Psychology is an incredibly powerful and important part of game design and social media as underscored in a recent article, "Psychoanalyzing Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button". Jonathan Cook's comments , " Some psychologists say Facebook doesn’t create problems, but could bring out pre-existing ones." underscores what most
industry experts seem to gravitate toward, that the idea of depression
linked to social media bears a correlative, not causation relationship. I
think the key thing I as a developer must grapple with is that knowing
this, am I developing content that is pure in its entertainment value,
or am I targeting this known behavior for reasons of profit? The latter
strategy is what Zynga (makers of Farmville) focuses upon and for that
reason is both one of the most profitable and unscrupulous of companies.
In the end, I believe that chasing the quick profit will both harm the
collective reputation of the video game industry and undermine the genre
of asynchronous social game play. The companies that will emerge as the
"winners" will be those focused on fun, high quality entertainment that
improves the player's esteem and intellect.
