Seminar: Why are pokies so addictive?

A public lecture to get you thinking about what makes games addictive...

Date: Wednesday 28th of April 1pm
Venue: Building H, Lecture Theatre B39, Caulfield Campus
RSVP: Charles.Livingstone@med.monash.edu.au

Dr. Kevin Harrigan teaches computer game design and is the lead researcher for the Problem Gambling Research Team at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada (problemgambling.uwaterloo.ca).

Slot machine gambling is the most addictive form of gambling with 60% of slot machine revenue derived from problem gamblers. Using the design documents for the games (obtained through Freedom of Information), Kevin’s team has written and presented extensively on how the games are designed and what characteristics of the games are the most concern for problem gambling. In this lecture, Kevin will discuss his team’s research on the effects of game characteristics on the player including:

• How do slot machine games work?
• What characteristics of the games are of the most concern for problem gambling?
• Slot machines are 100% games of chance and yet many players feel they can influence the outcome.
• Why do they feel this way?
• On modern slot machines, many “winning” spins are losses in that the “winning” amount is less than the wager, and yet the player sees winning graphics and hears winning sounds. What effects do these “losses disguised as wins” have on the player?

Revision questions

For your information, here are the revision questions discussed in the lecture prior to mid-semester break.

• Give three different examples for the kinds of games and the ways in which AI is employed.
• Why is chess a worthwhile exercise for AI?
• Two creatures are playing "chasey", human vs. computer. Design an artificial neural network to control the computer. How could you train this network?
• If you could ask one question to see if a computer/human could pass the Turing test, what would it be? ...and what would the answer tell you? (i.e. how could you use the answer to determine if the respondent was a computer or a human?
• Design an FSM to allow a soldier to: patrol, stand guard, attack, defend, run away.
• Refine the "patrol" state of the soldier's FSM to include a number of sub-behaviours.

Please listen to the online lecture recording and consult your notes for the answers!