Game is an integral part of human’s life. Latest psychological researches have proved that game isn’t just what small children do with their toys while the parents are busy. Game is an important cultural mechanism helping pass experience between generations and orientate in the world. By playing games, humans learn how to behave in their environment and acquire its values, beliefs and conduct patterns. But even after they’ve grown up, people continue playing psychological games by performing roles in their private and social life.
However, game has received one more essential sense recently. It has become not a way to adapt to the world around us and to act there, but rather to escape from it. More and more people replace their real needs, achievements, friends, and even lives by virtual ones and disappear in game worlds. This phenomenon called game dependence is widely discussed; and psychologists are trying to explain and to overcome it. That article uses some results of these researches and takes a closer look at psychological aspects of people’s gaming motivation. It considers what basic human needs can be transferred in the area of virtual games and satisfied there.
The particular topic of this article is mobile games. It should be noticed that the situation with mobile gaming is not as acute as with computer gaming. People don’t tend to spend long time with their smartphones, and it’s good so. That is the reason why this article won’t instruct people how to make a “bomb” stealing gamers from their families. It should rather be a guideline for mobile software developers to help them create an involving and exciting product being able to “hook” users.
Human needs that can be satisfied in a mobile game:
1. Need for achievement.
One of the most significant temptations of a game is giving usual people the possibility to become anyone they want to. The opportunities of game plot and its characters are endless, and the likelihood criterion is only optional. So, an unremarkable