Expert: 40 Percent of World of Warcraft Players Addicted - Page 2

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Hmm, that's interesting.

I played WoW for about 2 months. I really liked it but just like that one day I just uninstalled it and let my characters rot in the digital world. Not a care in the world. Wouldnt go back to check up on them if I had the choice. I dont think gaming is addictive I think its the people who have addictive personalities.

Totally agree. Substance dependencies adjust the chemical resting levels in the brain on the long run. When you contantly boost a chemical in the brain, the brain responds to this by making less of its own. Then when you are not boosting your brain, you are left with lower levels then normal, thereby feeling depressed. This again can cause you to use more of the substance to feel normal again.

But not all addictions are the same. With a gambling addiction for example you are not physically boosting your brain. As the doctor said the problem here lies in the variable ratio reinforcement. This means that your not rewarded all the time, but sometimes you are, sometimes you are not. When you are going to be rewarded you don't know. That you are going to be rewarded sometime you do know. This element can cause addictive behavior as seen in gambling. The doctor makes a connection here with gaming and thinks MMORPG's can act in the same way.

Can't people in essence be addicted to everything that is enjoyable to them?

If they enjoy drinking a particular substance (ie. Cherry Koolaid), you might hear them jokingly say "I'm addicted to this stuff".
If they enjoy exercising, could they not become addicted with exercising?
If they enjoy smoking, could they not become addicted to smoking?
If they enjoy watching romantic movies, could they not become addicted to watching romantic movies?

Technically I think anything enjoyable can become addictive. It's how the old saying "You can get too much of a good thing" probably came around. Either way, clearly addictions have been happening long before the internet and gaming were ever around. And clearly they can include nearly every pleasurable action that there is out there in the world.

So why center on gaming? Again I feel like it is because of the age gap and the technological gap between those who are doctors and parents and those who generally game.

Furthermore, if we are going to make our own definition of addiction, what would it be? Where is the line between a good amount and too much and who makes that distinction?

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And on a side note to replies to my previous post - why do you get to say that social interaction must be face-to-face to be worth something? You might feel that that is a necessary part of social interaction, but what makes you correct?

Here is the wikipedia definition to help you out:

I am 20 something, and I play WoW on a daily basis. If I need to mow my lawn, it will be mowed, if there are groceries that need to be bought, I will buy them. I go to work as a programmer, and I enjoy my routine of code and WoW.

To call my routine an addiction is A) hypocritical and B) a primitive thought process

Hypocritical because we all have an "addiction". As I stated previously, we all have an element that we enjoy delving into and saying that your addiction is bad because it's not like mine is a primitive thought process.



Krylos, Mage << Emerald Dream <<

SPELLCHECK!!!

Are you high or drunk? She estimates that 40% of people playing WoW are addicted. So in your terms, that means 40% of people playing either lost their job, gained weight, and/or flunked out of school. That makes alot of sense in a screwed up way. I'm pretty sure 40% of the people that are considered addicted aren't addicted like your friend.
I'm certain that the true percentage of "addicts" playing WoW is the same as for anything else, excluding drugs. Just like the percentage of "stupid" people in a society is almost the same through out the world. I really think that 40% is way too high, 5-10% sounds much more like it. People always have to realize that it is the same with other things, not just games. There will always be a small percentage of people taking something to the extreme. Once again, more people to take a stab at games and not taking a stab at bigger problems.

This is simply a sign your friend has issues.

In college, I had a buddy who transferred to another college so he could major in "special education". The reason he said is because these kids made him feel "smat". Mind you, this guy was not dumb and maybe a little above average intelligence. He just had ZERO self-esteem and came from a screwed up family.

Sounds like your roomy does not like himself and can be important on-line. Does he need intervention? Yes. Perhaps all his friends need to "fake it" to make him feel more important in real life.

With my former buddy, we knew to never kid him about anything because a "jest" would be taken to heart. We alway were tossing him compliments. Did he need more help than we could give? Yes.

There is a reason your buddy is moving from game to game.
He needs help. Go to school resources mental help resources to get intervention help.

