Does MMo addiction exist, and is it a real problem, 6961 votes and 54.1% voted yes and yes. Surely thats got to be concerning when 3000 people call it a real problem. I know to an extent, it is a problem though I would say in some cases addiction could be confused with time-intensity which mmorpgs take.
Comments
I would often find myself playing games like Age of Empires, over and over and over. Knowing full well the outcome (I would win). I think for many, video games act as a brain numbing device, similar to drugs. If one's life isn't going so well, it is easy to sit at the computer and lose yourself for hours doing online what you have failed in real life (succeeding). I'm not saying everyone who plays games is a loser or hasn't succeeded, but most people have had periods in thier life where they weren't as happy as they would want to be. The negative feelings brought on by unemployment, relationship issues, Illness can all be mitigated temporarily by losing yourself in drugs or video games (in our case mmorpgs). A real hazard here is that the comfort found in video games can actually lead to unemployment and relationship issues, which will make the virtual life even more appealing to the real one. A self perpetuating problem.
On the World of Warcraft exit survey a recent addition asking why players left is addiction. It's one of those modern 'diseases' that receives little attention, like Internet addiction. Sadly I feel that unless there is a surge in people dying from it nothing will be done.
No annoying animated GIF here!
My WoW Gnome!!
I'm not addicted to games...I'm addicted to forums. >.<
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I doubt that most of the people claiming that they are "addicted" to MMOs have ever suffered from an actual, real life addiction. While you may be compulsive about your favorite game, an hour after you hit the 'cancel' button you won't miss it. That isn't addiction. The whole buzz about "video game addiction" was created by those who seek to profit from its treatment.
Frankly I haven't been 'addicted' to an MMO since the early days of UO and EQ. Now I can't play for more than a couple hours at a time in any MMO without getting bored in most MMO's....
Interestingly enough the only game that doesn't happen in is DDO when I get in a good group (hehe about to start free trial #3 ) I haven't bought the game yet (and have no plans to).
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
It's not an addiction I can quit anytime I want to.... LOL
Anything that brings enjoyment can grow into a addiction
Witty saying to amuse you goes here.
forgetting about your wife, kids, social life, church, friends, family...
there's been a number of marriage ruined over this and not by some infidelity (or suspected infidelity) online.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Is this something you've personally experienced, or just something you've read in one of those sky-is-falling articles about game addiction? At the risk of getting too personal, I've watched several persons close to me deal with substance abuse. If you've ever seen someone withdraw from heroine, you'd understand that it's not the same thing as withdrawing from Everquest.
I am not saying that people don't make poor decisions about their gaming. It happens every day. But people neglect family and responsibilities for all sorts of frivolity. You can get carried away with anything you enjoy. What I reject is the idea of turning what is essentially bad decision-making and laziness into a disease. "It's not my fauly I ignore my kids to raid Molten Core, I have an addiction." What crap. People need to start acting like adults and take responsibility for their own behavior.
Worst of all, this is exactly the sort of trash science some political carpetbaggers are using to propel the phantom issue of video game regulation. The last thing we need is the airbags in congress vomiting soundbites while waving their manacured fingers at a crowd of weak-willed slackers going through twelve-steps to kick their Toontown Online habits. No, the stupiditiy must stop. Games are not drugs. They are simply a form of escapism, just like television, romance novels or spectator sports. If you're blowing off your life to play a game, the problem is not the game. You don't need treatment for addiction. What you need is to take a serious look at your life and figure out just exactly what you're trying to escape from.
Is this something you've personally experienced, or just something you've read in one of those sky-is-falling articles about game addiction? At the risk of getting too personal, I've watched several persons close to me deal with substance abuse. If you've ever seen someone withdraw from heroine, you'd understand that it's not the same thing as withdrawing from Everquest.
I am not saying that people don't make poor decisions about their gaming. It happens every day. But people neglect family and responsibilities for all sorts of frivolity. You can get carried away with anything you enjoy. What I reject is the idea of turning what is essentially bad decision-making and laziness into a disease. "It's not my fauly I ignore my kids to raid Molten Core, I have an addiction." What crap. People need to start acting like adults and take responsibility for their own behavior.
