http://www.gamedesignadvanced.com/?p=2732

It is often said that media is addictive so it follows, then that video games would also be addictive. According to Frank Lantz in his blog Game Design Advance his entry posted on Sunday, January 26, 2014 entitled “Games, Explained” gives a brief description of how video games can become addictive. In fact his finally statement in the blog entry say “In other words, games are like art, sex, and cigarettes. Simple.” although is there really anything simple about this? You would think that video games are nothing like art, sex and cigarettes but on the other hand they can be very much like all three, so why don’t we take a look at all three and compare and contrast them.

Many people assume that video games are not art, in fact one of the great movie critics constantly said that even though he considered movies art. I admit that there are a lot of video games that are not art or not very artistic, but the same can be said for movies. I would never call something like Spy Kids art, nor would I call Madden 15 art, but video games have come a long way from being entertainment to being artistic pieces to enjoy. If you take a look at Journey or Ico you can tell that there’s something more than just entertainment, something that strives to be better than just a toy, as a result becoming art.

Common sense seems to dictate arguing that games are like sex seems almost opposite of what I really should argue, I mean, yes there is an enjoyment factor to it, but sex is about much more than enjoyment, therefore I really don’t think video games are like sex. If you want to put them both in their simplest forms then yes sex and video games have a goal, have enjoyment factors, and could have end results, but this is a very base version of it. Games are not sex, at least not now, and really couldn’t or shouldn’t compare the two.

Now to the last point, cigarettes. Video games could be very addictive like cigarettes but in the end wouldn’t have the same long lasting health results. In fact most studies show that people who play video games actually have better hand eye coordination and can tend to solve puzzles much easier than people who don’t. The only thing I would say that video games does bad is suck up time and keeps you at a computer or TV screen while playing taking valuable time for you to possibly be exercising. Also being addictive it will make you come back for more and spend loads of money on the next best thing thus being very similar to cigarettes in that regard. But in the end video games are not specifically made to be addictive and cigarettes completely are.
Mr Lantz does say much more about symbolism and how it can be regarded with video games but in truth I never really bought that either. I’ve never really considered gaming as symbolic in any sense more than just like a TV as mostly entertainment that can be artistic at times but mostly for fun. In the end what’s wrong with a little bit of pleasure every now and again.