But I do think you will find that "WoW" and games like it are an outlet to escape troubles in life for those that need that. But as your friend moved from game to game, another outlet would be found in most cases.

I dont think we deny somebody may get addicted.
But 40% come on. Get serious.
Clearly this lady has an agenda.

Especially when she puts the blame on the game and not that the person has underlying issues that need addressing.

Making "less enjoyable" games as she suggests is just silly.

What allows you to pass judgement based on someone choosing to interact online with friends rather than going out with frinds in real life? Why is that a bad choice?

Simple.

1) It will not get him in with a woman.
2) He will not meet someone
3) He will not have kids
4) He will be removed from the gene pool.

Hey! Maybe this is Darwin!!!!!

(JK)

Aside from the age assignment there, I think he is right. But it is a matter of degree. If you are sitting theer and are being invited to go out with your real world friends, and you ALWAYS pass them up to stay home with your online ones, you are not exhibiting healthy behavior.

You game to make your life more enjoyable. When gaming BECOMES your life you have gone too far.

One thing you may want to think about as well.

Self esteem.

How many guys that you know actually use real pictures of themselves on their online profiles in ANY outlet (forums included)? I know of maybe a dozen.

We can be someone we are not. That is one reason you do not see game makers making games that you can easily put your own face and body on.

People want, and use, that "self perfecting" device. Be someone they aren't as easily as turningon a machine and playing a game.

Isn't that right Neo?

What allows you to pass judgement based on someone choosing to interact online with friends rather than going out with frinds in real life? Why is that a bad choice?

Simple.

1) It will not get him in with a woman.
2) He will not meet someone
3) He will not have kids
4) He will be removed from the gene pool.

Hey! Maybe this is Darwin!!!!!

(JK)

Aside from the age assignment there, I think he is right. But it is a matter of degree. If you are sitting theer and are being invited to go out with your real world friends, and you ALWAYS pass them up to stay home with your online ones, you are not exhibiting healthy behavior.

You game to make your life more enjoyable. When gaming BECOMES your life you have gone too far.

LOL! This is hilarious. I actually met my real life fiance on World of Warcraft and know of several other couples who met through it or play it together. And I can honestly say that though we still play, he definitely does get "in with a woman" so to say.

MMO addiction is real, I went through it for over two years, while I played FFXI instead of WoW, i feel it was just as bad if not worse. FFXI is a much more competitive game than WoW, it has no instances, all items that come from mobs pop once every 21-24 hours and do not always drop items, further more the harder versions of these monsters drop even rarer equipment and only every 5-7 days. Therefore, if you want to be the best, there is a lot more time requirement. Also it takes about 2-4 times as long to reach max level in FFXI than WoW because soloing sucks ass in the game, but that's enough of comparing, I'm not trying to show that, what my experience was addiction. I started playing in high school when the game came out in winter 03 ( i think ). It wasn't long before I started putting off things to play consistantly, luckily i did have a laptop so i played at my friend's houses and such but it still lowered my GPA and because of my irresponsibility I was rejected from my choice college and ended up at my back up, and since hasn't been good. I lost my girlfriend of 2 years to it and it got even worse, being depressed + having a huge time sink to make yourself not feel bad, is a bad combination. So for my first two years of college i played as much as i could over 70+ hours a week, barely scraped by with a 2.0 average and didn't go out often. Then by some miraculous event I got banned, and i was mad at first but since then life has been great, going out, having a relationship again, it's definately an improvement. So alot of it is will power and self control but sometimes it's not always that easy, MMO's are designed to consume time, however I do find it ironic that WoW was designed in mind for people who have time issues, unlike FFXI where you need to devote about 3-4 hours for finding a party and getting EXP, in wow you can solo for an hour or two get a level, do some quests and maybe an easy instance and go back to whatever. I'm surprised it's so addicting

Furthermore, I am a guildleader within WoW and often devote a decent amount of time to the game because of that. My fiance (who as I mentioned, I met in the game) is also a guildleader of the same guild. Our guild is comprised of roughly 300-400 people.

