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New MMO Survey Discusses Addiction, Perspective
Thanks to Terra Nova for its post pointing to new results from the 'Daedalus Project' MMO survey, since, "over the past 4 years, the study has surveyed over 30,000 MMORPG players." Some of the findings include MMO player's opinions on addiction ("About 40% of users would consider themselves addicted to the game. This percentage is quite striking given the social desirability bias built into the question"), and preferences for first or third-person MMO gameplay, with male players strikingly more likely to want third-person play (surveyor Nick Yee suggests: "In very broad strokes, female players are more drawn to relationship-oriented activities while male players are more drawn to achievement-oriented activities... goal-oriented users may be more likely to treat avatars as tools/pawns to achieve goals, thereby encouraging a preference for [third-person play] that objectifies and externalizes the avatar.") We've previously covered other Daedalus Project results.
I wouldn't have expected such a huge difference between male and female preferences for perspective. Of course, most of the people I play MMOs with care about being as good as they can be so they rarely swap to first.
Also surprising that first person increased with age. I'd expect the opposite- older gamers grew up in 2D land with me, and we'd prefer a nice 3rd person due to familiarity (its closer to the 2D isometric we're used to).
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The Psych profile page appears to indicate that there were only four games surveyed. While those games may make up a great percentage of players, I'm not so sure that it is repreentative of a reaonably wide player base. This, to me, makes the study suspect.
In addition, of course, the survey sample is not random; it's an 'opt-in' survey where people who are interested in participating do so.
As such, the data doesn't really appear useful.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
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This is a very interesting part of the research and analysis. Interesting for me is that other studies have found that females tend to struggle when compared to males in a three dimensional environment.
(Sexist? Sure, but it ain't me claiming this.)
Could the relative perception of how the controls function in third-person vs first-person be the issue? Whatever it is, it probably has to do with something you would consider psycho-babble so you should take that minor and sign up. Looks like there are plenty of further meaningless studies to be done.
"...male players...to treat avatars as tools/pawns to achieve goals, thereby encouraging a preference for [third-person play] that objectifies and externalizes the avatar."
Translation: Guys like to check out the ass of the female character they're playing.
Or it could be that males like the third-person view because FP in MMORPGs sucks, and being goal-oriented makes them look for the better method of gameplay (third-person). Not only does it fit the previous explanation, but it sounds less psychobabbly.
A job in market research? Making good money by coming up with bullshit theories that vaguely fit the data? That must be one of the best jobs on Earth!
Rob
"...female players are more drawn to relationship-oriented activities..."
If by that they mean sexualy oriented, I think I should play a MMORPG...
As far as the addiction aspect of it goes, I would have to agree. About 20 of my real-life (haha I used the term "real-life") friends and I all started playing SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) at about the same time... We played for almost a year. The truth about that game, in our opinion, is that it quickly stopped being fun and turned into an obsession... an addictive obsession.
I played the part of a resource miner. I was managing a business wherein I purchased/upgraded/maintained somewhere around 50-60 mineral extractors. I had to visit them almost every day and because of the sheer amount of them, it took quite some time (sometimes these things would be spread out quite some distance over the game world) to maintain and collect the resources from each harvester. Then I would have to auction the resources I'd collected. Then I would have to scour the universe for the best price on power... Then once the current set of resources had been tapped out, I would have to "survey" for another high concentration of a resource that I predicted would sell for a good price. Next up, unrooting the harvesters and moving them to a new location. This could involve having to log in multiple times with different accounts, sine only 10 harvesters can be operated from one account, or nagging my friends to move them to the new location...
I was doing this, before SWG came out with vehicles... Now, in SWG walking around consumes approximately the same amount of time as it does in real life to go the same distance, maybe a little less. Sometimes I would have to walk round-trip 10km to maintain my harvesters, and thats if they were all in the same location!!! Just the travel time could take up to 30-40 minutes of your time, and if you got attacked and killed on your way out there... you would have to start all over!!!
I would estimate that my time invested in this (albeit highly profitable) business was around 2-3 hours a day. That left not very much time for any thing else in the game. I didn't fight much. I didn't quest (as if there are quests in SWG!). I didn't level my character... I just did my business.
Was it fun?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: It took me 10 months to realize that I was not enjoying myself. I used to sit down in my computer chair each night and sigh as I booted up SWG. I would wait through countless down-times (BRIA: Better Reboot It Again). I suffered numerous roll-backs, where I was forced to repeat my actions a second time because whatever progress I had made was lost by the server. Many glitches would kill my harvesters, cause me to lose items or resources that I intended to sell... It was quite ridiculous. And yet, I still played. To be honest, with all the money I made, I hardly ever bought ANYTHING! I was spending so much time making the money I didn't have time to spend it, literally! Why did I play? Because I was addicted.
I once made a drive to the Bay Area from Fresno, and on the way saw a bunch of Wind Generators. They reminded me of my "in-game" harvesters so I insisted on a photograph.
I would occassionally see "waypoints", giant columns of light, out of the corner of my eye as I was driving around town.
