You absolutely can scientifically prove psychological addiction to games, just like you can prove addiction to gambling. That's the whole point of this and other studies, to figure it out and the level of addiction. As I said, every activity you do can form a psychological addiction. There are many studies on gambling addiction and their physical impacts on your brain and changes to behavior.
I'm sorry that you don't understand the difference between being angry that you have lost a toy and addiction and the after effects of addiction. Maybe you've never been addicted to anything. But there is a very real difference, I believe video game addicts do suffer from forms of trauma after stopping. Maybe this study will definitively prove it and map out what kinds of chemical changes happen in your head, but I believe it to be obvious since it should have the same effects that any other psychological addiction, like gambling, have.
Any studies on it would purportedly measure that trauma and the amount of trauma and compare it to known psychological addictions. You seem really hung up on the bashing of bleeding heart and exploitation thing, which are undoubtedly results of the determination of these addictions, but your anger about it doesn't somehow make something that is, by definition, an addiction not an addiction.
I'm not like anti-video game here lol. I play games all the time, it just took me a long time to realize that MMORPG's aren't really about the fun, they are about the addiction and that I need to play all games in moderation. If you can legitimately play all games in moderation without forming an addiction (some can, I can't) then I respect that and I think it's great!
I disagree with your premise that the designers don't want them to be addicted. You seem to base your entire argument on this. All they want is for the player to keep coming back and paying that monthly fee and to do this they have to hook them (addiction).
What you don't seem to grasp is that the cost per subscriber for the company is almost 0 relative to the amount of time they log in, the bandwidth means nothing it's cheap and trivial on a per subscriber basis relative to the cost of subscription even if they were logged in 24 hours a day every day. So the amount of time they play per week, whether it's high or low, means nothing... as long as they keep playing week to week.
Here's another analogy, drug dealers oftentimes give you your first high for free to hook you, after that you keep coming back. Just like MMORPG's give you the first month free to hook you.
You're also incorrect about gamblers and casinos. Casinos don't want someone to blow their entire savings in one load. They want them to lose small amounts, to the point where they don't notice it, over a long period of time and keep feeding them with as many random encounters of reward as they can (with them inevitably losing more than they've won). They want the person to keep spending 3000 dollars a year for 30 years (and tell their friends how great it is) rather than spending 20k dollars all at once and never playing again (and telling their friends how bad it was). They want to take you to the brink, but not burn you out. Which is exactly how MMORPG's are designed, they want you coming back every year.
Why do you think they focus so heavily on slot machines and other slow, low payment games now? Using your argument about bandwidth, wouldn't you think the energy cost of having someone use a slot machine over and over is more expensive than them just sitting at a table for 3 hours and losing all their money? Why do you think they give you "fluff content" for free (free shows, free drinks, cheap ass food, free rooms)?
They don't want you to come there once, they want you to keep coming back.
As the saying goes (not verbatim)... "Why kill the sheep when you can just fleece it year after year?"
Another parallel, gambling is fun for a few hours, after that the only reason to keep playing is addiction. MMORPG's are fun the first time you accomplish something (developing the strategy and the first time I finished BWL or MC was fun), the only thing that kept me coming back every week for years was the addiction.
I disagree with your conclusion as well. They design MMORPG's specifically do be addictive, they get you hooked and coming back with the minimal amount of development.
...certain video games (MMORPG's) thrive on addiction and are many times more addictive than others.
I keep seeing this "MMOs are made to be addictive" argument pop up.
Err... if you don't think MMORPG's are designed to keep people coming back, regardless of how much fun they are having, then you are just in denial. The bandwidth costs are trivial relative to the monthly fee. "New" content creation has design "features" built in to force you to repeat the same thing 100x over, the only way to make someone do a raid 1000x is through addiction. The same addiction hook that hooks gamblers.
I agree that it is a balance they have to strike. They need to keep you hooked, but they don't want to burn you out. Many people are incapable of moderation so they put artificial limits in place and just enough random encounter of reward to keep you coming back.
