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Everquest Connection Alleged In Child Death
Thanks to NWAOnline.net for their story regarding a mother facing manslaughter charges which may relate to videogame addiction, following her 3-year-old daughter's death after being left alone in an overheated car. According to the piece, "Authorities said [Mary Christina] Cordell and her boyfriend, Eric Long, 21, may have been so fixated with the interactive game EverQuest that she neglected to pay adequate attention to Brianna's whereabouts on Aug. 8, the day the child died." The article also points out posts to the Spouses Against Everquest mailing-list from Cordell, one of which is controversial, but tragically prescient: "Verant is also an enabler by providing a type of 'entertainment' that
requires an inordinary amount of time to do basic functions of the average
role playing games... I'm afraid that eventually many more people will
be hurt or even killed by this 'service'."
Self-control?
The user decides to continue and forget about life, then it's not the fault of the developer. The person has CHOSEN to forget the real world, for the virtual one. Don't blame the developer if the user neglects life.
It's obvious users like these are missing something from their real lives that they escape so easily into the virtual one.
While it is certainly sad that someone died, it is unfortunate that videogmes are once again being used as a scapegoat. There are many other hobbies that people participate in for hours and hours a day but are rarely if ever considered an "addiction" or scapegoated in the same way that videogames so often are.
How many people do we know who can't miss an episode of a soap opera? or how many people spend all night every night watching television? It seems highly likely that many more marriages have been broken up over a man who spend all his time working on his car than have been broken up by online games. What about every episode of Behind The Music where the musician neglects his family in order to make music go on tour and entertain? But none of these are stigmatised or scapegoated by being called "addictions."
I'm not arguing the technical definition of addiction. As I said, what I'm talking about is that there are lots of other activities out there that people do that take up just as much time as playing videogames but they aren't commonly called "addictions." Why is this? It seems that once again it goes back to the notion of moral panics and that people always seem to be looking to blame the new thing for old problems as a way of finding easy answers to complex problems. Children have died by playing in cars before and unfortunatly they almost certainly will again. It is terrible, but the problem is not Everquest. That Everquest is blamed is yet another sign that videogames are not respected and that they are even feared.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Computers are a fairly new thing, and we really don't know to what extent there is a cause-effect going here.
I mean, society isn't accustomed to having interactive games which last for so long time. The process of educating people to use them properly should have taken place somehow, but it haven't.
Just think, if you create a 24 hour alternate reality, why don't try to make the manipulation of your game more adict-safe? Of course the responsability is that of the people malusing the system, but a bit of safety checks in your design wouldn't hurt. At least, TV has frequent 20 second commercials that remind you of a reality different of the inmersive experience.
Not trying to troll, just wondering beyond the usual "yes but game is not in fault"...
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
How many people who like games haven't spent a few hours too many on some obscure challenge and lost half a night's sleep as a result? Probably not such a great choice, and certainly the nature of games facilitates this choice. Likewise, most people who drink on some occasion drank too much and suffered as a result, and certainly the intoxicating effect of alcohol is what that's about. Indicting the manufacturers of a game for making it engrossing and time consuming is like condemning liquor manufacturers for putting alcohol in booze. It just doesn't really make much sense, and it illustrates the reality that a human being who is trying to escape reality will find some way to do it. If we want to do something social about it we can create more public awareness about compulsive behaviors and the serious problems they can lead to, and put more public money into treatment (which would save us money in the long run), but in the end these problems will always, always exist, because of the people who don't really WANT to change. Personally, I think it is the avoidance of this unpleasant reality that so often drives the urge to demonize what are merely symptoms.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
People who would be addicted to Everquest are addicits, anyway.
I've never played Everquest, but just hearing so many people call it Evercrack is enough for me to know not to go near it. I've wasted plenty of hours on Sierra Games, Wolf3d, Diablo, etc. Good games are addicting, because fun is addicting. They provide a nice little Skinner box for our overworked selves to escape to.
For others, it's drugs, gambling, porn, name your vice (why do you think it's called a vice?). All of them can lead to the shirking of responsibilites. I've found it's better to just keep busy and challenged, that way you're not tempted. Idle hands are the instruments of the devil and all that. Get into the habit and it's hard to imagine how you ever used to be bored. There is so much to do.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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It's sickening how many bad parents I've encountered in the game. There was a woman we removed from the guild that used to constantly complain about her 7 year old son and said she has to lock him in a closet during major raids so that he wouldn't interrupt her. Then you have the 40+ year old house wives who flirt with all the 16 year old males all day. It's SICK how many there are of these. Everquest really does have a problem on their hands, their product isn't responsible for it, as these people would be find other things that cater to their mental problems, but they have a great oppertunity to find a way to help people. Perhaps people who log too many hours during a week could be offered counselling via e-mail? They obviously have a problem.