<Mod Edit: No Personal Attacks Please> The kid had ADHD, was depressed and used the MMO in the same way most of us do... escapeism.
Well newsflash, games are BAD for us, why don't we get off our ass, go outside and start picking litter of the street, or cooking home made food for homeless people??? Games are a surley waste of time, and it is the games companys' job to keep us addicted in any was psyh possible to increase thier revenue, if you don't see that then you are morons.
But. I am sure as hell not going to clean up the world, cook for starving people etc, I am going to sit on my arse, destressing after work and play a mmo for a while, because it stops me getting stress. I keep a healthy balance between real life and gaming, knowing now to put real life first, to go down the gym or spend time with the miss, but it has not always been this way....
.. playing EQ and daoc constantly, faliing my uni course, losing a 8 year relationship, losing 4 or 5 jobs because I was raiding until 4am, getting manically depressed cutting, and trying to hang myself - and this was all caused by my life going from bad to worse, the worse it got the more I would play games, the more I played games the worse it got. so when you read the last paragraph you have a Chicken and Egg situation, was it the games that caused my fall or the games that caught me - that is a debate with no real answer.
I know that when I cancelled my DOAC accounts and started going to the gym I went from 7stone to 14stone in weight (almost dead to strong) in 5 months. I'm not saying that my life improved because I cancelled, who knows, interacting with people in a mmo may of been my saftey net and I left when I was ready - but from someone looking in, it sure looked like 'take away the game the patient loks better'.
Now, for someones Mum whos kid blasted his brains out over his computer, and seeing her own son like that with half a head, dealing with that and you guys turn around and call her a 'Bad Parent' when the kid was ill (chemical imblance in the brain) and ridical her for trying to deal with her reality, you guys are the most selfish arrogant asses, my god I hope none of you have kids or if you do have kids, put them up for adoption because you are already usless as parents and cannot see past your own noses.
I just love the over the top dramatic voices of new casters, what a joke... anyway. Sure a lot of gamers flame one another and have rivalries and what not but in the end, we play games cause we enjoy the fun. We play games cause its better then sitting on your ass in front of the T.V. watching American A-hole like 90% of America.
What this story boils down to in my opinion is that society doesn't like change. They want us to sit in front of the T.V. when we get home from school or work. They want us not enjoy an alternative form of activities. They say gaming is anti-social... when was the last time you sat in a movie and talked about what was going on thru the whole thing? I mean come on. I really wish the US was like Korea when it comes to gaming. That lady that had her son die cause of his mental issues is just using EQ as a scape goat instead. What she should have done, for one... if she knew he had psychological problem... don't let the boy have a gun, or how about controlling the situation after all, she was the mother right? She has no one to blame in the whole thing but herself. I hate stories like this cause you never hear the other side... good ole land of the free, gotta love the one sided media.
First, I applaud MMORPG and its staff for addressing this crucially important topic.
Second, that Topic is addiction, which are harmful; it can be an addiction to drugs, alcohol, or internet gaming. When it begins to impact one's normal function and development and interaction, it is an addiction.
Third, the games are designed to be constantly played to keep you PAYING (not PLAYING). The industry does not try to make an addictive game to publish; they with all deliberateness and care try to make a game as addictive as possible.
Four, I think people with addictive personalities are more susceptible to a gaming addiction. The example in the article was the 21 year old who committed suicide to escape his addiction to Everquest. However, I think we need to explore what characteristics of individual personality make one more prone to become addictive to online games as opposed to drugs.
Last, we need to explore the real consequences to gaming addiction not just on the individual level but macro economic level. People addicted to online games (or anything) are not able to fulfill their potential in society; they are not producing works of art, managing a business, or even developing real friendships. The consequences of online gaming addiction might be huge.
Its not always easy for a mother to control the situation.
Myself I have a brother who is 3 years younger than me who has ADHD, with developed into Tourettes and finally paranoid schizophreina. My mother was great, raising 4 kids without a father figure all the while she was wheelchair bound. 3 of us turned out fine, the 4th one is now in jail on 54 offences and a Heroin addict with volient uncontrollable outbursts. I am sure as hell my mother TRIED to control him, but it was not possible - she told him off, he smashed up the house.
Maybe, just mabye the 'bad parent' tried to steer her son, and mabe she tried to take his rifle away - mabe he did not want to co-operate with her. I am pretty sure his mother tried, as most mothers do, to help her son because as you can see by her website, she loves him (R.I.P.).
Anyway, back to the gaming. yeah Morrdak, like you I would rather play a game and use my brain then watch TV, I have not watched TV with any frequency for about 10 years. Sure, games ARE bad, but they are a lesser evil. The real evil done here was by a mental disease that lead to OCD and finally suicide.
Still though, I see every day friends who never leave thier house, who are playing online or offline until 4am and have had no job in over 8 years, just smoking pot and playing, they never go out to be social and cannot hold girlfriends, to those people, who thank god are in the minority - they have to start by admitting they have a problem, like a alcoholic does. Unless they admit they have a problem they can never start to improve thier lifes.
The rest of us 'normal' people just play for recreation, but both camps of us need to admit that quite a few people play more than what is healthy, AND we play more than we should because the software companys design the games to do that to us. Like crack dealers.
Thankfully though in the next gen of games I am seeing a change, no more hardcore gindfests, the ablilty to login and play instanced for an hour or two, for do some pvp for a couple of hours, no more am I seeing the need to camp a spawn for 10 hours like in EQ. There IS a change going on as games mature and it is a positive good thing.
For those of you who suspect you do have a gaming problem I have a message:
Like anything, a little time investment pays dividends. go outside, get some air, visit your friends you will feel better. Join a gym go twice or three times a week and make the gym AND friends 100% a priority over gaming, there will still be time for gaming and you will feel 4x better than you do now I guarantee it.
The story in question is simply a recapitulation of a story done by, I believe it was 60 Minutes, or one of those network-type "digging for the truth" shows, back a few years. Now, I have plenty of respect for some of those shows and the information they deliver, generally, but that one, and this one, went completely mindless.
They even used the same poor slob's suicide, and the mother's conclusion that it was Everquest's fault. He had some pretty serious mental/emotional issues, plus epilepsy, but those weren't highlighted as having ANYthing to do with his suicide. He had withdrawn completely from "real life" and played EQ constantly. He had EQ running on the computer, got his rifle, sat down in his chair and blew his brains out. His mother found him some many hours later, EQ still running on the computer.
The original "story" also went into some cases of parents who got into EQ, and neglected their children. There was an unconfirmed story floating around that some woman was playing EQ while her 2 year old wandered outside and got hit by a car. Blame EQ.
Sure, there are people who become obsessed with the fantasy world they find in online games. Some are adults, some are parents, some are kids. Blaming the game, that's like the people that blame guns for gun violence, blame food for obesity.
In any situation, "reporter-types" will use the most extreme cases to make a splash, and leave the impression that this is the norm, that the problem is greater than it actually is, rather than highlight the vast majority of, in this case, online gamers who spend just a couple hours or so a day, or a few hours a week, playing, and still go about a "normal" life, because that's boring, there's nothing sensational there. But if they, in a roundabout way, make it seem like there's this huge problem, that people are being sucked into these fantasy worlds and their minds are being warped and they're losing touch with reality, and society must be INFORMED before millions more people become afflicted with the same obsession, leading to millions more suicides and broken families and distraught mothers and...
