Anyone who truly loves video games is a sucker for being manipulated. Whether it’s the dopamine hit of one more level-up, itching for damage numbers to increase, or scoring that key piece of equipment to complete a set. This stuff isn’t simply the territory of unscrupulous mobile games trying to get you hooked either, even ‘prestige’ games like The Last of Us keep you in a constant state of anticipation through sound and visual design while delivering their story.
But Vampire Survivors might be the purest example of compulsive design. A lot has been said about games as ‘Skinner Boxes’, aka the operant conditioning chambers designed by B. F. Skinner that quickly trained rats and pigeons to tap a button in response to stimulus and get a reward.
Pixel Hunted 