The DSG
Diagnostic and statistical checklist for games.
This is an assessment tool, created to help people make an objective judgment on how closely any video game leans towards being a disguised gambling machine or instrument of behavioral engineering.
The name is half seriously based on the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders published by the American psychiatric association.
This is by no means complete, as I’m still in the process of doing a proper write up, that goes into detail explaining why this is an important thing to have.
The program itself also needs some fine tuning, however I want to publish it the way it is just to get the ball rolling, also so that people might start thinking about the issues it raises for gaming in general.
There are currently two versions of the program: a web based version and a stand alone version. The main difference between them, is that the stand alone version has an export feature that could be used to composite multiple game ratings, also the web version is a bit visually messed up .
The program consists of 42 questions, once answered it plots the game on a scatter graph.
Some questions get skipped as a matter of course, for instance if you answer “No”, the game doesn’t contain any in-app purchases, then all the questions relating to in-app purchases will be skipped.
Click HERE to download the standalone version.
Click
HERE to visit the browser version.
Feel free to try it out and rate as many games as you want.
Send comments, criticism or saved graphs to nimbuswad AT hotmail.com