There is a casual crowd that got sold the game that will come and go for a few months at a time, maybe just to hang out with their friends who won't stop playing. The engine of WoW is the addicts though. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind.
I think you're wrong in your premise that calling it an addiction is some kind of excuse or enabler. Using the scientific method to determine if someone does or doesn't have an addiction (or something is or isn't highly addictive) is merely a determination of fact. The interpretation of that fact is where you take argument, and I will agree with that.
Humans are creatures of habit, any activity that we perform can become a psychological addiction, and of course there are physical addictions. Some activities are considered "highly addictive", where many humans are susceptible to forming an addiction to it. Some people also have "addictive personalities" which cause them to be more susceptible to addiction. Notice I am making no interpretation of right/wrong here or saying they are or aren't a victim, just stating facts.
addiction -noun
the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.
I am slightly susceptible to addiction because I am highly competitive and I like to escape reality (anything can really be considered an escape from reality, what is reality really? But I digress;P). My point is that, from my personal experience and seeing and reading of thousands of others with the same symptoms, video games are highly addictive and certain video games (MMORPG's) thrive on addiction and are many times more addictive than others.
It'll be nice to see some more neutral research on this. We can each come to our own conclusions on the opinion aspect of it.
I believe a lot of people here are jumping to the conclusion that biometrics sucks because it's not very useful at all for network verification. There are other things that work better there (key tokens).
When you're dealing with a physical device or, as a great example that you used, have a person monitoring the process they are just fine as part of a multifactor authentication.
Card readers often don't need cameras most of the time, sadly, since your pin is actually on the fucking card (when it shouldn't be, when the banks say it isn't) in many cases.
Finger print readers will be installed over fingerprint readers, cameras will be installed over cameras, and probulators will be installed over probulators.
Authentication MUST be done with secret information.
Any biometric that can be unobtrusively obtained is essentially public information.
I work in an industry where I would know, and you're 100% incorrect in PIN information EVER being stored on the card. It's not even possible since you can change your PIN even after the issue of your card and card readers do NOT write to the card. Compliance with Visa requires that the PIN be encrypted on the pin pad itself, whatever device it's connected to only deals with an encrypted PIN, the bank itself has to receive the encrypted PIN and verify it.
No, it is not public domain after being attained once. In the case of someone getting your information, it only matters if someone gets it right once. Once you change your PIN or whatever, then any other information surrounding you means nothing since the likelihood of them scamming the same person twice in the same way is slim to none and even if they did it is unlikely they'd store your information in a database somewhere, they'd get it all together and use it at once.
I mean, your explanation that stuff will be broken is the whole point. The harder it is and higher the barrier for entry, the less often it will happen. Any system can be broken. But I mean, in this example it's a hell of a lot easier to just make a copy of the card and go anywhere you damn well please and get money than it is to create an artificial eye to fake a camera, and it's a whole hell of a lot more obvious if someone is holding up a piece of paper or object to a camera.
To say biometrics are value less in authentication is ignorant and an overstatement. They are not strong as the ONLY form of authentication, but they are very strong in multifactor authentication due to added complexity on the part of the scammer and minimal added complexity on the part of the user.
Can the uses be improved on? Absolutely. As a crazy example off the top of my head, imagine a touch screen password entry device for a safe that requires you to enter your password with the correct fingers in the correct order with multiple re-use of characters. Good luck cracking that, you'd have to get a mold of each of their fingers and enter the password just right. Add onto this the simple task of cleaning off the touchpad after you're done, now where do you easily get the finger prints?
I think biometrics are crappy for internet and network related verification, but there's already what I believe to be more than good enough technology for that (token keychains that give you a random number that updates every X amount of time that only you and the bank know, essentially a key, plus the password).
I think they are good for multifactor on physical devices.
I'm done though, you can disagree all you want, I doubt the technology is going away. I severely doubt anyone will make it through this entire message anyways.
A common (and very lucrative) ATM scam with older ATM's (that don't include preventative security features and have dumb customers) is to install "skimmers" over top of the ATM card reader that will obtain track data every time a customer uses the ATM. The trick was they would also install a small camera next to the ATM to read the PIN entered.