And just like a few years ago, when the national, network big time show spent 6 minutes on that story, it made no impact, other than on a bunch of gamer's website forums. And then, as now, it was held up to the appropriate ridicule it deserves.
Don't get me wrong, it's sad that that poor guy's life was so pathetic that his EQ world became so much more important that he completely disconnected from real life, and I sympathise with his family.
I'd hazard a guess that anyone who'd become severely obsessed with an online game, especially any of the big-name MMORPG's, would also develop an obsession with gambling, or become addicted to pain-killers, or become a stalker of their favorite Hollywood star, or any of a number of other obsessions, if the circumstances led them into that, rather than online games.
I liked the comment made about NASCAR fans. Did you know there are NASCAR fans who have run themselves so far into debt chasing their favorite driver, paying the outrageous prices for tickets to as many races and events as they possibly could, taking 2nd and 3rd mortgages on their homes to purchase "NASCAR memorabilia (little car replicas and driver's race suit replicas made in Bangladesh)" that they've had to file bankruptcy, created incredible hardship for their families, lost their jobs because they were taking too much time off to attend NASCAR events...? Never seen a "Nightline" investigation of that... yet. But it happens. In slightly altered circumstances, these same people might've become "online game addicts", instead.
But, I'm wasting really good EQ-playing time posting here, and I'm not going to mow the lawn or feed the dog or clean the house or answer the phone or talk to my family or... wait, ordering pizza - delivery, of course... the only reason I go to work is so I can pay the cable and electricity and keep buying SOE game cards because I already cancelled my credit cards they were max'd anyway it's a good thing Pizza Hut sells and delivers Pepsi also so I don't really need anything else running EQ patcher now gotta go log on bye have fun raiding in CoA today and then got a guild group for Ashengate for a few hours I have 1700 AAs don't really need exp any more but this is my life this is what I do patcher's finished logging in now
Its not always easy for a mother to control the situation.
Myself I have a brother who is 3 years younger than me who has ADHD, with developed into Tourettes and finally paranoid schizophreina. My mother was great, raising 4 kids without a father figure all the while she was wheelchair bound. 3 of us turned out fine, the 4th one is now in jail on 54 offences and a Heroin addict with volient uncontrollable outbursts. I am sure as hell my mother TRIED to control him, but it was not possible - she told him off, he smashed up the house.
Maybe, just mabye the 'bad parent' tried to steer her son, and mabe she tried to take his rifle away - mabe he did not want to co-operate with her. I am pretty sure his mother tried, as most mothers do, to help her son because as you can see by her website, she loves him (R.I.P.).
I see your point Slide, however those circumstances you describe are a bit extreme, and you're right you can't control kids that do that, however. There are many ways to deal with people that have psychological issues, blaming his gaming habits and putting it on other people saying all gaming is bad, isn't a way. The same thing is going on with smoking right now. Every day smokers are loosing their right to smoke, just last night the government is going after cigerette companies to increase the tax and decrease the nicotine, you think its the smokers that want this change? No... if we're not careful the government will get their little grimy hands in to everything we allow them too.
All in all, I see what you are saying Slide, but to me, it should be the parents job to regulate what their children do, watch, and participate in. If you can't control them, then get help in doing so... cause its not our fault you kid goes crazy every time his character dies in game. That's all I'm saying.
Philadelphia's 6-ABC has posted a video report titled "Dangers of Internet Gaming" covering the topic of game addiction. The report begins on the sensationalist end of the spectrum with a few stories of gaming obsession, but toward the end offers some reasonable advice for gamers and parents on how to moderate behavior and avoid the pitfalls of addiction.
But Elizabeth Woolley says a game similar to World of Warcraft, called Everquest, didn't just cause her 21 year-old son to become a recluse. She believes it contributed to his suicide. "He was sitting there in front of the computer on his chair with the Everquest game on it and he had a rifle," said Woolley.
Woolley says her son, Shawn, played Everquest constantly, stopped taking his ADD and epilepsy medicine, quit his job and cut off his phone, basically ending all communication with his friends and family. "I guess my big thing is my anger towards the gaming companies because they are using this as a drug and they're getting their own customers addicted for money," said Woolley.
But Dudley is skeptical video games could cause anyone to commit suicide. "Millions of people play these games every day and they don't have a problem, but some are missing that connection with real life," said Dudley.
Dudley says children or adults who become obsessed with video games often have a history of struggling with depression or anxiety. The game, she says, is simply a catalyst, similar to drugs, alcohol or gambling.
Dudley says parents can help prevent problem playing by setting boundaries. Limit the amount of time per day a child is in front of the computer or TV.
Wow.I currently game about 40hrs a week and i don't think i have ever thought about suicide or cutting my connections with my friend's or family,I still go out and enjoy the occasional movie/hang out with friends..This article is bull it seems he had other problems before he started sitting in front of a computer.This is not a deadly addiction and anybody who sees that way should go do some cocaine and find out what a deadly addiction is ..It also seems that she isn't a great mother so yeah
MMORPG's Under my belt:UO,EQ1,EQ2,SWG,L2,COH,COV,WoW,AC2,Shadowbane,DAOC,FFXI,GW,D&D,V:SOH,LOTR:O
urgh.... don't get me started on this again, I'm SO sick of seeing these kind of crap articles posted about parents who can't control their own kids properly! A bloody rifle? That's not very clever..... yeesh...
If you actually knew anything about that woman' s story you'd know that the guy was 1. an adult and 2. had a history of mental illness. Oh wait...the article DID say that. She's looking for someone to blame out of her grief, her son had problems, cut himself off from the world and when the money ran out for Everquest he killed himself (remembers this case really well because she was at the height of her EQ addiction). Her view is definitly one sided thanks to her son's death, but atleast she's trying to be active with starting a support group she just needs to realize they have alot of other issues that need support first to fully help their over addictive gaming.
BTW this is a professional article and not even a biased one how can you call it crappy? She had people from both sides of the pole, a gamer who's parents limit his time(even tho he's already fully addicted), a pyschologist that acknowledges that the real problem with some of the over addictive players are outside the game issues, and one parent who wants to blame games.
The overly addictive giving up your lives behavior needs to be heard about, it needs to be addressed so that parents and family members know the signs to look for. So they know they need to try and do something. I love gaming, but I'm not about to give up my life over it, no one should.
Games are addictive (not deadly, I know what a real deadly addiction can do i've seen it first hand with my younger brother) but that doesn't make them the stem of all evil, it does't make them at fault for when someone breaks. We're each responsible for ourselves.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Hummm......... He stopped taking his ADD and epilepsy medicine.
Number One.
She needs to be more responsible for her son and not just dump some medicine down his gullet.
Number Two.
Attention Deficit Disorder n. (Abbr. ADD) A syndrome, usually diagnosed in childhood, characterized by a persistent pattern of impulsiveness, a short attention span, and often hyperactivity, and interfering especially with academic, occupational, and social performance.
