The accusations against Verant Interactive/Sony Online were that the EverQuest was designed to make you get addicted, play endlessly- that they knew what the consequences of these design decisions were.
An example: often bosses would spawn once every K hours- randomly. So you might have to wait a literal 24 hours in a row without ever seeing the boss you need to kill, and he has a 1 in X chance of dropping the item you actually wanted. There were no 'instance' dungeons- the whole server shared that one room with the boss, so maybe you go there to wait for the boss to spawn, and there's two other groups already waiting.
There is a lot about it that was akin to a slot machine and those people who sit and put money into the machine over and over, all day. The same reward mechanism in the brain was being triggered. And from the perspective of players, that waiting, that fighting bosses, all of that was work that you put in to get the reward. And that feeling of putting in work and achieving something- even something that isn't real- that was the addiction when it felt like you couldn't ever get that in real life.
Death in the game was a big deal too- you lost experience, lost maybe hours or days or work. You could lose a level! This triggered really complex fear-of-loss psychology, and for people already dealing with psychological issues (that's why they played EQ so much) there were always stories about the rage from dying. Just really unhealthy stuff all around.
I don't personally think it was designed to do this to humans, no truly malicious intent, but it did mess with people.
An example: often bosses would spawn once every K hours- randomly. So you might have to wait a literal 24 hours in a row without ever seeing the boss you need to kill, and he has a 1 in X chance of dropping the item you actually wanted. There were no 'instance' dungeons- the whole server shared that one room with the boss, so maybe you go there to wait for the boss to spawn, and there's two other groups already waiting.
There is a lot about it that was akin to a slot machine and those people who sit and put money into the machine over and over, all day. The same reward mechanism in the brain was being triggered. And from the perspective of players, that waiting, that fighting bosses, all of that was work that you put in to get the reward. And that feeling of putting in work and achieving something- even something that isn't real- that was the addiction when it felt like you couldn't ever get that in real life.
Death in the game was a big deal too- you lost experience, lost maybe hours or days or work. You could lose a level! This triggered really complex fear-of-loss psychology, and for people already dealing with psychological issues (that's why they played EQ so much) there were always stories about the rage from dying. Just really unhealthy stuff all around.
I don't personally think it was designed to do this to humans, no truly malicious intent, but it did mess with people.