Having spent half of the past 10 years addicted to MMO's, I can tell you:
Addiction via immersion and frequent incremental rewards.
One: you immerse the user in the game environment so that all of their attention is focused on the game world.
Two: using that focus, you provide a system wherein there is the constant availability of incremental rewards. In games like WoW, every single minute spent goes toward achieving a specific incremental reward. You kill a monster: you get a reward (loot + experience), you go to the nearest town: you get new quests. The key is to have a near-term action (< 5 minutes) available to the user at ALL TIMES where they can achieve some kind of small reward. Larger incremental rewards (levels, skills, raids) are available to keep attention once the smaller rewards become rote.
Look at anything that's ever been called addictive- not just video games. I bet that they share these two traits, and their addictiveness is directly proportional to how well they accomplish these goals.
Can these be applied to a facebook app? Maybe. Would you look sleazy trying to do it with a facebook app? Definitely.
Everquest was just as addictive as WoW. In many was EQ and Final Fantasy XI were both more addictive and more immersive than WoW, yet WoW's success dwarfs them both. It can't be the only explanation.
WoW was much better at linking together the big rewards than EQ or FFXI were (I've played all three, along with Asheron's Call 1&2, Dark Age of Camelot, Ragnarok Online, Eve Online and Lord of the Rings Online [Good God!]).
With EQ, big rewards were frequently too far in between (especially hell levels and gaps between major "new spell" levels), which led to people quitting when their addiction waned (ie, minor rewards were considered rote, major rewards non-existent or too far away). Also, the end game (at least until Velious) wasn't nearly as developed as WoW's is, and relied on raids held by huge guilds or even the entire server. This led to higher-level players frequently not having access to any near-term rewards, and eventually losing the addiction.
FFXI's problem was with lower levels. The reward for gaining a level didn't seem as important as in either EQ or WoW. Equipment never seemed like a major reward either, as most players essentially rented equipment from the auction houses.
Addiction via immersion and frequent incremental rewards.
One: you immerse the user in the game environment so that all of their attention is focused on the game world.
Two: using that focus, you provide a system wherein there is the constant availability of incremental rewards. In games like WoW, every single minute spent goes toward achieving a specific incremental reward. You kill a monster: you get a reward (loot + experience), you go to the nearest town: you get new quests. The key is to have a near-term action (< 5 minutes) available to the user at ALL TIMES where they can achieve some kind of small reward. Larger incremental rewards (levels, skills, raids) are available to keep attention once the smaller rewards become rote.
Look at anything that's ever been called addictive- not just video games. I bet that they share these two traits, and their addictiveness is directly proportional to how well they accomplish these goals.
Can these be applied to a facebook app? Maybe. Would you look sleazy trying to do it with a facebook app? Definitely.