The difference is the withdrawls. I want to stress that there is a significant difference between mental withdrawls and physical withdrawls. The mental withdrawls can be overcome with sufficient willpower. I'm firmly of the opinion that people who are "addicted to video games" are addicted because they want to be.
Gaming Addiction (Unethical Game Design) - Page 6
Forum Index > General Forum |
HackBenjamin
Canada1094 Posts
The difference is the withdrawls. I want to stress that there is a significant difference between mental withdrawls and physical withdrawls. The mental withdrawls can be overcome with sufficient willpower. I'm firmly of the opinion that people who are "addicted to video games" are addicted because they want to be. | ||
Shantastic
United States435 Posts
| ||
Shurayuki
Germany2665 Posts
On December 20 2011 02:53 sopas wrote: do ppl get withdrawal symptons in gaming? or how do u define addiction to videogames, just amount played? Many drugs never lead to a physical dependency, addiction can be purely psychological. A psychological addiction can in turn have real (bodily) withdrawal symptons. Actually people with gaming addiction do show withdrawal sympoms yes. (i.e. being jumpy, grumpy, hard to concentrate) On December 20 2011 02:57 HackBenjamin wrote: People can get addicted to anything. For some people it's crack, for others it's cheeseburgers. The difference is the withdrawls. I want to stress that there is a significant difference between mental withdrawls and physical withdrawls. The mental withdrawls can be overcome with sufficient willpower. I'm firmly of the opinion that people who are "addicted to video games" are addicted because they want to be. While i do agree with your post overall, that bit is a bit...urg. They might have gotten themselves into it willingly (but most people do with most addictions no?), but the point is that they should be able to see a doctor and have them help, in some cases that's the only way. That's a bit what this is about for me, there has to be institutions to help because this can be hard(impossible to get out of by yourself. | ||
Shantastic
United States435 Posts
I absolutely agree, though, that there should be institutions to help you get out of these addictions, BUT: those institutions do need to understand that the addiction is likely influenced by other elements of the subject's life. | ||
TundrA.
Canada35 Posts
(wow this became much longer than I thought... It's probably terrible writing but I don't have time to review/edit. TLDR at end) The WoW team at Blizzard has clearly noticed that the incentive structure of their game can lead people to play it compulsively, and they have changed the game to try to make it LESS of a grind. The problem that they find though, is that many MMO players LIKE the grind (the more hardcore they are, generally, the more they like it). Here are a few of the changes they made over the time that I played the game: 1) Limited wipes on raid bosses: this backfired horribly. Top guilds started to gear up multiple alternate characters to the levels of their main characters so they could practice fights with the alt raids before using up their attempts with their mains. Players' determination to be at the cutting edge of raiding led them to double or triple their grind (to get the points to gear up all the alts) rather than accept Blizzard-imposed limits on their raid times. After facepalming, the WoW team ditched the limits. 2) Caps on gear purchasing points: Players can only grind out so many points over a period of time. While the limits might seem high to people that are not willing to grind out the maximum possible amount, they do give people that would be willing to grind forever an end point. By giving out the same types of points for different activities, such as higher grade pve points for both raiding and running heroic dungeons, players often do not have to grind out points by doing things they would rather not do. 3) Changing daily quests into weekly quests: as far as I know still going. Players do not have to sign on every day to collect maximum points for gear, now they can do all their heroic dungeon runs in one sitting. Perhaps people that play compulsively find themselves locked into a schedule that reinforces that behavior. This might help those people. The kicker is that most of these changes were widely hated by the players that liked the game the most. Hardcore fans of WoW really liked having better gear than everyone else; it was not so much for ingame achievement as much as the social recognition that came with it. These people LIKED grinds because they provided a barrier for all but the most dedicated player to get the same stuff as them. Perhaps the worst thing that Blizzard has done to WoW gamers is to give them the ability to broadcast their own willingness to do brutally repetitive things through achievements and titles. '<Your Name Here> the Insane' has got to be one of the most boring rewards in the game to get, but also one of the most prestigious because of that fact. Perversely, the times where I felt I HAD to grind things that I did not want to grind, the pressure is social; I felt the need to have good gear to make sure that I would not be a drag on my friends in our collective efforts both in raiding and arenas. While game companies can be criticized legitimately for trying to trigger addiction-like responses through their gameplay, it is a bit of a stretch to blame them for peer pressure. The thing about WoW that I thought was most disturbing was how well it creates a social hierarchy in-game. The game allows people that are not successful IRL to gain recognition amongst their in game peers for nothing other than sheer determination and effort. By giving people things they can do together it allows people to make friends, and by giving ANY in-game rewards at all it allows for people to compete with each other in ways that they may not be able to do outside the game. The hook becomes that by leaving the game, one leaves behind not only that society, but also all of the time that one has spent in the game working towards in-game status symbols. TLDR The ultimate pressure to grind in MMOs comes not from their in-game rewards system alone, but rather the combination of in-game rewards and the society/community that is created by bringing players together in one game world. The problem with MMOs is not their reward structure alone, but that they allow people to compete for status symbols. Blizzard has in fact tried to limit grinding by putting caps on in-game rewards and attempt limits on bosses, but they generally have failed because of the peer pressure that players face to play more. | ||