We do go out as normal people might (with friends or just together), but 40-man raids are scheduled into our calendar and scheduled things take precedence over things not scheduled. This is mainly fueled by the fact that we have to lead these raids and handle the looting system within the raids. But truth be told, I ask all those who have signed up for the raids (we use a message board system) to attend. But that really isn't any different than making reservations at a restaurant and then keeping them.

I would also like to add that being a guildleader I have seen a great deal of things come to pass. I have met people who can get away and be with friends, despite ages, without being teased persay as they are daily in high school or junior high. I have met people that are less judgemental because they have been in the same situations. Granted I have met my share of butt nuggets as well - they are everywhere in the world.

Most recently a guildmember of ours was having family issues and overall life issues. He left the guild saying "sorry" and logged off for days. Many in the guild were so worried about him (knowing he had recently had some bad things happen to him in real life) so we all called him and left encouraging messages on his voicemail. He logged back on eventually to tell us that essentially, our messages let him know how much he was loved and that it had helped change his mind from doing something bad to himself. Now, granted - he has some issues. But doesn't it count for anything that friends in that game helped out a fellow human being? Don't those friendships count for something? Why are they considered lesser simply because they are online friendships?

Furthermore, I add this to the mix. Guys, you must notice that when your best friend gets into a serious relationship, they start spending less time with their friends, right? Therefore, does that make the girl they are dating an addiction? After all, they are spending more time with her (just like addicts do with WoW) and their friends & family time is shrinking.

Actually, she's just 14. This is what happens when you get addicted to video games at a young age...

rofl!

~Ibrhaim~

I suspect she's either a Psychiatrist or a Psychologist. Given that she's on the Harvard Medical Board (or was it staff?), I'd say it's the former.

She's got the credentials and knows more about it that probably all of us on this board. If you don't think it exists, let's look at people who sometimes play EQ (I've never done WOW) for 4 straight days.

Is it 40%? I have no idea, but I do know that an awful lot of people manage to level up to the max level within a week on new servers. That's probably like working a full time job (and then some).

That said, I think a better question to ask/answer is are those people who become addicted likely to become addicted to something else if not games? There was recently a study that showed that people who had gastric bypass surgery had a high rate of alcoholism after teh surgery, even though there was no such sign in teh past. In short, they went from food addiction to alcohol.

They don't put warning label on crunch and munch or Sour Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. It's all about self-control. And yes, some times you may go on a bender (whether that's WOW, EQ or the best jelly beans ever made), but most people can step back and say, "ok I need to get a grip."

Personally, I find that on EQ, I have periods where I play a lot and then i get bored and hardly play at all.

Or if they don't, you say it. "Friends don't let friends get addicted to WoW."

~Ibrahim~

removed post

I play 3 MMO's (along with other non-mmo's)

FFXi, Eve Online, Planetside (PS)

I play PS a lot less these days and have recently canceled my acct but I supliment that with Day of Defeat and Counterstrike.

My wife and I play FFXi together, we got her sister into it and play with other rl friends about 3-4 nights a week. We plan things out on our forums, try to help one another accomplish goals, etc...

Eve I play with RL friends as well. Being in a big corp/alliance I meet so many interesting people from all over the world. These are people I hope to meet someday in my intl travels.

Whenever I see this subject come up I think to myself, what would I do otherwise and what does the general public do otherwise. Most people watch TV I think, most people are actually addicted to that. With the emphasis there is in the media engine these days it's obvious there are millions of watchers out there. Hell, my wife and I watch TV while we play (and most the time I am playing 2 games at once as well).

So next I ask myself, would I rather be watching mind numbing TV where I have absolutly no interaction with other humans and where I am subjected to a god aweful ton of advertisments or would I rather play an MMO where I am delightfully chit chatting with pals and where I am encouraged to team up with folks to accomplish goals? (think my answer is obvious)

Your article says "I also asked what he expected to find each time he turned on the game, and his answer was a sense of belonging." You act like this is a problem. I ask you Dr. Orzack, why do you go out to dinner with your other Dr. friends or attend social events? Because you want a sense of belonging, you want to fit in and enjoy some social time with people of like minds. No different from what we do in our games.