Worst of all, this is exactly the sort of trash science some political carpetbaggers are using to propel the phantom issue of video game regulation. The last thing we need is the airbags in congress vomiting soundbites while waving their manacured fingers at a crowd of weak-willed slackers going through twelve-steps to kick their Toontown Online habits. No, the stupiditiy must stop. Games are not drugs. They are simply a form of escapism, just like television, romance novels or spectator sports. If you're blowing off your life to play a game, the problem is not the game. You don't need treatment for addiction. What you need is to take a serious look at your life and figure out just exactly what you're trying to escape from.
um...
and so goes, the days of greyface.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
gambling isn't an addiction either by dude's definition. people are creatures of habit and addictive by nature.
there's a difference between "substance abuse"-- where your body has to have whatever you've been stupidly pumping into it (be it alcohol, heroin, CAFFEINE, or whatever) or you'll suffer physical withdrawals from said substance, and addiction -- see definition number two.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Is this something you've personally experienced, or just something you've read in one of those sky-is-falling articles about game addiction? At the risk of getting too personal, I've watched several persons close to me deal with substance abuse. If you've ever seen someone withdraw from heroine, you'd understand that it's not the same thing as withdrawing from Everquest.
I am not saying that people don't make poor decisions about their gaming. It happens every day. But people neglect family and responsibilities for all sorts of frivolity. You can get carried away with anything you enjoy. What I reject is the idea of turning what is essentially bad decision-making and laziness into a disease. "It's not my fauly I ignore my kids to raid Molten Core, I have an addiction." What crap. People need to start acting like adults and take responsibility for their own behavior.
Worst of all, this is exactly the sort of trash science some political carpetbaggers are using to propel the phantom issue of video game regulation. The last thing we need is the airbags in congress vomiting soundbites while waving their manacured fingers at a crowd of weak-willed slackers going through twelve-steps to kick their Toontown Online habits. No, the stupiditiy must stop. Games are not drugs. They are simply a form of escapism, just like television, romance novels or spectator sports. If you're blowing off your life to play a game, the problem is not the game. You don't need treatment for addiction. What you need is to take a serious look at your life and figure out just exactly what you're trying to escape from.
I agree with alot of what you said. However video gamers aren't all adults. In fact a huge percentage of the market are kids. Video gamers aren't all healthy people meaning that people who suffer from mental illnesses in vary degrees of extremity aren't always capable of making "good decisions" nor are the most reasonable and level headed but younger people and people suffering from mental illnesses (depression being a very common illness) are more suggestable and at higher risk of making life decisions that will have an undesired effect on there life.
I agree its not herion and although I think they're more addictive than movies and tv I believe you are right to say its all escapism. However escapism(not to the same extent that drugs affect people) is addictive and people will get in bad habits of using escapism(eg, watching TV to go to sleep). We live in quite a unique time and this is a large and new issue that is growing in importance as more developments are made towards forms of entertainment which can be enjoyed both solely and/or removed from reality.
I've no doubt that video games are addictive thats not to say its physically addictive like negatine or cocaine or whatever drug of choice but like marijuna(excuse the spelling) pot/weed/grass or what whatever you want to call it and even alchol(although that can be phyisically addictive on a lesser scale than heaver drugs). Like pot and alchol (even though alchol can be physically addictive), its mentally addictive, meaning the escapism it provides can be so effective that one(different people will react differently) but one can fairly easly give that form of escapism a higher priority than reality, which needless to say can adversly affect there life.
Now I by no means believe nor do I believe society completely understands what extent video games adversly affect peoples lives There total impact on affecting idividuals and communities across a broad spectrium of people is unkown. The history is unwritten, the sociological and phyciological perspective on the issue are incomplete(not to assume any are really complete). However I feel it safe to say that there are many documented cases were it has shown the extremes of those affects, such as people not eating,drinking or sleeping and in those extremes died. Lets look at a lesser extreme, not getting the proper amount of sleep over a prolonged period. Sleep deprevation is actually a form of torture and can depending on the degree of it quite easily lead to various malfuctions regarding the activity of someones brain or to put it slightly better mental illness.
If I have poorly developed muscles and lung capacity and tire more easily than I'm unhealthy and there are varying degrees of it. Its the same for mental health and one should not just say lets dismiss this and let the idividual sort themselves out. No, lets find out if there really is a problem and lets explore the affects.
But as this addiction is not stricktly physical, as addictions with various subtances happen and often happen by chance, for someone to become addictive playing a life simulatior it means that this game offers him those things he can not or believes he can not have in real life.
The addiction starts not from the strength these games have but from the weaknesses out lifes may have, and it is upon the parents and those who care not to treat the game as an evil which must be cured but the addicted persons life as incomplete which must be filled.
For someone who has no hope of ever enjoying real life more then the game then i say let him get the enjoyment he finds in it, no reason to steal that from him also.
You say if someones life is so miserable that they enjoy games more than life or as you put it if they have "no hope of ever enjoying real life more then the game then let him get the enjoyment he finds in it, no reason to steal that from him also", Now despite your wording I actually agree with the statement in the most basic sense. I believe someone should be able to find enjoyment in what they can however only if it is substanable, meaning only if the person can do this and live(either recieve food, water and other basic neccisities or be able to provide food for themselves at the same time as enjoying there game/s) and if they are bound to sabotage the only form of enjoyment by being unable to support themselves or not able to recieve support to live a life which alows them to pursue there sole emjoyment in life(which is very unlikely and a wild presumption) than they'd need help.