How in the hell are you going to tell me that some one plays MMO’s with ADD, it does not make since look at the Definition!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seems she should have been taking her son to another doctor for another option.
Number Three:
Pisses me off to see the Media start bashing the Video Game World and only give one side to the story, I bet 100 bucks there is more to that kid’s life that made him take his own life.
Number Four:
Everquest has this come up before you play!!! Iit she needed to be reading it before she let her son play this game. Looks like she did not take the responsibility to do that either.
WARNING: READ BEFORE PLAYING
A very small percentage of individuals may experience epileptic seizures when exposed to certain light patterns or flashing lights. Exposure to certain patterns or backgrounds on a computer screen, or while playing video games, may induce an epileptic seizure in these individuals. Certain conditions may induce previously undetected epileptic symptoms even in persons who have no history of prior seizures or epilepsy. <---- Hello
If you, or anyone in your family, have an epileptic condition, consult your physician prior to playing. If you experience any of the following symptoms while playing a video or computer game -- dizziness, altered vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of awareness, disorientation, any involuntary movement, or convulsions -- IMMEDIATELY discontinue use and consult your physician before resuming play.
As a Father, I have to say it is the parents responsibility to take care of there children, and to see people blame things like video games for there children’s action is just pisses me off.
Rant Stoped........ If you dont what to be responsible for you kids and what they do don't have them.
Well you guys are arrogant w**kers. The kid had ADHD, was depressed and used the MMO in the same way most of us do... escapeism.
Well newsflash, games are BAD for us, why don't we get off our ass, go outside and start picking litter of the street, or cooking home made food for homeless people??? Games are a surley waste of time, and it is the games companys' job to keep us addicted in any was psyh possible to increase thier revenue, if you don't see that then you are morons.
But. I am sure as hell not going to clean up the world, cook for starving people etc, I am going to sit on my arse, destressing after work and play a mmo for a while, because it stops me getting stress. I keep a healthy balance between real life and gaming, knowing now to put real life first, to go down the gym or spend time with the miss, but it has not always been this way....
.. playing EQ and daoc constantly, faliing my uni course, losing a 8 year relationship, losing 4 or 5 jobs because I was raiding until 4am, getting manically depressed cutting, and trying to hang myself - and this was all caused by my life going from bad to worse, the worse it got the more I would play games, the more I played games the worse it got. so when you read the last paragraph you have a Chicken and Egg situation, was it the games that caused my fall or the games that caught me - that is a debate with no real answer.
I know that when I cancelled my DOAC accounts and started going to the gym I went from 7stone to 14stone in weight (almost dead to strong) in 5 months. I'm not saying that my life improved because I cancelled, who knows, interacting with people in a mmo may of been my saftey net and I left when I was ready - but from someone looking in, it sure looked like 'take away the game the patient loks better'.
Now, for someones Mum whos kid blasted his brains out over his computer, and seeing her own son like that with half a head, dealing with that and you guys turn around and call her a 'Bad Parent' when the kid was ill (chemical imblance in the brain) and ridical her for trying to deal with her reality, you guys are the most selfish arrogant asses, my god I hope none of you have kids or if you do have kids, put them up for adoption because you are already usless as parents and cannot see past your own noses.
You don't have any idea what you are talking about.
We absolutely have the right to defend ourselves from attacks of this kind by discrediting the accuser as a ineffectual censorship nazi. And humor is one of the best defenses against this type of nonsense. A young man's suicide is a very sad thing, but the guilt for such an act lies on the person that did the deed, and him alone. I think you'll find that standing up in any court in the United States. I am certainly not going to lose and sleep over it or re-examine my choice of lifestyle because this women couldn't get her son the help he had obviously needed for some time.
There is nothing wrong with having a hobby. My hobby is online gaming. I'm good at it. I enjoy it. I've met and begun friendships with dozens of individuals I would have never met if it weren't for games like EQ and WoW. Some people even meet their spouses and start families over the online world.
I also play golf, baseball, basketball, chess, write music, enjoy art & film. I like manning the grill at a barbeque, drinking beer while fishing with my dad, and going out to concerts and dancing with pretty girls. Any one of these things could easily become an obsession that interfers with my responsibilities to my family, friends, and employers, but like online gaming, I am in control.
Are there dangers to excessive online gaming? Of course, just like their are dangers in to much TV, and it's nothing a little education and awareness can't solve. Fingerpointing and book burning does nothing for anyone except for the creatures that thrive in this sort of environment, like this nutcase mom that started mmo anonymous or w/e it's called.
It sounds like you have some serious problems. I hope you are working to overcome them. If we knew eachother in real life I would like to help.
But if you think I'm going to stand by while you and your kind call me and mine a bunch of useless arrogant wankers and blame us for society's downfall you can go screw a goat.
I think it is more than just games really, some people are mentally unstable. We must remember that if your friend committed suicide you might look for something to blame.
We all need something in our life is the point, if you have nothing then you feel empty. The parents or the friends of the boy should have stopped and spent more time with him. I bring up how I am sure some of you feel very bad if you are scammed or betrayed in a game. These MMO's might be games but they are real in many ways and you can get attached to them with real emotions. It is like in Throw Momma from the Train. Danny Devito plays a character named Owen who has a coin collection that is just a bunch of every day change. To us it would be a hand full of dimes, quarters, nickels and pennies etc. Owen though had memories with them, from his first ball game with his father etc. Now if Owen lost these he would be heart broken I am sure. It is no different than us getting attached to something in game. It is human nature in my opinion, you bond with things that mean nothing to others but mean the world to you. I am sure all of us have some item we look at and cherish.
The kid obviously was mentally unstable and lonely, being alone is a terrible mix with depression. The kid had something he cared dearly for taken away so he felt helpless and could not face it anymore. It is no different than someone being dumped and feeling bad. While you think it is different the person who just lost a plat to a scam does not.
Thats why in game, be nice to people, never know who you help just by being nice.
Try to remember to give your family a call every so often. If you ever feel lonely don't fret try to find someone to chat with or call up an old friend. If you take that lonely girl or guy you know and ask them over for a gaming night, you just might make them the happiest they have ever been. I am sure that someone cared for the kid though and never called or hung out with him enough. Think about that enxt time you ignore people who seem lonely.
Be cool to people, and try and stay cool that way you never have to regret making someone feel bad. Don't take what ya got granted because some people never get to feel happy. We get to play these great MMOs and surf a good site. Be thankful for what ya got and next time ya feel down imagine a fat sea otter waddling with a pillow and a night cap. Bam! smiles!
I remember when I first tried playing Dungeons & Dragons in elementary school. It was so much fun to "role-play" a character with a group of friends. Even though I was active playing sports, reading and writing at the time (healthy interests), the second my mother heard about it she became upset. Apparently a person had committed suicide when their D&D character was killed during an adventure. This event caused a lot of negative press for D&D and role-playing in general.
What surprises me most now, as an adult, is the ability for people to condemn anything based on a few isolated situations - situations that are typically far more complex than they seem at face value. A normal, well-adjusted person would not kill themselves because their character (a fantasy, made up alter-ego) dies. Someone with serious social/mental issues, perhaps holding onto their alter-ego as the only joy or hope in their otherwise unhappy life, might.