Am I an addict? I really don't think so. I have plenty of activities in my life that don't revolve around gaming but at the end of the day it's likely you'll find me in my computer room playing around.

Are there situations where some people are actually using games as an escape, sure. Does something need to be done about that, there's no real clear answer for that, I say case by case basis. Should my game experience be altered because someone else is addicted to the same game I play, hell no. Any law or proposer of a law to alter games for this purpose should be exposed for the liberal P.O.S. they are.

To me this is just another case of people that don't understand technology and see gaming as "anti-social". Little do they realise that it's extremely social and interactive. There are plenty of people that can find a balance between their real life and digital life. For those that can't differintiate, as long as you keep your ass off welfare I don't care what you do. I'll be damned if my taxes are gonna pay for your MMO.

QFT

I don't know about WOW, but in EQ and EQ2, you really can't do much unless you're playing for several hours....there's the time to find a group and if the group is worth a crap, you don't want to quit, because it was sucha PITA to find a group (and such a rarity to find a good one).

These days, if a friend of mine is on, we play a few hours each night. If not, I do something else.

An awful lot play EQ most days and unlike Oblivion, there never really is an end....there's always a new expansion (too many, IMO) with more skills you can learn, better loot to get or new levels to get. That's where i think MMO games are different than most conventional games.

All that glitters is not gold.

There can be a good and bad side to every story and that's a nice one you have spoke of. But you do realize there is another side to raiding with guilds where time is a requirement, not an option - and taking a few days off, even for family problems, means you won't have a guild to come back to because there are plenty of others who will devote the necessary time.

75+ a week is excessive but if someone chooses to live their life that way, what is the issue? They are making that decision. If they are an adult they have the right and if they are a child then it's up to the parents to make that judgement.

It is in no way anyone else responsibility to jump in and stop someone from doing this. Every adult is responsible for their own actions (which is why welfare blows my mind).

Unhealthy, sure, people need to get out, see the sun, do something but it's not up to me or any govt. to re-inforce that. You don't (and we better not ever) see laws passing to get couch potatos up from in front of the TV. There's no laws keeping an obsessed machanic from workin on his car 75 hrs a week. If my wife could she'd be riding horses 75 hrs a week.

These are all hobbies and for anyone to be completly obsessed with anything to spend so much time wrapped up in it that they don't do other things is unhealthy. If you wanna have an intervention with an obsessed pal more power to ya but if he's not willing there's no reason in the world he should have his hobby taken away.

SOME people, and that would be a select few. It seems we're disputing between each other about addiction and what not. Most of us would agree 75+ is way over board. The fact is, Dr. Maressa Orzack said 40% of WoW gamers are addicted, but she never stated what she considers as addicted. What if she considered 20+ hours (less than 3 hours a day) an addiction?! Then hell yes, it would be 40%. But 20 hours is not addicted, and I'm sure most of us can aggree on that. The article is lacking in the fact that she pulled the 40% out of thin air and the only thing that describes addiction is the first sentence, "If you're suffering from dry eyes, headaches, back aches, erratic sleep patterns, it may be more than just your average hangover." I don't know about you, but you can suffer those things from reading books and watching TV, too. But I don't see her ranting about that.
The article is useless because it's too vague, it's basically rant from an old Dr. She has nothing else to do but make up some claims and percentages without showing any evidence. I know there are addicts, and I know that all of you know there are addicts, and there will always be addicts, but like I said before, the article is vague and is pointless because of that. It's pointing out the obvious, but over exagerating the problem.

I know that video game addiction is real. It is a very sad and destructive problem. It isn't just happening to teenagers it can happen to anyone. Young or old. This issue doesn't just effect the person addicted, it effects every person in there lives, their homes, their jobs, pets... everything. If you play WoW and are not addicted be grateful, and have empathy for the people/families that do have this problem. It's no joke.