Shurayuki
Germany2665 Posts
On December 20 2011 03:02 Shantastic wrote: Those withdrawals symptoms, however, are purely psychological, and usually point to a problem other than the game itself. Analogy time! (damn that never goes well) People are addicted to coffee, that happens. Caffeine is a substance that may cause addiction. While the reason they have gotten addicted in the first place may be -or rather most likely is- completely unrelated to coffee itself, deniying that coffee can be addictive is silly. Nobody is calling for coffee to be changed or anything like that, it's just about acknowledging the simple fact that people put caffeine into food products so you buy them more and that may be seen as a bit of a fishy practice. I absolutely agree, though, that there should be institutions to help you get out of these addictions, BUT: those institutions do need to understand that the addiction is likely influenced by other elements of the subject's life Heh you ninja editer! ;D Yeah that should be taken for granted, Psychologists dealing with that should absolutely understand that. | ||
sabas123
Netherlands3121 Posts
| ||
aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On December 20 2011 03:00 Shurayuki wrote: Many drugs never lead to a physical dependency, addiction can be purely psychological. A psychological addiction can in turn have real (bodily) withdrawal symptons. Actually people with gaming addiction do show withdrawal sympoms yes. (i.e. being jumpy, grumpy, hard to concentrate) While i do agree with your post overall, that bit is a bit...urg. They might have gotten themselves into it willingly (but most people do with most addictions no?), but the point is that they should be able to see a doctor and have them help, in some cases that's the only way. That's a bit what this is about for me, there has to be institutions to help because this can be hard(impossible to get out of by yourself. You assume that people need to get out of it in the first place. While there are circumstances in which people can play at an extreme neglect of their own personal health (like not eating), for the most part, these "addictions" are perfectly fine. | ||
eakzor
Sweden35 Posts
| ||
Shurayuki
Germany2665 Posts
On December 20 2011 03:15 aksfjh wrote: You assume that people need to get out of it in the first place. While there are circumstances in which people can play at an extreme neglect of their own personal health (like not eating), for the most part, these "addictions" are perfectly fine. I say that because currently there is o place you can really go...zero...none at all. There has to be a place because it can get really bad for some people, as far as leading to the death of themselves or people they are supposed to take care of (many cases in SouthKorea, if you want to make it relevant to this board). For the record i'm not saying everyone who is even mildly addicted should be made to attend a therapy, agree with you. | ||
Eppa!
Sweden4641 Posts
On December 20 2011 03:28 Shurayuki wrote: I say that because currently there is o place you can really go...zero...none at all. There has to be a place because it can get really bad for some people, as far as leading to the death of themselves or people they are supposed to take care of (many cases in SouthKorea, if you want to make it relevant to this board). For the record i'm not saying everyone who is even mildly addicted should be made to attend a therapy, agree with you. Isn't rather the case of manifestation of schizophrenia/borderline rather than gaming addiction that is the problem? A lot of things can trigger this and gaming addiction can cause it but the problem isn't really addiction. | ||
Swede
New Zealand853 Posts
On December 20 2011 02:57 HackBenjamin wrote: People can get addicted to anything. For some people it's crack, for others it's cheeseburgers. The difference is the withdrawls. I want to stress that there is a significant difference between mental withdrawls and physical withdrawls. The mental withdrawls can be overcome with sufficient willpower. I'm firmly of the opinion that people who are "addicted to video games" are addicted because they want to be. Once you're addicted to something there is no question of 'want'. It's a compulsion. It's needed to feel normal. It begins with them 'wanting' to play the game but after hours and hours of conditioning it becomes something else. WoW is the perfect example of a game which uses classical conditioning to ensnare players. Like they mentioned in the video in the OP, the leveling system starts off fast and easy so that you're experiencing the aesthetic rewards of leveling up a lot. This is classical conditioning. It is associating a neutral stimulus (just playing the game) with an unconditional stimulus (aesthetic reward of leveling up) to create a conditional stimulus, and it's doing it in a way which is perfectly comparable to Pavlov. Starting out with a shit ton of reinforcement and then slowly reducing it until the behavior is virtually ingrained in the subject and the 'unconditional stimulus' (leveling up) is required less and less. Anyway, all I'm saying is that a lot of people are really underestimating what an addiction actually is. If you think it's as simple as just saying no then your opinion is actually just invalidated. People with addictions will rationalise their choices so that they make total logical sense in their minds. It's possible that you can be addicted without even being aware because you will keep making up 'rational' reasons to continue the addictive behavior. | ||
HackBenjamin
Canada1094 Posts
