From Pac-Mania to Fortnite fever: are video games becoming more addictive?

When children spend their parents' cash on Fifa players, it's easy to believe games are ruthlessly engineered to extract money. But that's not the whole story

In 2001, a young graduate named John Hopson wrote a detailed article for the industry website Gamasutra on the topic of behavioural game design. Hopson, an amateur game-designer, decided to pair his hobby and his research, detailing in coolly clinical terms concepts that the industry had previously handled primarily through intuition and artistry.

"Under what circumstances do players stop playing, and how can you avoid them?" Hopson asked. "Motivation is relative: the desire to play your game is always being measured against other activities."

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