Play’s role

How Game Designers Secretly Run Your Life

In an ancient Hindu hymn, a game of dice was compared to an addictive drug. Three thousand years later, when the world’s first casino emerged in Renaissance Venice, it prompted a near collapse of the ruling class because they bankrupted themselves gambling. We can learn a lot about ourselves as a species by studying what fascinates us. People have been captivated by games for millennia, and today the gaming market is about as big as all other forms of entertainment combined. Play is often dismissed as trivial, but it is evolutionarily ancient: most mammals and some birds, reptiles, fish and even insects play. ….[READ]