They would later on just watch the video, make a copy of the card and withdraw a bunch of cash from your account (card writers are inexpensive and common). Simply adding a retinal scanner or finger print scanner would break this scam down entirely or make it an order of magnitude more difficult to pull off. Or some of them would just stand next to you and watch you enter your PIN.
The cost for the customer is very a minor inconvenience of looking into a camera or pressing a button, the reward is prevention of a large amount of cash being withdrawn from their account.
Most of these criminals aren't that complex. Adding things that are difficult to break simply and quickly (obtaining a PCB printer and creating a cast of a fingerprint or fake retinal scan aren't that simple) can really cut into the offenses.
Not necessarily. Any "security" can be broken, the more steps (or factors) there are, the more difficult and tedious it is to break.
The nice thing about some biometrics is that for the real user, it's not really inconvenient at all. As I said earlier, some examples would be "Enter your PIN, now touch the screen here", "Tell me your social security number then hold the phone to your ear" or "enter your password, now look into this camera".
All very simple and convenient for the user, I'd even go so far as to say that the biometric portion is more convenient for the user than the traditional verification part.
The additional factor just makes it that much harder for the potential perpetrator to break.
Is it breakable? Yes, of course, just about every form of authentication is breakable. Are there other stronger authentication methods? Yes, I believe there are.
The other questions to ask yourself are, "Is it more difficult to break without being inconvenient to the user?" I would say yes, it is by a good margin. It actually increases the level of difficulty for an automated system to bi-pass the security by an order of magnitude. You can brute force a password, good luck brute forcing the ear response, retinal signature or finger print.
They are particularly good when used as an additional, hassle free, authentication factor. ex. Please enter your PIN, now touch the screen here (to verify fingerprint). Or, please tell me your social security number and hold the phone to your ear while we play this tone (to verify ear response). Or, please enter your password, now look into this camera (for retinal scan).
I agree biometrics are also great for identification, particularly with phones + this ear ID. For instance, when someone calls 911 they could immediately do an ear response to ID them. Biometric caller ID, you can identify who is calling you regardless of the number. Perfect for screening calls from that ousted sister in law or annoying aunt.
There is another process, more usually associated with high-power ion beams. An ion beam that travels a long distance in air can twist like a garden hose squirting water. The ion beam heats up the air it is passing through, which creates a kind of pipe through the air as the hot atoms move away. This is a nuisance if you want to make the beam go in a straight line. One way of keeping an ion-beam weapon firing straight is to put a laser pre-pulse to heat a straight line through the air for the ion beam to travel down.
Oh man that's awesome, that explains the wavy light beams from a proton pack.
Nothing has inherent value. Nice try though, sorry you were so bad at MMO's D:
I'm not speaking philosophically here. The stuff you attain in game and your accomplishments in game have literally zero value aside from perceived value and transient sense of accomplishment by yourself, and maybe a few hundred people on your server to whom it means very little.
The rewards are essentially meaningless then, so the only thing that matters is the entertainment. This may be an eye opener, but you can have fun playing a game the entire time you're playing it... that's the point, it's entertainment. MMORPG's are just good at convincing you that you need the excessive tedium.
I won't be responding anymore though. Obviously this is only my opinion and personal experience from MMORPG addiction. I wish you the best!
I was making no criticism of the 20 dollars a month spent, just citing it as a difference.
If you aren't addicted to the MMORPG and have fun playing it, then grats to you. I personally have gained very little "enjoyment" from MMORPG's aside from the addiction. Denial is part also part of the addiction and it's easy to come up with a thousand reasons why you aren't addicted.
One being the one you've outlined above, where you wouldn't be doing anything productive otherwise right?
I'm not here to judge you or tell you if you're addicted or not though. I'm just saying that there is a significant difference between browsing the web and chatting for a few hours and spending hours playing an MMORPG.
One of the things I discovered when I broke the addiction is that it's actually more fun when a game has a finite life cycle. I can now play a fun and massively less addicting new game every 3 months for the monetary price of playing an MMORPG.
