I find 'engagement' to be facinating, as that is what drives much of tech today. It is the prime mover for the biggest tech giants. Undoubtedly, hundreds of billions are spent on this every year, and many of our most gifted people devote their lives to it.
Since engagement success is a function of things like
- Number of users
- Time per day spent
- Number if repeat users
- Average revenue per user
And not things like user
- happiness
- health
- productivity
- education benefits
We end up with amoral, profit driven manipulation of human psychology and socialisation powered by ever increasing technology for the benefit of who exactly?
The drive for profit shapes us in so many ways, we can't even see it—and has done for a long time. But tech has given it so much more power and avenues to exploit. Think about the fact that each one of us
willingly carries around a surveillance device that would make Big Brother drool, and billions is being dumped into AI to be able to use this information only for power and profit and—in the case of governments—control.
The same types of people and principles that created and guided the Tobacco, International Armament, Pharmaceutical, Gambling, and Oil industries are now guiding the powerful tech giants.
So, circling back around to gaming...Assuming naked capitalistic manipulation and monetisation of individual psyches and group socializtion will lead to damage in the same way capitalism driven tobacco, pharmaceutical, oil, and arms industries have; how long will it take for this damage to become apparent to the public and thereby affect government policy? Although, depending on how much power tech driven manipulation gains, I suppose there is a question of whether it can be hidden, and whether governments would be able to even move against this...idk...tech/information golem. But assuming it can, we have to ask how long before this recognition affects the gaming industry.
Given how slow things have moved historically, and how much wreckage has to occur before governments take action against their corporate partners, these companies might have decades. But it seems things move faster now, and it is harder to hide things like teen suicide rates vs cancer rates in the aged—so it might only be a matter of years, hard to say.
But congrats to all these companies for making billions!