Long story short, many people have disruptive or destructive psychological tendencies that are possible becoming more widely exposed, and the triggers for these tendencies are more accessible. People DO become addicted to games, especially MMOs. However, these people typically have other issues in their life or psyche that make this addiction more likely. As with all addictions, they are unhealthy - everything in moderation.
what we have here is basically something without right or wrong. By it's very definition games can not be good or bad... the values we attach to them can be good or bad... games can not... no more then trees or your wallpaper.
With that being said i agree to the fact that a addiction can be and most of the the time is very bad for your health, and while i myself have the attention span of a goldfish and therefor have a hard time sitting through a task-force let alone grind for several H's.... I have worked within the soft-core gambling world of Bingo and video-slots and have many sad stories of people who have gotten to caught up in what should be a innocent past-time.
I can understand that mother in the article, finally finding something that gave her son some peace of mind... and how she then had to watch him fade away, i can understand her anger. And at the same time i can understand the very defensive stance taken here, we who game as a past-time has over they years been flogged form every possible angle by people who range from wise to uninformed to miss-guided to outright fanatics.
In the end there are no right or wrong... we are all masters of our own life to one degree or another and in the end we choose what to do with it, in this some will always find that life or death is the the only thing they control. I will never see face to face with that but that is my choice.
thus end my random musing and this old man shall get some rest.
Well you guys are arrogant w**kers. The kid had ADHD, was depressed and used the MMO in the same way most of us do... escapeism.
Well newsflash, games are BAD for us, why don't we get off our ass, go outside and start picking litter of the street, or cooking home made food for homeless people??? Games are a surley waste of time, and it is the games companys' job to keep us addicted in any was psyh possible to increase thier revenue, if you don't see that then you are morons.
But. I am sure as hell not going to clean up the world, cook for starving people etc, I am going to sit on my arse, destressing after work and play a mmo for a while, because it stops me getting stress. I keep a healthy balance between real life and gaming, knowing now to put real life first, to go down the gym or spend time with the miss, but it has not always been this way....
.. playing EQ and daoc constantly, faliing my uni course, losing a 8 year relationship, losing 4 or 5 jobs because I was raiding until 4am, getting manically depressed cutting, and trying to hang myself - and this was all caused by my life going from bad to worse, the worse it got the more I would play games, the more I played games the worse it got. so when you read the last paragraph you have a Chicken and Egg situation, was it the games that caused my fall or the games that caught me - that is a debate with no real answer.
I know that when I cancelled my DOAC accounts and started going to the gym I went from 7stone to 14stone in weight (almost dead to strong) in 5 months. I'm not saying that my life improved because I cancelled, who knows, interacting with people in a mmo may of been my saftey net and I left when I was ready - but from someone looking in, it sure looked like 'take away the game the patient loks better'.
Now, for someones Mum whos kid blasted his brains out over his computer, and seeing her own son like that with half a head, dealing with that and you guys turn around and call her a 'Bad Parent' when the kid was ill (chemical imblance in the brain) and ridical her for trying to deal with her reality, you guys are the most selfish arrogant asses, my god I hope none of you have kids or if you do have kids, put them up for adoption because you are already usless as parents and cannot see past your own noses.
You don't have any idea what you are talking about.
We absolutely have the right to defend ourselves from attacks of this kind by discrediting the accuser as a ineffectual censorship nazi. And humor is one of the best defenses against this type of nonsense. A young man's suicide is a very sad thing, but the guilt for such an act lies on the person that did the deed, and him alone. I think you'll find that standing up in any court in the United States. I am certainly not going to lose and sleep over it or re-examine my choice of lifestyle because this women couldn't get her son the help he had obviously needed for some time.
There is nothing wrong with having a hobby. My hobby is online gaming. I'm good at it. I enjoy it. I've met and begun friendships with dozens of individuals I would have never met if it weren't for games like EQ and WoW. Some people even meet their spouses and start families over the online world.
I also play golf, baseball, basketball, chess, write music, enjoy art & film. I like manning the grill at a barbeque, drinking beer while fishing with my dad, and going out to concerts and dancing with pretty girls. Any one of these things could easily become an obsession that interfers with my responsibilities to my family, friends, and employers, but like online gaming, I am in control.
Are there dangers to excessive online gaming? Of course, just like their are dangers in to much TV, and it's nothing a little education and awareness can't solve. Fingerpointing and book burning does nothing for anyone except for the creatures that thrive in this sort of environment, like this nutcase mom that started mmo anonymous or w/e it's called.
It sounds like you have some serious problems. I hope you are working to overcome them. If we knew eachother in real life I would like to help.
But if you think I'm going to stand by while you and your kind call me and mine a bunch of useless arrogant wankers and blame us for society's downfall you can go screw a goat.
First of all slide_k9, you are the most sane and decent fellow here.
Second off, I never really expected a bunch of online junkies to admit, "hey online gaming isn't the healthiest thing to do." That would imply that we are sick, and so we'll rationalize however we need to in order to convince ourselves that it isn't a problem.
BigBlackWook, it sounds to me that you are the one with a lot more serious of a problem than slide_k9. Your post is filled with an emotional content that is inappropriate. You find a lot of such posts on boards all around online gaming. Then again, nobody ever said that habitual online gamers were the most balanced people out there.
See BigBlackWook, you say that "a young man's suicide is a very sad thing," but you feel no sadness. Otherwise you wouldn't of said all the condecending things you did about the guy, about the mother, about slide_k9, or probably about me, once you get wind of this post. People like us love the internet because it makes us feel like we have some power over something important.
The problem is that nothing here is important, and nothing that goes on in online games is important. Don't even tell me that it is, because anyone other than we online gamers would think its nuts to even consider that this crap is important.
I'm not saying that online gaming causes despair, but I do know that desperate people play them. The more desperate they are, the more they play them. And what causes this spiritual desperation? Bad luck. Hardship. Any number of chance circumstances in our daily lives that cause us to feel that we cannot influence our reality in any meanigful way.
See, the reason people tend to rely on the internet, and internet gaming, is that it gives us a feeling of control over something that seems meaningful. We pay, we level, we work with others, we get some semblance of prestige, and a sense of accomplishment. If things get hopeless, we turn it off. If someone says something we don't want to hear, we /ignore them, or flame them on the boards. Seeing as how this level of control over one's circumstances isn't around in reality, its no wonder why we play online games. Its just so better in there than reality. Ignore it and it will go away.
But the problem is that its a lie. All of it. The 'friends,' the 'accomplishments;' all of it isn't real. I never said it wasn't a nice lie, but its a lie nonetheless.
The social critic Hannah Arendt once talked about technology as a table. It brings people together, but it also separates them. If the table uniting several people disappears, the people there no longer have anything to hold them together. Such is the same with computers. If the technology is the thing that brings people together, then the friendship is only as good as long as the technology is out there. The very technology that brings people together also becomes another complexity that keeps people from ever having genuine friendships.
I oftentimes wondered what would have happened to those few examples that every internet addict brings up of spouses who would meet up online if one of their computers no longer worked? What would have occurred if the internet service blanked out at an inopportune time? What would happen if one or the other of them met someone in their neigborhood who was far more real than any internet fiction? And that's basically what we all are here to eachother: just real enough, but nothing that can take the place of the genuine.
