The Cost of Video-Game Addictions (good read)

A friend linked me this article:

I Kept Playing — The Costs Of My Gaming Addiction

It's a good read - especially for people who have gone through video-game addictions. I was as bad as the author when World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and throughout the BC expansion. I quit two months after the following expansion (WotLK) came along. The game was just too good at the time and never in my life have I played such an addicting game.

My last MMO was SWTOR and although I enjoyed the story and Warzones, it wasn't as engaging/social as WoW. I played on a near-dead server, so that could of been a contributor to my gaming experience. Thankfully I was able to easily drop it because at once point, there was less than 10 people online during primetime. By the time server transfers were released (2+ months later), I had already quit.

This is why I stick to RTS/FPS/Turn-Based Strategy games - I can easily put them down and follow through real life responsibilities. I do not plan to play any MMO's now or in the future - just too time consuming.

Anyone else fall victim to MMO's? If so, which game was it and how long did it take for you to "recover"? Would you try new MMO's in the future?

 

I played WoW, but I certainly never got sucked into it like the author of that article did. Not to the point of ignoring people and commitments in the real world. I would schedule in time for raiding and PvPing during the week and on weekends, but it got scheduled around everything else. I quit when my choices were either stay stagnant in the same guild forever or join a hardcore guild and spend more time raiding. Neither appealed to me, so I shut my account down. I plan to give GW2 a shot, though.

 

Can you really get addicted to a games? I did play WoW a lot... raiding and ... and stoped at cataclysm... havent play an MMO since than... but now i pre ordered GuildWars 2 and im really exited...

Maybe im one of the lucky one that do play video games at work... maybe it help

 

I used to play constantly myself. I was in a hard core WOW raiding guild for several years. If I wasn't raiding with the guild, I'd be found on the PTR server. I have a ton of server firsts, and a handful of US first titles. One day I just got sick of all the BS and quit.

I still love to play MMOs, but I do more solo or spontaneous activities. I will do raids if the people are just laid back casual types looking to have some fun. But if it becomes a nub fest of whiners and complainers, I'll more than likely drop group. I just want to have fun playing a game, and don't care if you think so and so's dps or healing sucks.....

 

Baka played lots of MMOs but with Baka's short attention span Baka never gets hooked on any of them ._.

 

I didnt read the article in the OP, but I can say that I had an addiction for L2. Played for about 6 years, hard core mode - wasn't getting out of the house, didn't go to school/uni, etc. Besides playing on retail I also played (during those 6 years) on private servers where I wasted around 6k $ on gear/etc. I stopped playing L2 in jan 2008 and haven't played it ever since. I played casual mode AoC and Aion, but every time I was got the feeling I was about to slip " to the other side" I stopped playing them. Aoc lasted me about 7-8 months and Aion about 6.

Pretty intense though, as I have managed to make a lot of friends, with whom I still talk today (mostly RL friends, but I've been in contact with some online ppl aswell, from my L2 era).

Eagerly waiting for GW2 though, as I like to call it - GW2 is wife approved.

 

That was intense. I actually felt sad for OP

 

Maybe the real tragedy is that we have created a real world that many are desperately trying to escape.

 

QFT! Well said. I agree. I feel that I can escape all the worries of day to day pressures by sitting down and playing a video game. Too bad we have all those pressures to cope with.

 

I disagree with that: the world is an imperfect place filled with problems, but it's what we make of it in our lives that counts. I particularly like this quote from the article:

It's not so much the games or our society that causes addiction of any sort, really: it's our own individual choices. I think the author's strength here is that he was able to admit the fault of his own choices and correct them by himself. That's powerful.

 

I can somewhat relate to that article. I was neck-deep in addiction to Counter-Strike during the beta days all the way to the formation of bigtime leagues and international competitions. Now, looking back, I'm glad I would never fall into that hole again. My wife, and my better half, would never let me. Lol.

 

This topic spans much more than video games, the gaming was just a data point in the architecture of the larger problem. There are many such data points that can be easily replaced in this template.

 

Just like most of you and some people I knew, I was sucked into WoW. Started playing in 2006 and I just couldn't get off it. Luckily though, my grades in my college courses didn't. I wasn't hardcore, but I would play during my breaks, as soon as I got home, and through the night. It didn't really hit me that I was addicted to it until my girlfriend at the time threatened to break up with me if I had not slowed down playing, if not quit entirely. After that, I slowed down gradually and eventually quit the game. Ever since then, I could never find myself getting super into a game, even when would hop on and off WoW, when I played SWTOR, even now with DotA2.

 

The title of the article should be "the cost of ignoring the rest of my life".