The social and addiction prices are not measurable.
There's enough of that to "reward" you for playing. But of course, that's all spaced out over a lot of tedium. Most people playing WoW are bored most of the time they're on it.
Yes, but why do they play? It's quite simple: they'd be more bored if they didn't.
I know I've personally wasted hours, probably days, boredly surfing the web and chatting on MSN; what's the difference between that and doing what amounts to the same in an MMORPG?
You don't pay 20 dollars a month for it, for one.
Also you are, presumably, talking to real people on MSN and probably reading either news articles, learning or laughing at things on the web. All useful in real world social interaction.
Most importantly, you aren't bound by a very real addiction that has severe negative impacts on your real world interactions, not just by changing how you act (which it does), but making you rework your real world schedule and weekends around the game.
Well said and to add to that, the tedium and competition (even if it's amongst 3 people for something stupid) adds perceived value to something that it is otherwise valueless.
Trust me, the reward is pointless / worthless anyways. Only through acceptance of this knowledge can you attain enlightenment. God speed and best of luck with your addiction.
Everyone can't play the market or there would be no market.
So, what we have here is a boring grind-fest unless you find some way to bi-pass the grind, either by being in the small percentage who can profit from the market at the cost of others grinding, by paying others RL money to grind for you, or by other more nefarious means.
Or, play a game that doesn't require work to attain the entertainment.
Your post is pure opinion and socially relative. I personally disagree with your sentiments. It doesn't undo anything but, in my social perspective, it is just.
Slashdot Mirror
You absolutely can scientifically prove psychological addiction to games, just like you can prove addiction to gambling. That's the whole point of this and other studies, to figure it out and the level of addiction. As I said, every activity you do can form a psychological addiction. There are many studies on gambling addiction and their physical impacts on your brain and changes to behavior.
I'm sorry that you don't understand the difference between being angry that you have lost a toy and addiction and the after effects of addiction. Maybe you've never been addicted to anything. But there is a very real difference, I believe video game addicts do suffer from forms of trauma after stopping. Maybe this study will definitively prove it and map out what kinds of chemical changes happen in your head, but I believe it to be obvious since it should have the same effects that any other psychological addiction, like gambling, have.
Any studies on it would purportedly measure that trauma and the amount of trauma and compare it to known psychological addictions. You seem really hung up on the bashing of bleeding heart and exploitation thing, which are undoubtedly results of the determination of these addictions, but your anger about it doesn't somehow make something that is, by definition, an addiction not an addiction.
I'm not like anti-video game here lol. I play games all the time, it just took me a long time to realize that MMORPG's aren't really about the fun, they are about the addiction and that I need to play all games in moderation. If you can legitimately play all games in moderation without forming an addiction (some can, I can't) then I respect that and I think it's great!
I disagree with your premise that the designers don't want them to be addicted. You seem to base your entire argument on this. All they want is for the player to keep coming back and paying that monthly fee and to do this they have to hook them (addiction).
What you don't seem to grasp is that the cost per subscriber for the company is almost 0 relative to the amount of time they log in, the bandwidth means nothing it's cheap and trivial on a per subscriber basis relative to the cost of subscription even if they were logged in 24 hours a day every day. So the amount of time they play per week, whether it's high or low, means nothing... as long as they keep playing week to week.
Here's another analogy, drug dealers oftentimes give you your first high for free to hook you, after that you keep coming back. Just like MMORPG's give you the first month free to hook you.
You're also incorrect about gamblers and casinos. Casinos don't want someone to blow their entire savings in one load. They want them to lose small amounts, to the point where they don't notice it, over a long period of time and keep feeding them with as many random encounters of reward as they can (with them inevitably losing more than they've won). They want the person to keep spending 3000 dollars a year for 30 years (and tell their friends how great it is) rather than spending 20k dollars all at once and never playing again (and telling their friends how bad it was). They want to take you to the brink, but not burn you out. Which is exactly how MMORPG's are designed, they want you coming back every year.