So you see BigBadWook, you may say here on the public boards that you'd like to help, if you knew slide_k9 in real life. The problem is, you'll never allow yourself to know slide_k9 in real life; and frankly, I really don't think he needs help from the likes of you. Because slide_k9 is right. If the vitrol I see on the boards and in the games is any indication of the health of the people who play them, its no wonder why we are in the games, and why society is such a drag. We wouldn't be here if life wasn't such a drag, and life wouldn't be such a drag if we would just live it, instead of escaping to the internet.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
What this article is really, another fine example of what our world has become. Its very sad to see the genral public is on such a self anhilistic path. The Path of finding more ways to avoid responsibilty. Point more fingers so its not your fault!
What Im saying is the parents. Its not the game mind controlling your kids, husbands, wives, friends.
Today the laywer mentallity of finding every reason under the sun for a excuse for your own actions to not be the problem, and its "internet gaming" its Chat rooms.. no its music ... its movies ... its music videos ... its, its ... anything BUT my fault..
So did you know no one ever commited suicide before everquest !!!! and no one ever shot a gun or raised a weapon in anger in all of history till DOOM was released...
Our society need to seriously Wake the F*** up and step up and own there own flaws. Maybe guilt sucks but denial is poisoning the rest of the world..
Maybe if a parents would spend time with a kid OTHER THEN yelling at them and telling them how messed up they are. Stop expecting your children to KNow better, and teach them. Dont say thats wrong you should know better.. they wont know if you dont teach them. THey Wont assume you love them if you never tell them... same for husbands/wives, everyone.
If Joe X master on-line gammer cuts off contact to the real world. WHat is that really saying. THat is saying he/she feels there is no point to be "in contact" thats not the fault of the GAME!! IF your so called friends and family only give you problems or if Joe Gammer is getting ignored anyway , of coarse he will spend his waking life in game cause at least there people do basic common curtesy that is lost in the real world.
Now mind you I play and log in many hours so a fanatic can easily say Im biased here. But you know what .. yes Iam..
Ill admit that , but accepting that proves my point . The world is cold.. hard. heartless where the average stranger will only see you as something in there way to what they want. And they'd just assume run you off the road or shoot you then say Hi.
In a game, you can say hey you perfect stranger Ive never spoke to before in my life, I NEED your help, Im lost i dont know what to do..... and you know...80%...maybe 90% of the time that stranger will stop what there doing and say look all you need to do is ....or sometimes go out of there way to help you, add you to there guild and welcome you in.
or even simplier then that... hello.. good bye... good luck... please.... thank you...
all things lost in the real world to assumption to inconvinace to self blinding greed of Life, like 'lil rats on a scrap of wood in a sinking ship. So yes when there is 10 million, 20 million of us gammers, that speak our own language, typo'd and abbrivated as it may be, WE understand , and give that lil bit of common ground and respect as to say HI... say please.. say thank you..
WE are not the ones that are wrong , we are the future, we are the only thing close to Humanity left in a world of road rage, high school shootings, suicide, terroism in the name of religion, and a wars fought for the profit of a oil company.
WE ARE NOT the ones raping and killing in the streets... NO were at home safe and helping each other with quests.. AND those left out of that are jelious and feel left out, so they attack the internet community cause its human nature to fear and hate that which they dont understand.
GAMMERS you are not the problem, you are the last little bit of deciency left in a insane world... and you are our future.
I cant wait for the future when our children grow up and are in power, when they know what team work is , know what please and thank you is even if it is "Plz" and "ty" thats far mroe then waht this current generation in power has taught anyone. they're get what I can for myself before someone kills me , kill or be killed attitude ...let it DIE with them in there old age as the future comes to present and gammers grow up and are the leader the world will be better.
When they are the leaders, I hope and prey they remeber that feeling of satifaction of being in a good guild and want those good things in the real world as well as game.
Miataka (+many sub variation of that) ~WoW (Kael'Thas, USA) MiaTaka ~ RF On-line (Fire Server) -Mia- takahashi ~SWG (Europe-chimaera) Miataki Valeinca ~EQ 2 (everfrost) MiaTaka Soyinka ~Second Life
Comments
Well newsflash, games are BAD for us, why don't we get off our ass, go outside and start picking litter of the street, or cooking home made food for homeless people??? Games are a surley waste of time, and it is the games companys' job to keep us addicted in any was psyh possible to increase thier revenue, if you don't see that then you are morons.
But. I am sure as hell not going to clean up the world, cook for starving people etc, I am going to sit on my arse, destressing after work and play a mmo for a while, because it stops me getting stress. I keep a healthy balance between real life and gaming, knowing now to put real life first, to go down the gym or spend time with the miss, but it has not always been this way....
.. playing EQ and daoc constantly, faliing my uni course, losing a 8 year relationship, losing 4 or 5 jobs because I was raiding until 4am, getting manically depressed cutting, and trying to hang myself - and this was all caused by my life going from bad to worse, the worse it got the more I would play games, the more I played games the worse it got. so when you read the last paragraph you have a Chicken and Egg situation, was it the games that caused my fall or the games that caught me - that is a debate with no real answer.
I know that when I cancelled my DOAC accounts and started going to the gym I went from 7stone to 14stone in weight (almost dead to strong) in 5 months. I'm not saying that my life improved because I cancelled, who knows, interacting with people in a mmo may of been my saftey net and I left when I was ready - but from someone looking in, it sure looked like 'take away the game the patient loks better'.
Now, for someones Mum whos kid blasted his brains out over his computer, and seeing her own son like that with half a head, dealing with that and you guys turn around and call her a 'Bad Parent' when the kid was ill (chemical imblance in the brain) and ridical her for trying to deal with her reality, you guys are the most selfish arrogant asses, my god I hope none of you have kids or if you do have kids, put them up for adoption because you are already usless as parents and cannot see past your own noses.
slide
What this story boils down to in my opinion is that society doesn't like change. They want us to sit in front of the T.V. when we get home from school or work. They want us not enjoy an alternative form of activities. They say gaming is anti-social...
Second, that Topic is addiction, which are harmful; it can be an addiction to drugs, alcohol, or internet gaming. When it begins to impact one's normal function and development and interaction, it is an addiction.
Third, the games are designed to be constantly played to keep you PAYING (not PLAYING). The industry does not try to make an addictive game to publish; they with all deliberateness and care try to make a game as addictive as possible.
Four, I think people with addictive personalities are more susceptible to a gaming addiction. The example in the article was the 21 year old who committed suicide to escape his addiction to Everquest. However, I think we need to explore what characteristics of individual personality make one more prone to become addictive to online games as opposed to drugs.
Last, we need to explore the real consequences to gaming addiction not just on the individual level but macro economic level. People addicted to online games (or anything) are not able to fulfill their potential in society; they are not producing works of art, managing a business, or even developing real friendships. The consequences of online gaming addiction might be huge.
Excellent and most relevant Topic, MMORPG!
Myself I have a brother who is 3 years younger than me who has ADHD, with developed into Tourettes and finally paranoid schizophreina. My mother was great, raising 4 kids without a father figure all the while she was wheelchair bound. 3 of us turned out fine, the 4th one is now in jail on 54 offences and a Heroin addict with volient uncontrollable outbursts. I am sure as hell my mother TRIED to control him, but it was not possible - she told him off, he smashed up the house.
