For this critical play, I played Yahtzee which I was previously unfamiliar with. As a dice game, the outcome of each set of rolls is random but I am personally allowed to implement strategy in how I pick my second and third rolls, as well as when/where I lock in my points on the scoreboard. Rather curiously, my first game went extremely well, whereas my second and third games went really badly, which made me suspicious if the digital system was set up to give me a really good first play that I would then have to keep playing endlessly to try and beat.
crazy good first play… suspicious Yahtzee score
I think the particular combination of randomness and player strategy here allows for a layer of obfuscation that is relatively addictive to players. The dice rolling aspect of the original game is explicit randomness, but my suspicions of the computer giving me a particularly good first play is more in the implicit category. The setup of this game might put people at risk for addiction particularly because there is the belief that your personal autonomy in picking when to roll dice/which dice to roll, as well as choosing where to lock in your points, is enough to overcome the chance/randomness of the dice roll outcomes. The idea is that you have the same level of random chance with the dice rolls as your opponent, meaning that whether or not you win is dependent on the strength of your picking strategy.
My terrible second performance that compelled me to try a third round…
We know that this fallacy isn’t actually true, but when you play Yahtzee and reach a personal best score, you become absorbed in trying to improve your personal strategy to beat that score even if the dice don’t roll in ways that are conducive to that kind of victory.
After any given roll, I could strategize on how to maximize my points vs. my opponents points by picking one of the red highlighted numbers to lock in my score
In terms of how it compares to other games that use chance or probability, Yahtzee is a relatively straightforward game with rounds that pass quickly, depending how long you take in deliberating rolls, so it is not as large of a time sink of addiction/is easier to find a good break point. The max. strenght of your personal strategy development isn’t anywhere near what is required for a game like poker, so I would say that Yahtzee as a whole is on the lower end of addictive games.
I feel like it’s hard to say that using chance is morally permissible or impermissible in games – I appreciated Evans-Thirwell tying the game sector back to the overarching system that affects all players which is capitalism and the need for games to generate capital. I believe that using chance as a means of creating hooks of addiction for your playing audience is not the best move morally, however I feel that the issue isn’t about the game but rather that instances of addiction have the potential to greatly affect many other parts of ordinary people’s lives – especially their immediate employment and thus their living conditions. If we live in a society with a total lack of social programs to help people manage their addictions, huge cuts on welfare, perpetual unemployment and minimal unemployment benefits, and a generally horrific capitalist environment that people are reasonably trying to escape from, then it isn’t great to have a new game that feeds into people’s addictions. That being said, this is hardly a problem that should be localized to game developers, there is much more to be said about building a society in which people have active and consistent support in managing addiction while still enjoying their hobbies.