Why do you think they focus so heavily on slot machines and other slow, low payment games now? Using your argument about bandwidth, wouldn't you think the energy cost of having someone use a slot machine over and over is more expensive than them just sitting at a table for 3 hours and losing all their money? Why do you think they give you "fluff content" for free (free shows, free drinks, cheap ass food, free rooms)?
They don't want you to come there once, they want you to keep coming back.
As the saying goes (not verbatim)... "Why kill the sheep when you can just fleece it year after year?"
Another parallel, gambling is fun for a few hours, after that the only reason to keep playing is addiction. MMORPG's are fun the first time you accomplish something (developing the strategy and the first time I finished BWL or MC was fun), the only thing that kept me coming back every week for years was the addiction.
I disagree with your conclusion as well. They design MMORPG's specifically do be addictive, they get you hooked and coming back with the minimal amount of development.
...certain video games (MMORPG's) thrive on addiction and are many times more addictive than others.
I keep seeing this "MMOs are made to be addictive" argument pop up.
Err... if you don't think MMORPG's are designed to keep people coming back, regardless of how much fun they are having, then you are just in denial. The bandwidth costs are trivial relative to the monthly fee. "New" content creation has design "features" built in to force you to repeat the same thing 100x over, the only way to make someone do a raid 1000x is through addiction. The same addiction hook that hooks gamblers.
I agree that it is a balance they have to strike. They need to keep you hooked, but they don't want to burn you out. Many people are incapable of moderation so they put artificial limits in place and just enough random encounter of reward to keep you coming back.
There is a casual crowd that got sold the game that will come and go for a few months at a time, maybe just to hang out with their friends who won't stop playing. The engine of WoW is the addicts though. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind.
I think you're wrong in your premise that calling it an addiction is some kind of excuse or enabler. Using the scientific method to determine if someone does or doesn't have an addiction (or something is or isn't highly addictive) is merely a determination of fact. The interpretation of that fact is where you take argument, and I will agree with that.
Humans are creatures of habit, any activity that we perform can become a psychological addiction, and of course there are physical addictions. Some activities are considered "highly addictive", where many humans are susceptible to forming an addiction to it. Some people also have "addictive personalities" which cause them to be more susceptible to addiction. Notice I am making no interpretation of right/wrong here or saying they are or aren't a victim, just stating facts.
addiction
-noun
the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.
http://dictionary.reference.com/dic?q=addiction&search=search
I am slightly susceptible to addiction because I am highly competitive and I like to escape reality (anything can really be considered an escape from reality, what is reality really? But I digress ;P). My point is that, from my personal experience and seeing and reading of thousands of others with the same symptoms, video games are highly addictive and certain video games (MMORPG's) thrive on addiction and are many times more addictive than others.
It'll be nice to see some more neutral research on this. We can each come to our own conclusions on the opinion aspect of it.
Here is some more information about PIN's and standards:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_DSS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PINpad
Well said sir.
I believe a lot of people here are jumping to the conclusion that biometrics sucks because it's not very useful at all for network verification. There are other things that work better there (key tokens).
When you're dealing with a physical device or, as a great example that you used, have a person monitoring the process they are just fine as part of a multifactor authentication.
Card readers often don't need cameras most of the time, sadly, since your pin is actually on the fucking card (when it shouldn't be, when the banks say it isn't) in many cases.
Finger print readers will be installed over fingerprint readers, cameras will be installed over cameras, and probulators will be installed over probulators.
Authentication MUST be done with secret information. Any biometric that can be unobtrusively obtained is essentially public information.
I work in an industry where I would know, and you're 100% incorrect in PIN information EVER being stored on the card. It's not even possible since you can change your PIN even after the issue of your card and card readers do NOT write to the card. Compliance with Visa requires that the PIN be encrypted on the pin pad itself, whatever device it's connected to only deals with an encrypted PIN, the bank itself has to receive the encrypted PIN and verify it.
