MMO Addiction

[Yantelope V2]

Anyone here ever been addicted or known someone who was addicted to an mmo?

 

My brother was and probably still is. I don't really know as I rarely see him anymore. It was kind of a long story which I'd be happy to share more about when I have a little more time.

 

As a result of my own family's experience with MMO's I read every one of these articles when I see them and they all sound the same.

 

http://www.destructo...er-227709.phtml

 

http://kotaku.com/5384643/i-kept-playing--the-costs-of-my-gaming-addiction

 

I quit WoW before my addiction really set in. I played it for about 8 days of online time over the course of 74 days. I realized that it cost too much both monetarily and personally and gave it up. I do feel like I understand the addiction though.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Yantelope V2

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

I never got the MMO thing. Boundless potential, doesn't deliver on the promises of the genre. I had a friend that played WoW for a couple weeks straight and realized he was sinking his life into it, so he managed to get out before it got crazy.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I've always stayed away. It's simply too much time and money to invest in something with not enough payoff. As far as I can tell MMOs aren't necessarily about great experiences but about keeping you just interested and busy enough to keep playing. That doesn't appeal to me. There's also the social aspect: As in it can become your social life. Humans need to be social to some degree to get by and I think that MMOs do provide that bare minimum. It might not be a healthy amount of being social but it's there.

[Strangelove]

Ive never gotten into any mmo. Ive tried stuff like dcuo and free realms, but fantasy like wow has never appealed to me. I just don't think mmos are worth the time or money. It just doesn't appeal to me in the least.

[Mercurial]

You could say I am addicted to EVE >_>

[Hot Heart]

I had a couple of friends, housemates at uni even, who got addicted to WoW during the early days.

 

They were rolling out of bed about two in the afternoon, not even bothering to get dressed, missing all sorts of lectures and seminars, and staying up probably until about 5am. It didn't help that the walls didn't offer the best sound-dampening, so I could hear them laughing and chatting to one another down the other side of the house when trying to sleep.

 

One of them was already failing his course, generally through a lack of motivation, and the other managed to scrape a third in his law degree (which I think makes it pointless because you need to do some sort of postgrad course if aiming for a career, and those require a 2:1). The law student friend even had mould growing on a plate in the corner of his room at one point.

 

On the bright side, they're both past that now. One has just completed a full course this year, just awaiting his final mark, and the law guy is married and has a kid, while working a completely unrelated job he seems to like. Both seem to be enjoying life more than me...

 

Thanks for bumming me out, Yant!

Edited May 25, 2012 by Hot Heart

[Yantelope V2]

It's just such an interesting subject to me because I've seen it in my family and from the very beginning. My brother was addicted first to a game called "the Realm". It was a sierra online game and the first MMO I can remember. I believe it was even before UO. He got very interested in it and would play it at all hours. It led to a lot of fights in the house because we were on dial up at the time and the family only had one phone line. He moved off of the Realm when Everquest came out and he began staying up quite late on most nights playing the game at all hours. We even had our ISP at the time call and say they were raising our rate because he was such a heavy user. Eventually it led to physical skirmishes in the family when he would not let anyone else use the phone line or computer and finally my dad asked him to move out early. To this day I think he is more or less the same but I can't really say for sure. I think the addiction side to it is very real. It holds people in a way very similar to drugs or alcohol.

[Alex Heat]

I know a few people who generally play MMOs to the near exclusion of any other game. I personally don't understand it since it's pretty much the opposite of my own mentality (wherein I feel like it is WAY better to play a diverse number of games) and when I get right down to it, the idea of being beholden to one game just annoys the hell out of me.

