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Online Gaming Addictive?
gihan_ripper writes "The BBC
has a discussion on the addictive effects of online gaming. Reports come from Liz Woolley of Online Gamers Anonymous, and a gamer, Lynn Hall. Liz blames EverQuest for the 2002 suicide of her son Shawn, noting that game manufacturers hire employees with psychology degrees in order to make their games more addictive."
Well, sure. When I like something a lot, I want to do it a lot. (see: sexual intercourse ) So, to some extent, everything fun has to be somewhat addictive.
And about the hiring someone with a psychology degree to help make games more addictive? Come On! When has anyone heard of someone with a psychology degree getting a job?
Single player video games are bad enough, being easy escapism from actually having to live. MM games are much worse. Since MM games are based in a live online world, you cannot save your game at any time and return to it just as you left it later. When playing with other people it is socially hard to stop in the middle of a quest, since you will waste your teammates' time in finding a replacement for your group. You are in constant competition with others in your guild, etc to level up. If you fall to far behind you will no longer be able to do quests with your friends. Finally, the way MM games are financed, you pay a flat monthly fee for unlimited usage. Someone who plays 20 hrs a week gets twice as much "game time per dollar" as someone who plays 10 hrs. This provides a further incentive to play as much as you can. Playing World of Warcraft sucked up a huge percentage of my free time. Even after I stopped playing, I still havn't worked up the courage to cancel my account yet because I don't want to lose my character.
Where's one of those twelve step programs when you need them? "-Hi my name is Greg and I am a WOW addict. -Hi Greg!"
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
So what is the point in any game? Don't you have anything better to do with your life than move little circles around on a board (checkers) or try and throw a sphere through a hoop (basketball). I mean, seriously, that's a pretty cynical way to look at the whole thing. When you get down to that level, what's the point in anything? What's the point in life? People play MMOs and other games because they think it's FUN. Your definition of fun may differ from someone else's, but that does not give you the right to belittle what others choose to do. People need to escape the mundane reality they constantly work in to keep themselves alive. If they choose to do it via an MMO, a sport, or a bottle, that's their decision. I really don't see your point here, other than the fact that you don't like to do it.
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This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
Shawn was a high school buddy of mine, and it's surreal every time this hits the news.
We all happened to be gamers, my little posse of guys that didn't fit into the other clicks. Some of us were somewhat popular, some were gossipers, some (like myself) were computer geeks, but one thing we found we had in common was gaming. I'd sneak my N64 into the big projector room by the library so we could play Goldeneye during lunch break. Before the administration became uptight about lab usage, we'd play Quake anytime several of us showed up to school early. We tended not to have the greatest social skills (Shawn maybe being exemplar there) but we got along anyway; we were all decent guys just wanting to get the heck through high school so we could go have our own lives.
I'm not going to pretend I knew Shawn super-well; sometimes he'd hang out with us and sometimes he wouldn't, but I know his problems didn't come from video games. I have nothing but sympathy and sorrow for his family, but Sony didn't destroy Shawn; he did that himself. At least one guy from our little rag-tag group went on to get addicted to alcohol, too, but that's not the fault of the brewing companies, even if they know full well that alcohol can be addictive, even if they put plenty of research into making the stuff taste good and encourage recurring business. Bigger surgeon general's warnings would not have helped.
I need to disclaimer all this by saying that I personally haven't developed any self-destructive addictions. I haven't gone through it, so my perspective is void of first-hand experience. That said, I still put the responsibility not to allow some activity (smoking, playing video games, whatever) take over a person's life, on that person. We should avail them to help, and support them in finding help if we see that they are slipping, sure. But what sense does it make to talk about freedom and liberty if we won't also talk about accountibility and responsibility.
Shawn was a good guy, but I'm not sure he entirely understood that every effect has a cause, that things don't "just happen". His gaming addiction and his suicide were built piece-by-piece, over a long time, including the few years when I knew him. It was obvious he had problems, but it wasn't obvious, or inevitable, that those problems would culminate in the way they did. Every choice he made contributed. Maybe if we'd shot hoops instead of playing Quake, his choices would have been different. Maybe mine would have too, and maybe I would have wound up in some suicidal spiral instead. I find it more plausible that my not having committed suicide is a result of the decisions I made in life, rather than the existance of addictive and/or damaging things in life. Laws don't keep people from getting hooked on crack, and just because nicotine is legal doesn't mean everybody gets addicted to smoking.
Again, I truly feel for Shawn's family, and the families of everybody who has ever committed suicide, for any reason.