No, it is not public domain after being attained once. In the case of someone getting your information, it only matters if someone gets it right once. Once you change your PIN or whatever, then any other information surrounding you means nothing since the likelihood of them scamming the same person twice in the same way is slim to none and even if they did it is unlikely they'd store your information in a database somewhere, they'd get it all together and use it at once.
I mean, your explanation that stuff will be broken is the whole point. The harder it is and higher the barrier for entry, the less often it will happen. Any system can be broken. But I mean, in this example it's a hell of a lot easier to just make a copy of the card and go anywhere you damn well please and get money than it is to create an artificial eye to fake a camera, and it's a whole hell of a lot more obvious if someone is holding up a piece of paper or object to a camera.
To say biometrics are value less in authentication is ignorant and an overstatement. They are not strong as the ONLY form of authentication, but they are very strong in multifactor authentication due to added complexity on the part of the scammer and minimal added complexity on the part of the user.
Can the uses be improved on? Absolutely. As a crazy example off the top of my head, imagine a touch screen password entry device for a safe that requires you to enter your password with the correct fingers in the correct order with multiple re-use of characters. Good luck cracking that, you'd have to get a mold of each of their fingers and enter the password just right. Add onto this the simple task of cleaning off the touchpad after you're done, now where do you easily get the finger prints?
I think biometrics are crappy for internet and network related verification, but there's already what I believe to be more than good enough technology for that (token keychains that give you a random number that updates every X amount of time that only you and the bank know, essentially a key, plus the password).
I think they are good for multifactor on physical devices.
I'm done though, you can disagree all you want, I doubt the technology is going away. I severely doubt anyone will make it through this entire message anyways.
It depends on the application.
Let me add with another example:
A common (and very lucrative) ATM scam with older ATM's (that don't include preventative security features and have dumb customers) is to install "skimmers" over top of the ATM card reader that will obtain track data every time a customer uses the ATM. The trick was they would also install a small camera next to the ATM to read the PIN entered.
They would later on just watch the video, make a copy of the card and withdraw a bunch of cash from your account (card writers are inexpensive and common). Simply adding a retinal scanner or finger print scanner would break this scam down entirely or make it an order of magnitude more difficult to pull off. Or some of them would just stand next to you and watch you enter your PIN.
http://banking.about.com/od/securityandsafety/a/skimmers.htm
The cost for the customer is very a minor inconvenience of looking into a camera or pressing a button, the reward is prevention of a large amount of cash being withdrawn from their account.
Most of these criminals aren't that complex. Adding things that are difficult to break simply and quickly (obtaining a PCB printer and creating a cast of a fingerprint or fake retinal scan aren't that simple) can really cut into the offenses.
Not necessarily. Any "security" can be broken, the more steps (or factors) there are, the more difficult and tedious it is to break.
The nice thing about some biometrics is that for the real user, it's not really inconvenient at all. As I said earlier, some examples would be "Enter your PIN, now touch the screen here", "Tell me your social security number then hold the phone to your ear" or "enter your password, now look into this camera".
All very simple and convenient for the user, I'd even go so far as to say that the biometric portion is more convenient for the user than the traditional verification part.
The additional factor just makes it that much harder for the potential perpetrator to break.
Is it breakable? Yes, of course, just about every form of authentication is breakable. Are there other stronger authentication methods? Yes, I believe there are.
The other questions to ask yourself are, "Is it more difficult to break without being inconvenient to the user?" I would say yes, it is by a good margin. It actually increases the level of difficulty for an automated system to bi-pass the security by an order of magnitude. You can brute force a password, good luck brute forcing the ear response, retinal signature or finger print.
Meh, that's why biometrics are good for multifactor authentication.
It just makes it that much harder. You have to have a fake eyeball, fake fingerprint, fake testacles and his password.
In most cases, I think they are overly complicated for identification. I'm sure there are some places where they are good though.
I disagree, biometrics are great for both.
They are particularly good when used as an additional, hassle free, authentication factor. ex. Please enter your PIN, now touch the screen here (to verify fingerprint). Or, please tell me your social security number and hold the phone to your ear while we play this tone (to verify ear response). Or, please enter your password, now look into this camera (for retinal scan).