Maybe, just mabye the 'bad parent' tried to steer her son, and mabe she tried to take his rifle away - mabe he did not want to co-operate with her. I am pretty sure his mother tried, as most mothers do, to help her son because as you can see by her website, she loves him (R.I.P.).
Anyway, back to the gaming. yeah Morrdak, like you I would rather play a game and use my brain then watch TV, I have not watched TV with any frequency for about 10 years. Sure, games ARE bad, but they are a lesser evil. The real evil done here was by a mental disease that lead to OCD and finally suicide.
Still though, I see every day friends who never leave thier house, who are playing online or offline until 4am and have had no job in over 8 years, just smoking pot and playing, they never go out to be social and cannot hold girlfriends, to those people, who thank god are in the minority - they have to start by admitting they have a problem, like a alcoholic does. Unless they admit they have a problem they can never start to improve thier lifes.
The rest of us 'normal' people just play for recreation, but both camps of us need to admit that quite a few people play more than what is healthy, AND we play more than we should because the software companys design the games to do that to us. Like crack dealers.
Thankfully though in the next gen of games I am seeing a change, no more hardcore gindfests, the ablilty to login and play instanced for an hour or two, for do some pvp for a couple of hours, no more am I seeing the need to camp a spawn for 10 hours like in EQ. There IS a change going on as games mature and it is a positive good thing.
For those of you who suspect you do have a gaming problem I have a message:
Like anything, a little time investment pays dividends. go outside, get some air, visit your friends you will feel better. Join a gym go twice or three times a week and make the gym AND friends 100% a priority over gaming, there will still be time for gaming and you will feel 4x better than you do now I guarantee it.
slide
The story in question is simply a recapitulation of a story done by, I believe it was 60 Minutes, or one of those network-type "digging for the truth" shows, back a few years. Now, I have plenty of respect for some of those shows and the information they deliver, generally, but that one, and this one, went completely mindless.
They even used the same poor slob's suicide, and the mother's conclusion that it was Everquest's fault. He had some pretty serious mental/emotional issues, plus epilepsy, but those weren't highlighted as having ANYthing to do with his suicide. He had withdrawn completely from "real life" and played EQ constantly. He had EQ running on the computer, got his rifle, sat down in his chair and blew his brains out. His mother found him some many hours later, EQ still running on the computer.
The original "story" also went into some cases of parents who got into EQ, and neglected their children. There was an unconfirmed story floating around that some woman was playing EQ while her 2 year old wandered outside and got hit by a car. Blame EQ.
Sure, there are people who become obsessed with the fantasy world they find in online games. Some are adults, some are parents, some are kids. Blaming the game, that's like the people that blame guns for gun violence, blame food for obesity.
In any situation, "reporter-types" will use the most extreme cases to make a splash, and leave the impression that this is the norm, that the problem is greater than it actually is, rather than highlight the vast majority of, in this case, online gamers who spend just a couple hours or so a day, or a few hours a week, playing, and still go about a "normal" life, because that's boring, there's nothing sensational there. But if they, in a roundabout way, make it seem like there's this huge problem, that people are being sucked into these fantasy worlds and their minds are being warped and they're losing touch with reality, and society must be INFORMED before millions more people become afflicted with the same obsession, leading to millions more suicides and broken families and distraught mothers and...
And just like a few years ago, when the national, network big time show spent 6 minutes on that story, it made no impact, other than on a bunch of gamer's website forums. And then, as now, it was held up to the appropriate ridicule it deserves.
Don't get me wrong, it's sad that that poor guy's life was so pathetic that his EQ world became so much more important that he completely disconnected from real life, and I sympathise with his family.
I'd hazard a guess that anyone who'd become severely obsessed with an online game, especially any of the big-name MMORPG's, would also develop an obsession with gambling, or become addicted to pain-killers, or become a stalker of their favorite Hollywood star, or any of a number of other obsessions, if the circumstances led them into that, rather than online games.
I liked the comment made about NASCAR fans. Did you know there are NASCAR fans who have run themselves so far into debt chasing their favorite driver, paying the outrageous prices for tickets to as many races and events as they possibly could, taking 2nd and 3rd mortgages on their homes to purchase "NASCAR memorabilia (little car replicas and driver's race suit replicas made in Bangladesh)" that they've had to file bankruptcy, created incredible hardship for their families, lost their jobs because they were taking too much time off to attend NASCAR events...? Never seen a "Nightline" investigation of that... yet. But it happens. In slightly altered circumstances, these same people might've become "online game addicts", instead.
But, I'm wasting really good EQ-playing time posting here, and I'm not going to mow the lawn or feed the dog or clean the house or answer the phone or talk to my family or... wait, ordering pizza - delivery, of course... the only reason I go to work is so I can pay the cable and electricity and keep buying SOE game cards because I already cancelled my credit cards they were max'd anyway it's a good thing Pizza Hut sells and delivers Pepsi also so I don't really need anything else running EQ patcher now gotta go log on bye have fun raiding in CoA today and then got a guild group for Ashengate for a few hours I have 1700 AAs don't really need exp any more but this is my life this is what I do patcher's finished logging in now
All in all, I see what you are saying Slide, but to me, it should be the parents job to regulate what their children do, watch, and participate in. If you can't control them, then get help in doing so... cause its not our fault you kid goes crazy every time his character dies in game. That's all I'm saying.
MMORPG's Under my belt:UO,EQ1,EQ2,SWG,L2,COH,COV,WoW,AC2,Shadowbane,DAOC,FFXI,GW,D&D,V:SOH,LOTR:O
If you actually knew anything about that woman' s story you'd know that the guy was 1. an adult and 2. had a history of mental illness. Oh wait...the article DID say that. She's looking for someone to blame out of her grief, her son had problems, cut himself off from the world and when the money ran out for Everquest he killed himself (remembers this case really well because she was at the height of her EQ addiction). Her view is definitly one sided thanks to her son's death, but atleast she's trying to be active with starting a support group she just needs to realize they have alot of other issues that need support first to fully help their over addictive gaming.
BTW this is a professional article and not even a biased one how can you call it crappy? She had people from both sides of the pole, a gamer who's parents limit his time(even tho he's already fully addicted), a pyschologist that acknowledges that the real problem with some of the over addictive players are outside the game issues, and one parent who wants to blame games.
The overly addictive giving up your lives behavior needs to be heard about, it needs to be addressed so that parents and family members know the signs to look for. So they know they need to try and do something. I love gaming, but I'm not about to give up my life over it, no one should.
Games are addictive (not deadly, I know what a real deadly addiction can do i've seen it first hand with my younger brother) but that doesn't make them the stem of all evil, it does't make them at fault for when someone breaks. We're each responsible for ourselves.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Number One.
She needs to be more responsible for her son and not just dump some medicine down his gullet.
Number Two.
Attention Deficit Disorder n. (Abbr. ADD) A syndrome, usually diagnosed in childhood, characterized by a persistent pattern of impulsiveness, a short attention span, and often hyperactivity, and interfering especially with academic, occupational, and social performance.