[deanb]

I had a go with WoW a couple summers back for about 3 months. Got I think to level 40 n gave up. I was playing alongside Ben n Tom, and tom I'd say is addicted. He's on from beta of WoW and while he's stopped now n then he's usually back on within a couple months. Though this year he dropped it, apart from a month or so of SWTOR, and has now passed Uni 5 years later. I disliked WoW cos that 3months leads to a lot of other-game time going which I'm still working through. It's why I like EVE, it plays in the background so you can do that and other games on top. But in general I'm just not a huge MMO fan, dislike the subscription (only reason I'm on EVE at the moment is a returners reduced rate with Inferno coming out), and not really sure on the whole social side of things with it. I like random MP games where you can kinda just drop in n out.

[CorgiShinobi]

If you need more material, you know Extra Credits has got it covered.

 

Game Addiction Pt. 1

 

My thoughts are similar to FDS's comment, especially with how the MMO genre tends to be developed in a manipulative manner. However, a game "addiction" is more of a compulsion, as you see in Extra Credis' videos on this subject. There's no biological component, but a psychological one because those who are drawn to certain games find something in them that fill a need or desire. Maybe it is social, like becoming part of a guild, or the concept of achievement/success even if it is in an imaginary reality.

[Mal]

Too much grinding with no decent award for my taste. The closest I got to MMOs were Maple Story and Mabigoni or whatever it was called. Ah... my animu years.

[RockyRan]

Too much grinding with no decent award for my taste. The closest I got to MMOs were Maple Story and Mabigoni or whatever it was called. Ah... my animu years.

 

I thank your deity of choice that I find MMOs mind-numbingly boring. If grinding lasts for literally longer than 10 minutes in any game I automatically turn it off. I despise random repetition and I'm completely immune to the Skinner Box effect. If it's not backed up with quality gameplay I'd find the most addictive MMO boring. I couldn't play WoW for longer than 2 hours before I was dozing off. It's great because I think I have an "addictive" personality and if I actually liked MMOs I'd probably be dead by now

[TheMightyEthan]

I wouldn't say I'm immune to the Skinner Box effect, but I seem to become frustrated with it quicker than most people.

[Enervation]

I used to eat up MMOs in my teen years, but now it has to be something spectacular for me to even get any interest in it. I just don't have as much time as I used to.

[MasterDex]

I don't think I ever got too invested in any MMO. I did play WoW for quite some time but as far as I recall, my main character only ever reached lvl. 69, and that was after dropping it for months at a time before picking a sub back up. I played Eve Online for quite a while too but only today came back after about a 2 year absence. I've played quite a few others over the years to varying degrees but those two were the ones I played the most.

 

At this point, I would say that perhaps I'm like Ethan and I'm somewhat immune to the Skinner Box effect but I don't think that's the case. I believe my "problem games", if you want to call them that, are FPS games and pre-XIII Final Fantasy*. They're the ones that keep me awake at night and keep me in during the day. I've probably spent more time playing just Battlefield games than many people who would be considered to have an MMO addiction have played their game of choice. However, because I could say I've spent X hours in BF2, X hours in 2142, X hours in BC2, X hours in BF3, even though X has never been below 150 hours and has often been much higher - For example, my total 2142 playtime currently stands at 422:37:37 - I believe that from a general gamer's perspective, I wouldn't be considered so much of an addict....or maybe I would be and I'm just in denial.

 

I think most psychiatrists, were they to know just how much time I actually spent playing games, would consider me highly and dangerously addicted. I've thought a bit about that too but frankly, I couldn't give a damn. I still enjoy the finer things in life but gaming for me has always been one of the most important aspects of my life. I know that sounds pathetic - How can games be so important, they're just games! - yet I've dedicated my life to them, decided to dedicate my life to them a very long time ago and see myself holding that conviction until the end, not, as some would have it, because I'm addicted but because I'm highly passionate about them - like many men and women are about their great loves in life, whatever they may be.

 

I think I went off on a bit of a tangent there, sorry about that. Anyway...uhhhhh....yeah, those are my thoughts on the topic. Sorry for the length, sometimes I swear I'm as bad at Kojima at this editing business.

 

*Example: I played FFXII for 73 hours straight, only pausing to use the facilities and get food (which I ate while I played).

Edited May 29, 2012 by MasterDex