DSG diagrams

[Deleted]

Sometime ago Jinx created DSG (Diagnostic and Statistical checklist for Games) - a tool for evaluating the addictive potential of a given video game versus the real gameplay value. I recall that he offered anyone who used this program to send him the charts that were generated.

I think this an extremely interesting idea, there are many games that I'd like to test using DSG. I still have a diagram I generated from Rozen Maiden ALiBAT (of all games!!!).



I think it's better to convert them from BMP to GIF first, since the preview doesn't work for the first format...

Feel free to post the charts for your favourite (or hated) games that you checked with DSG!

The program can be found here: www.revengeofthesunfish.com/dsg.html

[Jinxtengu]

My test is fairly primitive but this idea is going to be massive some years from now, when games start using augmented reality combined with ai plus large data sets collected from users it will be (and actually already is) possible to manipulate game players to very large extent, using sophisticated psychological techniques. When does a game stop being a game and simply become a product of behavioral engineering?
I would say most phone apps are already more close to glorified gambling machines than real games.
On some levels all games have a strong psychological aspect,, the difference is that the understanding of human psychology combined with computation power available now, as opposed to ten years ago radically alters the balance of power between the user and the creator of the computer mediated system. One one end of the spectrum, it is possible to build machines such as the "persuadatron" from the syndicate wars series.

I don't think anyone is really seriously talking about this right now, but the implications are extremely messed up, the main thing I think is that most people don't understand the potential for misuse so they are slow to realizing the problem.
there are some articles on behaviorist game design, and game design using schedules of re-enforcement (which is a paradigm the phone app industry heavily relies on) but even those are only barely scratching the surface of this problem.
many games aim for a state of "flow", however when a person is in flow, that is actually an extremely suggestive state and a person who is in "flow" is very vulnerable. There should be more regulation of game design, but that wont happen until we have the most blatant examples of "mind control" devices masquerading as games, I suspect.