How in the hell are you going to tell me that some one plays MMO’s with ADD, it does not make since look at the Definition!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seems she should have been taking her son to another doctor for another option.
Number Three:
Pisses me off to see the Media start bashing the Video Game World and only give one side to the story, I bet 100 bucks there is more to that kid’s life that made him take his own life.
Number Four:
Everquest has this come up before you play!!! Iit she needed to be reading it before she let her son play this game. Looks like she did not take the responsibility to do that either.
WARNING: READ BEFORE PLAYING
A very small percentage of individuals may experience epileptic seizures when exposed to certain light patterns or flashing lights. Exposure to certain patterns or backgrounds on a computer screen, or while playing video games, may induce an epileptic seizure in these individuals. Certain conditions may induce previously undetected epileptic symptoms even in persons who have no history of prior seizures or epilepsy. <---- Hello
If you, or anyone in your family, have an epileptic condition, consult your physician prior to playing. If you experience any of the following symptoms while playing a video or computer game -- dizziness, altered vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of awareness, disorientation, any involuntary movement, or convulsions -- IMMEDIATELY discontinue use and consult your physician before resuming play.
As a Father, I have to say it is the parents responsibility to take care of there children, and to see people blame things like video games for there children’s action is just pisses me off.
Rant Stoped........ If you dont what to be responsible for you kids and what they do don't have them.UO-EQ1-SWG-DAOC-WOW-EQ2-WAR-GW2-RIFT
You don't have any idea what you are talking about.
We absolutely have the right to defend ourselves from attacks of this kind by discrediting the accuser as a ineffectual censorship nazi. And humor is one of the best defenses against this type of nonsense. A young man's suicide is a very sad thing, but the guilt for such an act lies on the person that did the deed, and him alone. I think you'll find that standing up in any court in the United States. I am certainly not going to lose and sleep over it or re-examine my choice of lifestyle because this women couldn't get her son the help he had obviously needed for some time.
There is nothing wrong with having a hobby. My hobby is online gaming. I'm good at it. I enjoy it. I've met and begun friendships with dozens of individuals I would have never met if it weren't for games like EQ and WoW. Some people even meet their spouses and start families over the online world.
I also play golf, baseball, basketball, chess, write music, enjoy art & film. I like manning the grill at a barbeque, drinking beer while fishing with my dad, and going out to concerts and dancing with pretty girls. Any one of these things could easily become an obsession that interfers with my responsibilities to my family, friends, and employers, but like online gaming, I am in control.
Are there dangers to excessive online gaming? Of course, just like their are dangers in to much TV, and it's nothing a little education and awareness can't solve. Fingerpointing and book burning does nothing for anyone except for the creatures that thrive in this sort of environment, like this nutcase mom that started mmo anonymous or w/e it's called.
It sounds like you have some serious problems. I hope you are working to overcome them. If we knew eachother in real life I would like to help.
But if you think I'm going to stand by while you and your kind call me and mine a bunch of useless arrogant wankers and blame us for society's downfall you can go screw a goat.
what mass murderer was it that said his neighbors dog told him to kill people. dogs should be outlawed.
We all need something in our life is the point, if you have nothing then you feel empty. The parents or the friends of the boy should have stopped and spent more time with him. I bring up how I am sure some of you feel very bad if you are scammed or betrayed in a game. These MMO's might be games but they are real in many ways and you can get attached to them with real emotions. It is like in Throw Momma from the Train. Danny Devito plays a character named Owen who has a coin collection that is just a bunch of every day change. To us it would be a hand full of dimes, quarters, nickels and pennies etc. Owen though had memories with them, from his first ball game with his father etc. Now if Owen lost these he would be heart broken I am sure. It is no different than us getting attached to something in game. It is human nature in my opinion, you bond with things that mean nothing to others but mean the world to you. I am sure all of us have some item we look at and cherish.
The kid obviously was mentally unstable and lonely, being alone is a terrible mix with depression. The kid had something he cared dearly for taken away so he felt helpless and could not face it anymore. It is no different than someone being dumped and feeling bad. While you think it is different the person who just lost a plat to a scam does not.
Thats why in game, be nice to people, never know who you help just by being nice.
Try to remember to give your family a call every so often. If you ever feel lonely don't fret try to find someone to chat with or call up an old friend. If you take that lonely girl or guy you know and ask them over for a gaming night, you just might make them the happiest they have ever been. I am sure that someone cared for the kid though and never called or hung out with him enough. Think about that enxt time you ignore people who seem lonely.
Be cool to people, and try and stay cool that way you never have to regret making someone feel bad. Don't take what ya got granted because some people never get to feel happy. We get to play these great MMOs and surf a good site. Be thankful for what ya got and next time ya feel down imagine a fat sea otter waddling with a pillow and a night cap. Bam! smiles!
What surprises me most now, as an adult, is the ability for people to condemn anything based on a few isolated situations - situations that are typically far more complex than they seem at face value. A normal, well-adjusted person would not kill themselves because their character (a fantasy, made up alter-ego) dies. Someone with serious social/mental issues, perhaps holding onto their alter-ego as the only joy or hope in their otherwise unhappy life, might.
Long story short, many people have disruptive or destructive psychological tendencies that are possible becoming more widely exposed, and the triggers for these tendencies are more accessible. People DO become addicted to games, especially MMOs. However, these people typically have other issues in their life or psyche that make this addiction more likely. As with all addictions, they are unhealthy - everything in moderation.
With that being said i agree to the fact that a addiction can be and most of the the time is very bad for your health, and while i myself have the attention span of a goldfish and therefor have a hard time sitting through a task-force let alone grind for several H's.... I have worked within the soft-core gambling world of Bingo and video-slots and have many sad stories of people who have gotten to caught up in what should be a innocent past-time.
I can understand that mother in the article, finally finding something that gave her son some peace of mind... and how she then had to watch him fade away, i can understand her anger. And at the same time i can understand the very defensive stance taken here, we who game as a past-time has over they years been flogged form every possible angle by people who range from wise to uninformed to miss-guided to outright fanatics.
In the end there are no right or wrong... we are all masters of our own life to one degree or another and in the end we choose what to do with it, in this some will always find that life or death is the the only thing they control. I will never see face to face with that but that is my choice.
thus end my random musing and this old man shall get some rest.
This have been a good conversation
You don't have any idea what you are talking about.
We absolutely have the right to defend ourselves from attacks of this kind by discrediting the accuser as a ineffectual censorship nazi. And humor is one of the best defenses against this type of nonsense. A young man's suicide is a very sad thing, but the guilt for such an act lies on the person that did the deed, and him alone. I think you'll find that standing up in any court in the United States. I am certainly not going to lose and sleep over it or re-examine my choice of lifestyle because this women couldn't get her son the help he had obviously needed for some time.
There is nothing wrong with having a hobby. My hobby is online gaming. I'm good at it. I enjoy it. I've met and begun friendships with dozens of individuals I would have never met if it weren't for games like EQ and WoW. Some people even meet their spouses and start families over the online world.