As I said previously though, a mental addiction can cause someone to give priority to their form of escapism be it games, tv, gambling or even smoking a bong(pot which is not physically addictive) which can cause there enjoyment of life to actually degrade and henceforth form a further mental addiction upon their prefered form of escapism. Drugs was used as an example of an addiction but was by the same person dismissed as a different kind of addiction and they said they'd seen people withdraw from heroin and it was no comparrision. That seems incrediabley likely to me and I'd like to use an example of witnessed from pot/weed/grass or whatever you prefer to call it which is a mental addiction thus more usefull(actually relevant!) as a comparision.
My friend and I used to smoke it all the time, we enjoyed ourselves, other than becoming slightly lazier and in general more fatigued a I noticed little affects after I stopped smoking for a day or two. Ocassionally when I was stoned/smashed/ripped or whatever u want to call it I'd "spin/freak out" which is to have a slight to serious anxioity attack over something of little to no importance(if actually of real substance). When my friend started acting wierdly I assumed him to be experiencing the same thing and assumed it to be temporary. However he'd actually developed what is called marijuana psychosis and can be described as schizophrenia induced by marijuana. Far from it undesirable for him to smoke it had bad affects on his real life hence he sought his escapism more. I'd actually heard about it at school but knew people who'd smoked cones(pot) and never had any problems like it therefore I didn't think it happen to me nor anyone I knew. Certain people are just affected by it in different ways.
Now I'm not saying games are like this because I play games alot, I would say I'm addicted to them but not to an extent which serveley affects the quality of my life, I can and have neglected family and friends and task needed to be done in the real world which have in turn created other problems over games but personally I've had worse experiences and sources of discontent however when I read about someone who plays a game until they die, I can understand why some people are concerned. Should we ban computer games? No and neither should we ignore the fact that some people have recieved the same fate as someone overdosing on heroin which is death. Now as far as I know people dying from game addiction is extronidarily rare but I imagine if someone can give priority to games over there need to eat, drink, sleep and in general instincts to survive that there could well be much more common lesser effects
Obviously i am not speaking about a short time obbsesion while playing games, but of adiction, it is extremely diferent believe me, i think we all can remember a particular time in a mmorpg that we ended up spending alot of time playing even at the expense of some RL activities, but in general i don't think many were actually adicted in a sense that we could not stop playing or if we were then suffer withdrawal symptoms.
For me to accept anything as addictive it must have some specific traits, a person must not be able to stop doing it, it must be his only interest even in times he is not actively doing, and if forced to stop he must suffer, otherwise we are not talking about adiction but more about a short timed obssesion at its worst.
Mental adictions are quite diferent then physical adictions, but no one said that you can't have one without the other, the very simple adiction of smoking cigarettes is more of a mental adiction an extremely strong habit then ncotene adiction, obviously the adiction to the substance helps strengthen the mental adiction.
Heroine or LSD just to name 2 on the other hand are extremely addictive substances, once you fall victim to some substances your body and mind cant fanction properly without them and when you forcibly stop them you have extremely serious somatical symptoms, of course there are mental reasons behind them also but in contrast with the cigarttes or even marijhuana they are the least of the reason of the adiction itself.
Now spending your time doing a hobby may exibit addictive symptoms, but this kind of activity is purely mental, there is no substance which helps your mind become adictive, what exactly is that that drives some people to risk losing friends, break relationships, lose a job or fail in school or university in order to spend as much time as possible doing something like playing a game is a matter of debate, imo when this is the case it is not the games fault but other elememts come into the picture, things that may even be hidden.
I must again stress here that i am talking about a behaviour that stretches in time or in extremes.
Many times i have brought my food to the PC so i will not miss on something important while playing, but completely missing out on the meal never really crossed my mind.
Many times i have risked a fight with my spouse, but every time i took carefull notice to do something special the next day to compensate.
Many times i skiped lessons, knowing perfectly well that it will cost me from my sleep time to fill in the gaps or finish a paper.
Many times i stretched the time i played in workdays but never if i knew the next day at work would be more demanding then usuall.
Adiction does not come whan someone is prepared to sacrifice some of his comfort in order to play a few more houres, as i mentioned before this may be a sort of obssesion, and it is usually something that occurs when descovering that new cool game, in time when the hype is over everything falls back to normal.
When someone repeatedly neglects to protect most of his activities and relationships in favor of one specific hobby then i have many reasons to believe that in his mind all these other activites are not worth protecting or pursuing.
