How games create an addiction to play them

[Nishka]

I got a very interesting article at work from a colleague. He's still playing WoW a lot while I quit last year after being fed up with how the grind - reward system works. (Well I knew for the last 5 years how it worked, I just wasn't fed up with it yet. )

It's a long article, but it contains pictures of cute small fluffy animals, so it's worth the read! It even mentions boobies as well.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5- ... icted.html

[Spicy_Mchaggis]

If it takes time, effort and skill to obtain an item, that item has value, whether it's made of diamonds, binary code or beef jerky.

That article kinda makes me wanna stop playing games...... but on the other hand i would love a bastard sword made of beef jerky! lol

[Nishka]

Well it is a good warning to keep in mind that you can lose a lot by becoming addicted to a game, without getting real pay off in the end.

In my personal case I failed my study due to a game addiction (well and the study turned out to be the wrong one for me), but in my case I managed to salvage the debris that I call 'life' and I'm making something out of it, though it's taking longer as intended now.

Still, I'm doing quite okay now and I've got a good plan layed out for the future.

I also know of guys who are in their 30+ now and are still working for minimum wage, doing crappy jobs with contracts that they can lose any day and usually don't last more then 6 months to 2 years.

I've also read about how a guy lost his job, his family, friends, house, car, dog etc. all because he became addicted to WoW.
I've also seen people going into a total panick when I suggested that WoW isn't meant to last forever and if they had any plans for what they want to do in like 5 years from now, without WoW. Well this particular guy has a rich dad, so he'll probably be fine in the end, but working for his own money didn't seem to be part of his plans lol.

In a way I'm glad that STO doesn't seem to be as addictive as other MMOs are. Personally I don't plan to invest that much time in any MMO anymore. (I used to play at least 5 hours/ day on weekdays, next to my full time job and often 10 hours on weekend days as well.)
Now I cut that down to roughly 2 hours a day at most, occasionally more if it's a new game that I really enjoy or if we're doing a special task force, but I'm not playing as compulsively anymore as I used to. (Playing for the sake of playing.)

[Ahanu]

MMO addiction at the end of the day is not about the game but the community that is built. To be successful in ANY MMO you must build relationships. These are often much deeper than people realize as the players tend to see each other online daily and begin to share a lot of their lives with each other. The major warning sign of addiction is rescheduling your real life to fit events in game life.

I did a piece a couple of years back on this. I have 3 Psychologists help me with some of the material as well as had CCP, nSoft and Blizzard speak with me on the topic as well.

The interesting thing to watch is that MMO players that go it alone typically drop from the game in a matter of 60 days. Where as a person that gets with a group and is involved with the chatter of the group will continue to play even of they do not actually play with the others in the chatter. The reason is the sense of community that the player builds around himself with people that share like interests.

Going even further as the players get deeper into the game the chatter changes from game related to real life sharing. The players become a part of each others lives.

I think this is why I am drawn to STO. The game itself is very solocentric and casual in play style so I have found comms has already moved to a more open chatter. However without the game draw for us to join up more the addiction seems more controllable.

[Nishka]

MMO addiction at the end of the day is not about the game but the community that is built. To be successful in ANY MMO you must build relationships. These are often much deeper than people realize as the players tend to see each other online daily and begin to share a lot of their lives with each other. The major warning sign of addiction is rescheduling your real life to fit events in game life.

I did a piece a couple of years back on this. I have 3 Psychologists help me with some of the material as well as had CCP, nSoft and Blizzard speak with me on the topic as well.

The interesting thing to watch is that MMO players that go it alone typically drop from the game in a matter of 60 days. Where as a person that gets with a group and is involved with the chatter of the group will continue to play even of they do not actually play with the others in the chatter. The reason is the sense of community that the player builds around himself with people that share like interests.

Going even further as the players get deeper into the game the chatter changes from game related to real life sharing. The players become a part of each others lives.

I think this is why I am drawn to STO. The game itself is very solocentric and casual in play style so I have found comms has already moved to a more open chatter. However without the game draw for us to join up more the addiction seems more controllable.

Actually what you just described is EXACTLY what happened with me. In the last year of WoW I only logged in on the evenings to raid and because I enjoyed the company of other people online. If there was no raid I usually wouldn't be online either.

I also had several real life guild meetings in the Netherlands and I'm infact going to another one on april 9th, even though I'm not a member of that guild anymore, or intend to play WoW anymore.

I'm hoping to organize some kinda event for the dutch STO fleet mates as well (and maybe the germans and belgium members if they can attend) in real life. It's a lot of fun to talk about your hobby and those guild meetings were among the best days of my life. Being able to talk freely with others about your hobby without getting weird looks and being met with a lot of enthausiasm makes it a really memorable day.

If I'd talk about WoW with any of my family I get the usual responses that generally aren't very positive.
Usually you give up talking with them about it then and even (slightly) alienate yourselves from them, after all you got a complete family online already that you talk to on a daily basis.
Infact, I think I talked a lot more with my guild mates then with my family the last couple years. Weird how games do that to you huh?

[cmdraftbrn]

its simple most games use an incremental leveling system where you have to input some much time to get from level to level. WoW's leveling systems runs from a 1 hour 1 level to 12 hours for 1 level. and a lot of these games also require you the player to dangle the carrot in front of yourself. EVE is nothing more than time management gone wrong. in EVE there is no Level to speak of its just a matter of spending real time to develop the skills needed to actually be able to do something semi productive. in STO's case they use an adjusted leveling system of gaining a level about every 4 to 6 hours which is nice where as in WoW in the later stages of character development its about 10 to 12 hours of grinding with about 2 hours of spamming to get a group for a dungeon that they might bail on the first wipe (before the 3.3 patch that allowed cross realm dungeon groups).


and mine sole rule to gaming is: if im not havin fun im gonna find something else

[Ambiorix]

A very interesting article, thanks for posting it! I have definitely put myself in situations where I immersed myself in a game to the point where one could make a case for addiction. Thankfully I recognized the pattern (eventually) and was able to scale things back. I still very much enjoy gaming, but it simply isn't a priority anymore. I have a spouse and 3 young children now, it is only logical that priorities be changed.