Addiction is a powerful word, and is often abused.
While I will not refute the author of this article's claim of addiction, as I am missing much of the real story; I doubt very heavily that most of the people who claim to be "addicted" truly are. A lot of people simply hide from the real world as they feel more confortable or capable in one than they do the other.

The point where it becomes an addiction is when the game holds more power than the individual.

I want all of you to think just how far down the rabbit hole you would have to go to make it so that the game held more power than you did. That's far enough so that any individual who is truly addicted most likely has a number of other psychological problems that need to be dealt with over and above the video game.

One of them would be issues with social interaction the game is meant to help with.
Another is a reversal of one's need for physical closeness. (we all share this)

Now, I most certainly agree that addiction can apply to anything, including video games.
(Fishing, shopping, gambling, fantasy football, etc...)
However, the point is the degree.

If someone plays a game often they are addicted, but if they go to the clubs every night with friends they are not?
BOTH are unbalanced behavior...

 

extreme of anything is awful, never go to the extremes..

 

I have never played a typical 'orcs and heroes' type MMO, but there was an MMO run by Sports Interactive called "Football Manager Live" and I got majorly addicted to that - I was playing through the night and then logging in at work etc...

 

...so, if my wife and I both mutually ignore each other to play Skyrim, what does that make us then?

Never got into the whole MMO type thing myself. I don't like monthly subscriptions, or that type of play really.

Sent from my Tricorder using Tapatalk

 

Eh, it's a bit different than that.

Clubs Addiction:
1. Open and close at a pre-determined date and time (such as Fri/Sat 8pm to 230am).
2. Real-life social interactions.
3. You are committed to looking your best. Possibility of rejection/embarrassment awaits.
4. 50$/night+
5. Get ready, drive to and from the location (about 60 minutes~).

Gaming Addiction:
1. Open 24/7.
2. Pixelated social interactions. You can be yourself without fear of embarrassment/rejection.
3. Many do not care about their personal hygiene, health or appearance since no one will see them.
4. 15$/month.
5. Play from the comfort of your own home (30 seconds to log on).

---

Video game addiction is a much easier addiction to slip into

 

I played several FREE MMOs, and I saw witnessed some severely addicted players.

I might spend $10-$20 for a mount or something like that, but I knew people that it was mot uncommon for them to spend $100-$200 at a time. A WoW subscription would have saved these people thousands of dollars. Pay to win..

 

It's not that we want to escape from a real tragedy, no. Its that we are now more easily bored. Took a look back into history, we were people fit to build, create and procreate. We were built people, people with responsibilities that extended towards the entire day. Everyone in a family back in the colonial days had a responsibility that they had to fulfill to help out with the family. With the advancement of technology, we have created more and more time that needs to be filled otherwise we would be bored.

To many its this new thing that's surprisingly engaging called video games. Its simple and yet entertaining. There's no need to venture out towards some place when you can just turn on your system and play and next thing you know, youre back to your responsibilities.

 

double posting.

100-200 dollars on an item is entirely dependant on what that person makes yearly and what they value more. Just because they spend that much doesnt mean they are addicted. That could be chump change for them but maybe a month or two worths of grocery for you.

 

Trust me, I'm talking about players that live paycheck to paycheck. I am not basing anything on an assumption, but from talking to these very players on vent.

 

As you consume alcohol the more these two differentiations become the same.

 

I tried. I really did. My friend got hooked on it and tried to make me play it but I found WoW extremely boring. I left it alone and forgot about it.

A few years later my older brother got addicted to the game and really made me try it. And even though my wife was afraid I'll get sucked in like the hopeless guys she saw in a documentary film about the MMO addicts, I wanted to give it a go, because my brother made it sound so good.

So I said: 'what the heck, let's go all in' and bought the whole shebang - around $100 at the time with all the silly expansions. I tried again and got bored again. He told me I'm probably playing it wrong, and then started playing with me. I did everything - PvP, PvE, minor dungeon raids with a group, the works. Yet nothing happened. I just kept going, but I felt hollow, it wasn't doing anything for me. So my brother kept saying that there's better fun at higher levels, better fun here, better fun there, but all I saw was the dangling carrot mechanic, almost like what Neo saw when he looked at The Matrix, and it just didn't work on me at all.

It's not just WoW, though. I tried other MMOs, like Eve Online (and I LOVE space games), Guild Wars, EverQuest and Ultima Online, but I just didn't find any of them that interesting and stopped playing them after mere minutes to hours of gameplay. And it's not like I don't want to run and hide in a video game world, because I do, but something in these games' mechanics just doesn't work for me, and I don't know why. Maybe I just don't have an addictive personality. Bethesda's games, though - I could play those all day if I get the chance, so maybe I'm a bit anti-social because I hate playing online and only play single player games, but really, something about online gaming is not fun for me at all.

