Here's an interesting article about what makes video games so addictive. It made me think about the Skritter guys sitting around saying "Why isn't there a ninja video game that teaches us to write kanji?"

Some relevant quotes:

One ingredient is “hard fun,” which Ms. Lazzaro defines as overcoming obstacles in pursuit of a goal. That’s the same appeal of old-fashioned puzzles, but the video games provide something new: instantaneous feedback and continual encouragement, both from the computer and from the other players.

Players get steady rewards for little achievements as they amass points and progress to higher levels, with the challenges becoming harder as their skill increases.

Even though they fail over and over, they remain motivated to keep going until they succeed and experience what game researchers call “fiero.” The term (Italian for “proud”) describes the feeling that makes a gamer lift both arms above the head in triumph.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/science/07tierney.html

James, very interesting. I was also about to post something about the Skritter addiction. You gave all the elements about the reasons, that could apply to Skritter : instant reward, motivation to increase your score, stress regarding the number of words to review. I would add one key element : the fact that you are physically involved in the "game", through a tablet, with a pen, your finger. This undoubtedlty increases the "dependance" witht the game...
I am thinking about opening a new business : to cure "Skritter-aholics" ! The first medicine would be : stop learning difficult languages...

Spanish was difficult, there aren't half as many rolling sounds in Chinese or Japanese for that matter. Haha.

I totally understand Fiero. I have always been the type of person who likes to tackle things that seem impossible for me. I joined Toastmasters because I was terrified of public speaking, joined a choir as pianist because I was terrified of performing (I'm a pianist who never plays for anyone but me!), got a job that scared the crap out of me, got another job that scared the crap out of me... etc. etc. etc. I LOVE that feeling of; I DID IT! Everyone said I couldn't but I overcame my own limitations!!!!

No matter how slow my progress I know in a year or two I'm going to be pretty darn proud of my Chinese. :D Just as I am proud of all my other accomplishments.

Fiero! I love it!

Anything worth having is worth struggling for. In fact, the things we struggle for are the things that taste that much sweeter.

Very interesting article James. I also thought about it, why it's easy to keep doing some things and why some things you just don't feel like doing.

I tried playing computer-games in Spanish before, it didn't work very well, maybe there wasn't enough, instantaneous feedback and continual encouragement (i.e stopping the game to look up words). I should try again now that my Spanish improved a bit.

And maybe I should look for the Chinese versions of games. I saw Dragon Age was released in China last time I went to the computer market...

@ YouJing - Dragon Age in Chinese? I have played the English version, but suddenly you have me curious about trying a Chinese play through as well...

@ west316, Yeah, it's going to be a lot of new vocabulary but having played through it before should be enough to keep up. I might give it a shot as well.