question, “Am I doing a good job?” The game, however, always answers. Clearly. Immediately. And without judgment.
This is not an escape from life. It is compensation for what life so often fails to provide: a sense of one's own effectiveness.
But competence is not everything. There are games that captivate not so much with their mechanics as with their story. And here we enter territory that is particularly close to my heart.
Man is a narrative being. We understand the world through stories. Aristotle, in his “Poetics,” described the mechanism of tragedy: the spectator identifies with the hero, experiences his downfall, and feels catharsis – a cleansing through empathy. Greek theater was not just entertainment – it was a way to live through another's experience without risking one's own life.
A video game does exactly the same thing, but with one revolutionary difference: you are not just an observer; you are a participant. When you make a moral decision in “The Witcher” or “Red Dead Redemption” that changes the course of the story, this is no longer just reading a novel. It is living an alternative life. With real (within the game's world) consequences.
Narrative creates an emotional debt. You have invested a part of yourself in the character. You want to know how it all ends. To quit a game halfway through is like slamming shut a book by Umberto Eco at the most interesting part and vowing never to open it again. Theoretically possible. In practice – almost impossible.
Social Architecture: The Game as a City
There is another layer, often underestimated in conversations about “addiction”: the social dimension of the game.
Multiplayer games – especially massive online worlds like World of Warcraft or modern battle royales – are not just games. They are communities with their own culture, hierarchy, language, and rituals. A person who spends evenings in a guild is not a loner who has fled from people. They are a participant in a social group where they are valued, where they have a role, where their presence is important.
Let us recall one of the basic human aspirations – belonging. The need to be part of something greater than oneself. In medieval cities, this role was played by guilds and brotherhoods. In the 19th century, by clubs and associations. In the 20th, by sports teams and religious communities. Online games have become the new embodiment of this ancient need – only in a space where physical proximity is not required.
And when someone says they will “quit this game,” they risk losing not just a form of entertainment. They risk losing a social environment. Friends. A role. A place where they are known.
The Design of Desire: How Developers Build Traps
Here it is necessary to say something less poetic, but no less important. Not all engagement mechanics arise by chance or out of pure love for the art. Some of them are designed intentionally – with the goal of retaining the player for as long as possible.
Let's consider a few tools that have become industry standards:
- Daily quests and “streaks.” Log in every day – or you will lose your progress. This is not a gameplay necessity; it is psychological pressure that appeals to our fear of loss.
- Time-limited battle passes. Pay now – and get content that will disappear in six weeks. Artificial scarcity creating a sense of urgency.
- Social comparison. Rankings, leaderboards, a showcase of others' achievements. “Your server neighbor is already level 50. You are at 32.”
- Unfinished loops. A classic technique: a quest that can be completed with “just a little more.” One more resource. One last battle. The Zeigarnik effect – a psychological phenomenon in which incomplete tasks obsessively linger in memory – is exploited to its full potential here.
This does not mean that all games are manipulative products. But it does mean that no mechanics are neutral. Every element of the interface, every notification sound, every reward animation – is a designer's decision, made with an understanding of how the human brain works.
Age, Body, and Time: What We Talk About When We Talk About “Addiction”
The word “addiction” is a dangerous one. It carries a medical and moral weight that is not always appropriate. When we say someone is “addicted” to games, we often mean different things.
A twelve-year-old child who cannot tear himself away from the screen is one story. An adult who spends three hours an evening in a game after a workday is another. A professional esports player, for whom a “game” is a job and a way to earn a living in Brussels or Seoul, is a third.
In 2019, the World Health Organization included “gaming disorder” in the International Classification of Diseases – a decision that sparked a debate in the scientific community that continues to this day. The key criterion for pathology is a significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning: when gaming begins to displace sleep, food, work, relationships. But most of the people we tend to call “gamaholics” simply love to play a lot. Which, in itself, is not an illness.
It seems to me that the panic surrounding gaming addiction partly repeats the same structure of anxiety that once surrounded novels (“they corrupt the youth”), cinema (“it dulls the mind”), and television (“it kills the imagination”). Each time, a new medium seemed a threat – and each time, society eventually found a balance with it.
Allow me to return to where I began: to the juggler with the flaming torches.
What attracted the crowd? Not the fire itself. But the risk. The feeling that something could go wrong – and at the same time, the hope that the juggler would succeed. This dual tension – anxiety and trust – lies at the heart of almost every engaging experience.
In a game, we take pretend risks. We die – and are resurrected. We suffer defeat – and start over. We explore the darkness – knowing that at any moment we can turn off the screen and return to dinner.
It is a safe space for dangerous experiences. And this is a deeply human need. Children's play serves the same purpose: a child playing “war” or “hospital” is practicing scenarios for which they are not yet ready in reality. An adult storming a virtual castle is doing the same thing – just with better graphics.
Games are captivating because they give us what we are catastrophically lacking in our structured, regulated, hyper-rational modern lives: a sense of meaning in action, immediate feedback on our efforts, a space for risk without real-world loss, belonging to a community, and a story in which you are not an extra, but the hero.
Perhaps the question is not “Why do games cause addiction?” but rather: what exactly in our own lives is so lacking that we seek it within pixels?
If a game gives a person a sense of competence, perhaps their real job deprives them of it? If a game provides a sense of belonging, perhaps their environment is too cold? If a game provides meaning, perhaps it is worth asking where that meaning was lost in the everyday?
I am not proposing to romanticize addiction. I am proposing that we look deeper – not at the screen, but through it. A video game is not just a product of the entertainment industry. It is a symptom and a mirror at the same time. And what we see in that mirror says a great deal about ourselves.
Everything new is old, but with a filter. The juggler in Ghent and the gamer in Brussels are searching for the same thing: a moment when the world becomes understandable, and they themselves become skilled enough to survive in it.