A waving field of brownish grass would recall to me "fond" memories of the fields of Corellia, my home-planet.
I actually maintained my harvesters in my sleep, while I was dreaming.
I would sometimes quote SWG NPCs to my friends... and they all got the joke... "Hello, my friend."
I thoroughly researched real-life vending machines because they are the closest and most practical real-life counterpart of SWG's harvesters...
As you can see... The game virtually took over my life. Did I mention that I would stay up very late at night almost every night at the expense of my performance at work and my social life? Haha my social life... I used to make up excuses to all of my real-life friends who DIDN'T play whenever they invited me out, because I just "HAD TO PLAY SWG". I used
my sig was dubm so i took it out.
MMO's take too much time to play and they have to realize that most MMO's are really f'n boring. Too much time is wasted doing things that are not fun (travelling, etc) and many of the things that are supposed to be fun like combat, etc. Are half-baked and basically the computer plays for you. I think this is a real issue is the rise of 'automatic gaming' what is there to interact with if the computer does everything for you?
This is partly why I had a love/hate relationship with NWN and all pay to play MMO's. The speed at which the game goes and the interactivity is almost completely absent you watch your character more then play or control your character. This is why twitch based game mechanics are superior IMHO and they should start using them for MMO's. FFXI and all current MMO's leave the person not doing much other them moving their character and turning on auto attack, compare this with fun games like Soul calibur 2, Mario Kart, Quake or Unreal tournament. There is just no fun in playing a videogame that is essentially passive and non-interactive. This is why I quit Final fantasy XI I couldn't stand the passive nature of 'playing', when really all you're doing is finding monsters turning on auto attack, while you could be surfing the web or actually doing something else waiting for your automatically controlled character to finish (don't laugh many people do).
Not to hawk my own wares, but some of you might find my article on Ludonauts interesting, where I talk about two fundamentally different approaches to game design, one of them being precisely the sort that characterizes most MMORPG design, leading players towards game addiction rather than game enjoyment.
Is there really a social desirability bias built into the question of being 'addicted' to a game? Not imo, when a large portion of your social interaction is with other so called addicts.
Sure we admit to being addicted, but we think of our addiction as similar to that of someone who plays golf often or that watches television.
"Making good money by coming up with bullshit theories that vaguely fit the data? That must be one of the best jobs on Earth!" Yeah, but it's taken. Although I hear there's an election this fall.
You speak like all the other non MMO players/players who played for 10 levels and quit.
Its always ther same complaint. "Oh its boring, because you hot auto attack and go to the bathroom!"
Umm no. That may be the case at level 10, but at leve 90 when you are working with teams to take on very hard hitting mobs, you try auto attack and walk away, you will kill yourslef and your team.
There is ALOT more to combat. Aggro management, healing, crowd control, team coordination and pulling.
Try REALLY playing an MMO. Then you can make a more informed opinion.
I wasn't thinking the game had to be twitch it should just be more interactive. i.e. you don't do a lot of fun tasks, management or manipulations that are fun and goal oriented. Think civilization or alpha centauri, these games are fun because they you you are making decisions that effect game outcomes (do I built this beneficial building or a unit?). MMO's do not have interesting 'management' activities for to go along with their passive style of gameplay. Perhaps it's a limitation of internet and/or graphics technology to do 'realtime' with that many people in a game at once but look at diablo. It's not MMO but the combat and whatnot is realtime and you can have 8 players in a group tonnes of monsters (10's and 20's of monsters and little lag).
They don't have to make it like an FPS. Altough I do believe 'twitch' (i.e. controlling your character) is a superior gameplay mechanic AFAIC because you are actually involved and doing something instead of watching your character do everything for you this is why video games are supposed to be interactive entertainment with emphasis on both interactive and enterainment. They should be fun but passive huge-time-sink MMO gaming is certainly not fun people just convince themselves that it is because currently MMO's IMHO are basically glorified chatrooms while you 'play' passively. This wouldn't be an issue if there were things in the game that were actually fun to do, manage, decide, or manipulate.
I know about the technical issues I play Quake and you learn all you need to know about ping and latencny playing first person shooters. What person who doesn't play UT, Q3 or any other online FPS not know that latency is a factor? Also games not being fun because of 'technically challenging' latency is an excuse. Obviously it can be done as Sony proved with Planetside.
This isn't a shot at you FYI. So maybe you're not skilled enough or have enough schooling to design game mechanics/network engine around the 'challenge' of latency but other games have done just that. But this is not the gamers problem remember. The gamer pays for fun he's not interested in the details and neither should he be. When say you want to buy a DVD player you're not interested in the difficulty the manufacturer had in making it cheap enough for you to afford a good quality one you just wanted a good quality one for a reasonable price that can play all DVD's and is very compatable.
But look sony did it with Planetside obviously so it can be done. And by 'twitch' it doesn't have to be 'superfast' realtime gameplay that requires super low latency ala quake3 but it should be at least as good as say diablo 2. Remember 'twitch' doesn't have to be super fast-realtime first person shooter style mechanics. It just has to allow the player to actually control his character and do things besides watch it, this is what I mean when I say I hate 'automatic gaming' or 'noninteractive gaming'. There are no interesting game mechanics in MMO's that haven't been done MUCH better in single player games.