That being said, if we're talking about actual cost in money terms, then I'm sure the gaming industry got quite rich out of my pockets

 

You and me both amirfoox. I just can't get into MMO's. They are boring. I tried WoW probably 3 times and each time I was like, what am I doing? I've probably been addicted to Flight Sims if you could call it that. Thousands of hours of virtual flight time. Most of it in F-15, Longbow 2, Enemy Engaged: Apache/Havoc, Falcon 4 (and variants). But I guess I wasn't addicted as in I let my real life go. I still went to work, I was still married and did social things with the wife. But before kids any free time I had I flew. I miss that aspect of it, and just don't do it / can't do it since I have kids. I can jump in a round or two of BF3 for 20-40 minutes, but 20-40 minutes in a combat flight sim you're only half way to the CAP!

 

I wouldnt call myself addicted anymore, but at one point it was so bad i dont even remember why i did it. I started when i was little, when my parents got me a gameboy color for being good for one whole month. It took me a year to actually get around to, but it started something.

Soon after i got my gameboy i got a Nintendo 64, which i spent hours in front of. Most of that was because i didnt have a save pack, so i had to do everything over and over again. I became obsessed. To attempt to counter that obsession, my parents only let me play on the weekends and Friday during the school week. That turned into the only thing i would do on the weekend, play video games, eat, and sleep. I hated going outside, and out to the store, unless they sold video games there so i could play the demos or harass my mom to get a game i didnt need.

Then i got a PS2, where i didnt spend as much time, but it was still a lot of time. Hours of inactivity, just sitting there. And on top of that, i was younger, eating very unhealthliy, and a lot of it. Man i wasted so much of my life. We got a Wii, but its a Wii, so i didnt do much other than super smash bros brawl.

i think 2 years ago then i got an xbox360, after endless hours of begging my parents. I spent almost every available second during the weekend playing my weight was becoming a serious hazard to my health. I only realy talked to anyone over xbox live. I was a star student with slipping grades as well, and my parents and i would constatnly argue and fight anfd i would get angry so easily. I quit playing football, never made any baseball teams past rec leagues, so i thought i could handle it. But i still ate waaaay to much, and it was taking a serious toll. i was gaining weight very fast. In order to counter that, i told myself to put it all down, so i quit console gaming all together for awhile. I still havent played. Its been nearly 4 months. Im very proud with myself.

I got my new laptop in july, and i play it, sometimes too much, but now my dad has challenged me to lose all the weight i gained, 60 lbs., by the end of senior year (im going to be a junior). I feel like i can control myself knowing that one last game is no big deal. I surf the web as well, and i talk to my friends from school on the internet. I skype a lot of my friends, and now im more social, i go to parties instead of sitting in my room. As a matter of fact, i asked a girl out, and she said yes to a date. That has motivated me even more to stay away from a screen all day. I only play at certain parts of the day, unless it rains,
Keep in mind i have done all of this by myself.

Its been 3 weeks since i started my challenge, and by only adding an hour of activity to my schedule every day, ive lost some weight already. I watch what i eat, and i eat by portion every time.

Thats pretty much my life. Im turning it around. I cut corners on what i eat to ensure bad habits dont come back. I go for the fruit bowl instead of the cabinet if im hungry.

The one good upside about my habits is that i never ate food while i played. I have a problem where i like to eat EVERYTHING unhealthy. That is a thanks to my parents.

Hope this could be an inspiration to some, a good read for others, and a joke for the few who cant take anything seriously.

 

I think the problem is... its WoW. You are talking about the worst MMO to ever be made for anyone mentally over the age of 13.

The point of an MMO is interaction online... 2 minutes into playing WoW anyone over the age of 13 mentally will be wondering why they are paying to babysit someone else's kids.

I have to admit there are ZERO MMOs I want to play right now.
They just stopped making ones where players mattered as quite frankly all of the current ones depend on only:
1) how much money you spent on Pay-to-Win.
2) /faceroll easy so a automated bot program is just as good or better than any player.

To be fair, some people will just never like MMOs.
Then again, one can ignore their life with almost anything.

 

Compared to some people's internet addictions, gaming "addiction" seems relatively wholesome and cheep.

 

One could expand that to all "addictions".

That being said, there are extremes and the point where it becomes a real addiction that cause issues.

 

There are a fair number of retarded children in WoW, but I rather enjoyed the people in my guild, who were mostly 20/30somethings that enjoyed casual MMOs. The Dungeon Finder 5 mans were an exercise in hilarity, though.

 

interesting article...

I suspect that Mike has an addictive personality and that regardless of what it was he was hiding from, he would have hid. So if everquest wasn't around, or if video games weren't around, it might have been alcohol or drugs or gambling etc

and now i wonder if i spend too much time playing diablo3 lol