I agree biometrics are also great for identification, particularly with phones + this ear ID. For instance, when someone calls 911 they could immediately do an ear response to ID them. Biometric caller ID, you can identify who is calling you regardless of the number. Perfect for screening calls from that ousted sister in law or annoying aunt.
Make out with skinny chicks.
There is another process, more usually associated with high-power ion beams. An ion beam that travels a long distance in air can twist like a garden hose squirting water. The ion beam heats up the air it is passing through, which creates a kind of pipe through the air as the hot atoms move away. This is a nuisance if you want to make the beam go in a straight line. One way of keeping an ion-beam weapon firing straight is to put a laser pre-pulse to heat a straight line through the air for the ion beam to travel down.
Oh man that's awesome, that explains the wavy light beams from a proton pack.
Hey, that was all the same stuff I said to myself until I stopped playing for a year. I wish you the best of luck!
Nothing has inherent value. Nice try though, sorry you were so bad at MMO's D:
I'm not speaking philosophically here. The stuff you attain in game and your accomplishments in game have literally zero value aside from perceived value and transient sense of accomplishment by yourself, and maybe a few hundred people on your server to whom it means very little.
The rewards are essentially meaningless then, so the only thing that matters is the entertainment. This may be an eye opener, but you can have fun playing a game the entire time you're playing it... that's the point, it's entertainment. MMORPG's are just good at convincing you that you need the excessive tedium.
I won't be responding anymore though. Obviously this is only my opinion and personal experience from MMORPG addiction. I wish you the best!
I was making no criticism of the 20 dollars a month spent, just citing it as a difference.
If you aren't addicted to the MMORPG and have fun playing it, then grats to you. I personally have gained very little "enjoyment" from MMORPG's aside from the addiction. Denial is part also part of the addiction and it's easy to come up with a thousand reasons why you aren't addicted.
One being the one you've outlined above, where you wouldn't be doing anything productive otherwise right?
I'm not here to judge you or tell you if you're addicted or not though. I'm just saying that there is a significant difference between browsing the web and chatting for a few hours and spending hours playing an MMORPG.
One of the things I discovered when I broke the addiction is that it's actually more fun when a game has a finite life cycle. I can now play a fun and massively less addicting new game every 3 months for the monetary price of playing an MMORPG.
The social and addiction prices are not measurable.
On the contrary, it is a well designed game for its purposes. Those purposes of which have nothing to do with skill or competition.
There's enough of that to "reward" you for playing. But of course, that's all spaced out over a lot of tedium. Most people playing WoW are bored most of the time they're on it.
Yes, but why do they play? It's quite simple: they'd be more bored if they didn't.
I know I've personally wasted hours, probably days, boredly surfing the web and chatting on MSN; what's the difference between that and doing what amounts to the same in an MMORPG?
You don't pay 20 dollars a month for it, for one.
Also you are, presumably, talking to real people on MSN and probably reading either news articles, learning or laughing at things on the web. All useful in real world social interaction.
Most importantly, you aren't bound by a very real addiction that has severe negative impacts on your real world interactions, not just by changing how you act (which it does), but making you rework your real world schedule and weekends around the game.
Well said and to add to that, the tedium and competition (even if it's amongst 3 people for something stupid) adds perceived value to something that it is otherwise valueless.
Trust me, the reward is pointless / worthless anyways. Only through acceptance of this knowledge can you attain enlightenment. God speed and best of luck with your addiction.
Everyone can't play the market or there would be no market.
So, what we have here is a boring grind-fest unless you find some way to bi-pass the grind, either by being in the small percentage who can profit from the market at the cost of others grinding, by paying others RL money to grind for you, or by other more nefarious means.
Or, play a game that doesn't require work to attain the entertainment.
Your post is pure opinion and socially relative. I personally disagree with your sentiments. It doesn't undo anything but, in my social perspective, it is just.
But what really are humans, are we all not computers at some level? And vice verse?
*falls asleep dreaming of a unicorn*