Actions/game mechanics can take time they dont have to be 'immediate' but they can't be aganizingly slow either or automatic (ala current MMO's) they just have to be FUN and allow a player to play a game in short sessions instead of long drawn out ones current MMO's use say while travelling (taking you 20-40 minutes just walking around in a virtual world is not 'fun').
Also it couldn't hurt to make these games more fun. When you are controlling a SINGLE character and not a group of characters, there must be something else for the player to do that is fun if automatic 'playing' is some sort of 'technical necessity' because of latency or some other issue. This 'auto control' for avatars/units is acceptable in realtime strategy games because no one could manage to control tonnes of units individually. But when in an MMO you have one character it's awful boring when you cannot control your avatar or make any 'fun' or 'strategic' decisions with his actions.
The point is MMO's are not any more fun then single playe RPG's they are most of the time much worse. In other words the game mechanics and fighting systems they have in current MMO's are not very fun at all in and of themselves.
The games maybe 'fun' for the first little while until the novelty 'multiplayer' novelty wears off and you realize you're playing a sub par game and you've been ripped off for $79 (in the case of FF XI) + whatever in monthly payments. Playing MMO's reminds me of Zelda playing windwaker when you're on the sea. When you're travelling on the sea in Wind waker you almost bash your friggin head in not doing anything and sitting passively as you 'travel' while not engaging or doing anything your itching to do something or interact with anything but because your out in the 'open sea' and monsters are few and far between it makes you bored out of your skull. This is what all MMORPG's are like especially since you dont have to do anything. They purposely make things take too much time to try to keep players from whipping through content too fast but it backfires in making the game tedious and not fun unless you have severe amounts of time to kill having either no social or work life or if you're lucky you can do whatever if you're independently rich.
Just so you know I didn't mean to insult you purposefully I apologize if I offended. I'm not that great at expressing myself in a polite manner. Also I know you're experienced here but I'm talking about a game being FUN and APPEALING to more action oriented gamers like myself and by 'action oriented' I dont mean FPS type gameplay, just give me more control over my character instead of me being a passive observer and chatter while the battle takes place. Note that, financial success does not a great game make (The matrix for instance, sold something like a million copies but it doesn't mean its a good game, i.e. check the reviews). Planescape tormet: A great game (check reviews), a classic, sold like utter crap. Why? Property and name most likely, it was based original IP based on the 'planescape' universe so it was definitely hardcore, original, risky. Compare that to Baldurs gate (based on a known property -- forgotten realms, sword coast, drizzt, instant market!). They had the same gameplay but sold drastically different numbers and it wasn't because planescape was a bad game, it just didn't have the appeal a game set in the forgotten realms had.
If that same thing happened, that death would permanently affect your character. You might lose some of your accumulated experience or skill points, perhaps some of the equipment it took you some time to collect. A lag spike leading to death isn't an "Oh, well, try again." moment. Trust me, I deal with this on a regular basis. .... ... like an FPS than a traditional online game. There is much less focus on persistence in PlanetSide, so they can focus more on twitch gameplay. Notably, a death on PlanetSide has very little impact overall.
What are you smoking? I'm sorry... maybe I am misinterpreting what you mean by 'big impact'? I have to even question if you play MMORPGS, most MMO's have very little penalties beyond experience penalty and most give you a choice to go 'hardcore' and opt in to increase your penalties (challenge of the game) they do everything to make sure the character doesn't lose a significant amount of anything when you die except for a 'death fee' in experience or gold. In FFXI all you get is an experience penality and a respawn. Consider what happens when you can't run away from a monster and it hits you when it is twenty feet away or more (FF XI) even with a super low ping because of the way the 'non existant' game mechanics are designed (play animation, take off X amount of HP regardless of distance or whether the attack animation *actually* hit a player), also note the total lack of collision detection in MMO's. Dying occurs often in FF XI (esp if u try to solo) and there is yes there is a penalty (and its still just as annoying) even with the 'respawn' game mechanics in FF XI. So MMO chars are just as 'throw away' in the sense that you die and respawn but the game developers in their infinite wisdom force an experience penalty on you for death to give you an incentive to 'avoid death' but then a lag spike hits or you have improper collision detection and weak combat system (because remember, no collision detection or actual decent gameplay system exists) and your whole damage system is based on the character being in 'war mode' with an enemy regardless of the vast distance between the monster and you he can still hit you with a melee attack from 3 screens away! Yes I can see GENIUSES @ behind mmo's at work here. A game like Q3 manages to have collision detection but MMO's don't, why is it a traffic issue? Maybe you really need to start thinking about the huge DEFICITS and annoying features in many major MMO games. That annoy the living crap out of even the paying customers. In FFXI if you dont party to fight you're screwed you must party with people to fight beyond level 11-13 and that sucks and often times you spend time looking for characters close enough to your level to party with instead of just 'getting in and having fun' you're waiting around to find other people for