You have a child it is YOUR responsibility to control and instill a moral code in them. It is not someone elses responsibility it is yours alone. Parents need to stop crying about violence this and sex that, they have no right unless they have excerised controls and educated their children giving them tools to deal with the real world.
But in general yes i agree what the child watches, how he passes his time, and generaly how he is raised is the parents responsibility.
Now if we were to talk about laws that would forbid certain people from having children then there is room for some debate there.
Hi, just reading your comments. I think i can comment now on the realities of this thread - a very close friend of mine commited suicide only last week for reason we are yet to find out. I met this person through WOW, and also his many friends that live in the same are as he did. Me and my girlfriend became great friends with them all and joined their guild, resulting in many many hours lost hunting zones and instancies.
we finally all got to meet up only late last year and because the game had brought us all together we had a wonderful day - especially as they had no idea we where going down, it was all a suprise.
The point is, this friend had many friends around him, who all cared deaply for him and each other, very rare to find a group of fantastic honest and true friends. But as time went on we all hit lvl 60 and some of us started to venture into other games, occasionally going back to wow and re-living old times. But this never sat well with my Friend, he often text me or phoned to see if we were going on, are we returning, etc etc always based on the game. He lived it, he knew so much about it. He worked and sociallised but still he turned conversations around to the game. I would ring to say we might go see them, or they want to come up for a weekend party and within minutes, we he would ne saying yeh, we can bring pcs and play wow all weekend, or go online we sort it out then, things like that.
He was addicted, but thats how he lived his life, it was what he wanted to do. He was young and had his whole life ahead of him, but then he also had others playing that he knew because he was very shy too. He was a totally different person in the game to real life.
I am not saying that because of the game he commited suicide, i dont think we will ever know, but i do know that it contributed. It hit him hard when we all started other games even though he still saw us in RL. He joined an uber guild and everything but still he couldnt find the commitment he was used to and people didnt understand him and his reason for playing so much.
I believe that you can be addicted, i have been for several months to many games, but thats a persons choice, its thier life. The games are designed to be addictive else no one would play, o just one more level for this or only 4 more hours till that, it never ends. Plus its an escape, a chance to be who you want and life a fantasy and not have to judge people on looks, just personality or even not jusge at all but just be and nothing else.
In honour of our friend, the first thing we did was all log on as our lvl 60s and paid respect to him, this was not even arranged but something that we all did on our own as we knew he would wish it no other way, his friends all on playing. I bet he was laughing his socks of up there.
He never lost his friends, but he did loose the friendship in game, and i believe this is part of the reason he took his life. Sorry peeps, but we are all different, and we all handle things different. Who will ever know why it happens but it does, only 24 hours earlier he was laughing and joking, now he has gone and left a hole in our lives that will never be filled.
Please dont think of him as a 'sad git' etc, you never knew him, if you did i hope nopone minds me writting this, but i am sure everyone will agree with my thoughts on him. He was a good friend to us.
I dont think this has helped the thread but i needed to just say, which i feel better for for doing so. But whatever your views and opinions, please be proud of who you are, enjoy life whether in the game or in RL, listen to your friends and remember they will not be there forever. Many friendships have sprung from the internets and mmo games, some other friends who have just got married met on the internet on a football web site. So who knows. But we only have one chance in this life, make the most and enjoy it - dont waste it or loose it - talk to people, but dont judge.
Thanks for listening
"In memory of James - Etna"
PS I've pretty much said all I've got to say on it by now and I think we knoew were each other are coming from but disagree, if you want to convince me and you don't understand were i'm coming from you'll have to ask we what I mean or something to gain my perspective however you won't be able to convince me unless you understand the premise I've been making
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Alright, I admit I got a little carried away in my previous post. I was having a crappy RL day -- when stressed I tend to speak in absolutes. Sue me.
That said, I'm still very nervous about the tendency in our culture to group any self-destructive, compulsive behaiviors with chemical dependencies. Whether it's gambling, sex, food or computer games, the vast majority of people are capable of enjoying pleasurable things without causing themselves any harm. Yes, even a well-adjusted individual can overeat or spend too much time online during the first flush of a new MMO, but that does not define them as sick. As I have stated, I also believe that it is possible to become compulsive and obsessive about anything pleasurable to such an extent that it becomes self-destructive. What I do not accept is the assertion that video games, MMO or otherwise, are any more prone to triggering these sorts of behaiviors than any other activity.
While no one here advocates the banning of video games, that's exactly where this road leads. In America, we're entering into a new election cycle. If you live here, you know that this country has some big problems. Problems that have no easy answers. In these circumstances, politicians have always looked for scape goats. They are already doing it. And it's not like this sort of thing has not happened before.