I also play golf, baseball, basketball, chess, write music, enjoy art & film. I like manning the grill at a barbeque, drinking beer while fishing with my dad, and going out to concerts and dancing with pretty girls. Any one of these things could easily become an obsession that interfers with my responsibilities to my family, friends, and employers, but like online gaming, I am in control.
Are there dangers to excessive online gaming? Of course, just like their are dangers in to much TV, and it's nothing a little education and awareness can't solve. Fingerpointing and book burning does nothing for anyone except for the creatures that thrive in this sort of environment, like this nutcase mom that started mmo anonymous or w/e it's called.
It sounds like you have some serious problems. I hope you are working to overcome them. If we knew eachother in real life I would like to help.
But if you think I'm going to stand by while you and your kind call me and mine a bunch of useless arrogant wankers and blame us for society's downfall you can go screw a goat.
First of all slide_k9, you are the most sane and decent fellow here.
Second off, I never really expected a bunch of online junkies to admit, "hey online gaming isn't the healthiest thing to do." That would imply that we are sick, and so we'll rationalize however we need to in order to convince ourselves that it isn't a problem.
BigBlackWook, it sounds to me that you are the one with a lot more serious of a problem than slide_k9. Your post is filled with an emotional content that is inappropriate. You find a lot of such posts on boards all around online gaming. Then again, nobody ever said that habitual online gamers were the most balanced people out there.
See BigBlackWook, you say that "a young man's suicide is a very sad thing," but you feel no sadness. Otherwise you wouldn't of said all the condecending things you did about the guy, about the mother, about slide_k9, or probably about me, once you get wind of this post. People like us love the internet because it makes us feel like we have some power over something important.
The problem is that nothing here is important, and nothing that goes on in online games is important. Don't even tell me that it is, because anyone other than we online gamers would think its nuts to even consider that this crap is important.
I'm not saying that online gaming causes despair, but I do know that desperate people play them. The more desperate they are, the more they play them. And what causes this spiritual desperation? Bad luck. Hardship. Any number of chance circumstances in our daily lives that cause us to feel that we cannot influence our reality in any meanigful way.
See, the reason people tend to rely on the internet, and internet gaming, is that it gives us a feeling of control over something that seems meaningful. We pay, we level, we work with others, we get some semblance of prestige, and a sense of accomplishment. If things get hopeless, we turn it off. If someone says something we don't want to hear, we /ignore them, or flame them on the boards. Seeing as how this level of control over one's circumstances isn't around in reality, its no wonder why we play online games. Its just so better in there than reality. Ignore it and it will go away.
But the problem is that its a lie. All of it. The 'friends,' the 'accomplishments;' all of it isn't real. I never said it wasn't a nice lie, but its a lie nonetheless.
The social critic Hannah Arendt once talked about technology as a table. It brings people together, but it also separates them. If the table uniting several people disappears, the people there no longer have anything to hold them together. Such is the same with computers. If the technology is the thing that brings people together, then the friendship is only as good as long as the technology is out there. The very technology that brings people together also becomes another complexity that keeps people from ever having genuine friendships.
I oftentimes wondered what would have happened to those few examples that every internet addict brings up of spouses who would meet up online if one of their computers no longer worked? What would have occurred if the internet service blanked out at an inopportune time? What would happen if one or the other of them met someone in their neigborhood who was far more real than any internet fiction? And that's basically what we all are here to eachother: just real enough, but nothing that can take the place of the genuine.
So you see BigBadWook, you may say here on the public boards that you'd like to help, if you knew slide_k9 in real life. The problem is, you'll never allow yourself to know slide_k9 in real life; and frankly, I really don't think he needs help from the likes of you. Because slide_k9 is right. If the vitrol I see on the boards and in the games is any indication of the health of the people who play them, its no wonder why we are in the games, and why society is such a drag. We wouldn't be here if life wasn't such a drag, and life wouldn't be such a drag if we would just live it, instead of escaping to the internet.
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"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
What Im saying is the parents. Its not the game mind controlling your kids, husbands, wives, friends.
Today the laywer mentallity of finding every reason under the sun for a excuse for your own actions to not be the problem, and its "internet gaming" its Chat rooms.. no its music ... its movies ... its music videos ... its, its ... anything BUT my fault..
So did you know no one ever commited suicide before everquest !!!! and no one ever shot a gun or raised a weapon in anger in all of history till DOOM was released...
Our society need to seriously Wake the F*** up and step up and own there own flaws. Maybe guilt sucks but denial is poisoning the rest of the world..
Maybe if a parents would spend time with a kid OTHER THEN yelling at them and telling them how messed up they are. Stop expecting your children to KNow better, and teach them. Dont say thats wrong you should know better.. they wont know if you dont teach them. THey Wont assume you love them if you never tell them... same for husbands/wives, everyone.
If Joe X master on-line gammer cuts off contact to the real world. WHat is that really saying. THat is saying he/she feels there is no point to be "in contact" thats not the fault of the GAME!! IF your so called friends and family only give you problems or if Joe Gammer is getting ignored anyway , of coarse he will spend his waking life in game cause at least there people do basic common curtesy that is lost in the real world.
Now mind you I play and log in many hours so a fanatic can easily say Im biased here. But you know what .. yes Iam..
Ill admit that , but accepting that proves my point . The world is cold.. hard. heartless where the average stranger will only see you as something in there way to what they want. And they'd just assume run you off the road or shoot you then say Hi.
In a game, you can say hey you perfect stranger Ive never spoke to before in my life, I NEED your help, Im lost i dont know what to do..... and you know...80%...maybe 90% of the time that stranger will stop what there doing and say look all you need to do is ....or sometimes go out of there way to help you, add you to there guild and welcome you in.
or even simplier then that... hello.. good bye... good luck... please.... thank you...
all things lost in the real world to assumption to inconvinace to self blinding greed of Life, like 'lil rats on a scrap of wood in a sinking ship. So yes when there is 10 million, 20 million of us gammers, that speak our own language, typo'd and abbrivated as it may be, WE understand , and give that lil bit of common ground and respect as to say HI... say please.. say thank you..
WE are not the ones that are wrong , we are the future, we are the only thing close to Humanity left in a world of road rage, high school shootings, suicide, terroism in the name of religion, and a wars fought for the profit of a oil company.
WE ARE NOT the ones raping and killing in the streets... NO were at home safe and helping each other with quests.. AND those left out of that are jelious and feel left out, so they attack the internet community cause its human nature to fear and hate that which they dont understand.
GAMMERS you are not the problem, you are the last little bit of deciency left in a insane world... and you are our future.
I cant wait for the future when our children grow up and are in power, when they know what team work is , know what please and thank you is even if it is "Plz" and "ty" thats far mroe then waht this current generation in power has taught anyone. they're get what I can for myself before someone kills me , kill or be killed attitude ...let it DIE with them in there old age as the future comes to present and gammers grow up and are the leader the world will be better.
When they are the leaders, I hope and prey they remeber that feeling of satifaction of being in a good guild and want those good things in the real world as well as game.
Miataka (+many sub variation of that)
~WoW (Kael'Thas, USA)
MiaTaka
~ RF On-line (Fire Server)
-Mia- takahashi
~SWG (Europe-chimaera)
Miataki Valeinca
~EQ 2 (everfrost)
MiaTaka Soyinka
~Second Life