My husband and I started playing video games together when we were dating. We've played many games together. Dark Age of Camelot and World of Warcraft (WoW) being the two main ones. My husband has completely changed in the last year. WoW was something we did for fun, but it quickly turned into something that he wanted to do all the time. He now is an angry, unhappy person, who refuses to stop playing WoW even one night a week. All of his personal relationships are starving. He has played up to 12-13 hours straight... 8-9 hours is average. He only stops to use the restroom and get something to eat. He even eats most of the time while playing. When he gets home from work he logs on and plays till he goes to sleep... when he wakes up the first thing he does is log onto WoW. On his weekends he plays non stop. Yard work does not get done and broken things around the house do not get fixed. He went from sleeping at least 10 hours a night to sleeping less then six. This is a terrible issue for more people then just me. Sadly most people I have tried to get help from do not take it seriously. I hope that the work that Dr. Maressa Orzack is doing can help the families and friends of these addicted people. This issue is very real, and these people need help, if they are willing to change.

I'd say that you are right in saying that this argument over addiction ultimatley boils down to personal or parental choice. It is not productive to blame Blizzard for making an incredibly addictive game. It is their job to sell the game and make money. I don't think anyone would debate that.

I do believe, however, that WoW and all similar MMORPGs are pretty sinister games in that they require an inordinate amount of time to build a top flight character. I played WoW for a total of about 7 days of gametime split between two characters. The game almost roped me in before I realized that it was basically pointless to continue to sink hours of my life into a game where I could never, ever be objectively "the best."

I guess this is where I disagree with the assessment that 40% of players being addicted is "too small" a number. I'm not going to toss a number out there, but I would go as far as to say that most WoW players with active accounts ARE addicted to the game in the sense that they are driven by the impossible desire to be the "best." What I mean by this is that I honestly believe that MOST daily WoW players are addicted to the FEELING of improving their character. While they might subtly realize in the back of their minds that they will never objectively be the "best," this never stops them from going on "just one more raid" to see if they can get that last set item. So in this respect, I can see why some people are trying to pin the blame on Blizzard for creating a game in which people are always striving for something they can't actually reach.

Odd that this applies to the real world. What does almost everyone at one point do at their life? Work. Most people don't enjoy their jobs and some people spend 70 hours a week working and they all do it for... Money. Money is used to buy the stuff we need to live, and then other material goods we expect to satisfy our urges. A new car, a new 60" Plasma TV, and all the crazy stuff "we don't need to live." Others get breast implants, piercings, or tattoos to make themselves look better/"cooler." We socialize and try to get entertained. But in the end, it can all be considered a waste of time because the biological timer keeps ticking. We try to improve ourselves all the time, and we just do the same routine over and over until we die. We waste our time doing anything really, wether you choose to believe so or not. So what if you waste 10 hours a day on WoW. You do the same at work except you get paid. Then again, that's the meaning of life, to keep living until the end.

oh game are addicting? NO!

Compelling? YES!

Addictions are based on a chemical dependency
cigarettes are addictive because your body becomes dependant on nicotine.
Tell me do games invade you body with chemicals? NO

There for Games are not Addictive!

Now why do people play MMO’s games so much?

One reason

Humankind has a tendency to outcast those that do no fit in to the norms of pop culture. If you have a twitch or some thing considered abnormal by pop culture you and ridiculed and harassed (at least in the early part of your life)
though on an interesting note more of half of the world fits in the abnormal class
dictated by pop culture.

The harassment and ridicule people do not like this.
So they play games where they are a representation of an avatar.
Only being judged by there skill and personality,
not looks or abnormalities.

Another reason

People have a natural attraction to myth it is a instinctive way of teaching

and finally

Games are FUN
More fun then sitting around watching TV for 6 hours a day!
So if games are addicting then what about TV, Or Hunting or any other activity that millions spend hours a day involved in.
OH and what about sports.

And on another note
some people say games make people violent and force them to commit crimes
ok but how is this possible when most people playing games are either skin and bone, over weight and have trouble moving or are just lazy?

And
most of the violent people in the world have never played a game.
There to busy fighting and steeling.
OH and I forgot Religion and personal beliefs. Tell how many wars have started form one religious faction thinking the other must go to Hell.

People out there must spot putting so much blame on video games.
yes ther are people who play to much or are violent. But there are people every where that are like that.