Addiction to smartphone games : Using smartphone game components to create an addiction

Abstract: Smartphone games are very popular and have the highest revenue of all smartphone application categories. Some even suggest that the the games can create an addiction. This addiction has however not been classified as a disorder and the components in the games that create an addiction have not been determined. This thesis had two goals. The first was to investigate and identify addictive components in smartphone games. The second goal was to use these components to develop an addictive proof of concept smartphone game prototype. The prototype was also to be evaluated regarding usability and how well it included the addictive components. The components in these games that create an addiction were identified using a literature study. After establishing a theoretical framework, eight different areas of addictive smartphone game components were found. These areas were further condensed into 16 guidelines of how to make a smartphone game addictive. The guidelines were used to create a prototype which later was evaluated with a supervised play test, a short interview, a usability questionnaire and a survey with questions regarding how well the guidelines were implemented. The usability of the game prototype was regarded as good and 13 of 14 implemented guidelines received positive results in the survey. In addition to this, all test users also regarded the game prototype as fun to play and wanted to play it again. Based on these results, the implemented smartphone game prototype was concluded to be addictive.