On December 20 2011 04:02 Swede wrote: Once you're addicted to something there is no question of 'want'. It's a compulsion. It's needed to feel normal. It begins with them 'wanting' to play the game but after hours and hours of conditioning it becomes something else. WoW is the perfect example of a game which uses classical conditioning to ensnare players. Like they mentioned in the video in the OP, the leveling system starts off fast and easy so that you're experiencing the aesthetic rewards of leveling up a lot. This is classical conditioning. It is associating a neutral stimulus (just playing the game) with an unconditional stimulus (aesthetic reward of leveling up) to create a conditional stimulus, and it's doing it in a way which is perfectly comparable to Pavlov. Starting out with a shit ton of reinforcement and then slowly reducing it until the behavior is virtually ingrained in the subject and the 'unconditional stimulus' (leveling up) is required less and less. Anyway, all I'm saying is that a lot of people are really underestimating what an addiction actually is. If you think it's as simple as just saying no then your opinion is actually just invalidated. People with addictions will rationalise their choices so that they make total logical sense in their minds. It's possible that you can be addicted without even being aware because you will keep making up 'rational' reasons to continue the addictive behavior. I guess what I'm trying to get at is everyone has the power to make a change in their life when it comes to an addiction like this. Trying to pass it off as a compulsion or something just seems like similar reasoning for feeding hyper kids ritalin. Lack of mental discipline seems to be the underlying problem. | ||
Shurayuki
Germany2665 Posts
On December 20 2011 04:00 Eppa! wrote: Isn't rather the case of manifestation of schizophrenia/borderline rather than gaming addiction that is the problem? A lot of things can trigger this and gaming addiction can cause it but the problem isn't really addiction. Maybe i went a bit overboard with that, in these extreme cases that may very well be true, but a lot of gaming addicts have problems with malnutrition and forget to drink and youknowthedrill, the things newspapers like to report on. I'd mostly like to see a place like that so people could go there without the stigma that usual treatment would bring, that way maybe more people would actually do it. The american catalogue for mental illnesses has that interesting prerequisite that in order to consider you ill in a sense that it has to be treated, it has to severely impact you in life, i guess i'm always thinking a bit along those line so the one's who think it's not a big deal are probably the one's i'd ignore too. (i'll have to bail this thread because now, other stuff to do, hf) On December 20 2011 04:21 HackBenjamin wrote: I guess what I'm trying to get at is everyone has the power to make a change in their life when it comes to an addiction like this. Trying to pass it off as a compulsion or something just seems like similar reasoning for feeding hyper kids ritalin. Lack of mental discipline seems to be the underlying problem. That's a bit cynical don't you think? Doctors might be a bit proactive in prescribing drugs like Ritalin but i wouldn't think there are no cases where that is the only way to treat them. I guess people cure their psychological issues through 'willpower', but sometimes they need a studied person to give it to them, that's what therapy is for...and then sometimes it's very bad and then you need to help with drugs. | ||
Bulkers
Poland509 Posts
If you say gaming is addiction then practically you can say every form of hobby/spending free time/ any other activity is also an addiction. So our world is full of addictions, if you sleep more than average people then your addicted to sleep, if you shop to much your addicted to shopping, you exercise your addicted to sport, if you like bungee jumping or parachute jumping your an adrenaline junkie, you sit in front of TV for 6h a day your an addict. So we end up with 7 billion addicts on this planet, and now psychologist that say everything is an addiction got a lot of work (and money from patients). If people are stupid enough to watch tv for 10h, they are not addicted they are lazy. If you spend 1k$ in shops every day your not addicted to shopping your rich and you dont care, if you like to gamble then your dumb not addicted, if you play video games 10h/day your not addicted, your DUMB (if your not pro ofc) Seriously I played wow for 4 years, one day I said that I dont want to play more, I sold account for 350$ (server 3rd 70lvl paladin on horde side after BC release, with imba gear from karazan and gruul in high end guild). I stoped, finished school, now I work got a gf, I play Sc2 like 2-3h a day and I dont feel the need to play more or return to wow, and with saying that gaming is an addiction this would not be possible without special care/support from specialist and family. | ||
Wren.822
United States28 Posts
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/content/cultivated-play-farmville This was written by Public Historian Howard Zinn, about why Games are necessary to creating responsible citizens. And to everyone that has mentioned Farmville, it lays out a nice argument for why Farmville ought not be considered a game based solely on its obligatorily-based mechanics (you MUST come back and pick your crops OR THEY WILL DIE!!!!) Definitely worth a read considering the topic of this discussion. While I don't think I could say much that hasn't been said already, I would agree that gaming tends to prey upon those with addictive personalities, and that using designs that purposefully reinforce addictive behaviors might be considered unethical. I, as an individual, must consider my opinion regarding gambling (as suggested in the video) when making a judgment. If I think gambling is [stupid] or [wrong] or [unethical], then I must likewise think the same thing of games like World of Warcraft that employ similar action-reward mechanisms. Does that mean I think that of all gaming? No. Just like I don't think that of all forms of gambling. Poker, for instance, is a far cry from slot machines, in the same way that a game like StarCraft 2 is a far cry from World of Warcraft. They have different mechanics and reward mechanisms. If you play WoW for 200 hours, you might get better at your spell rotations (but not likely, considering you can learn/memorize them in a few minutes), and your effectiveness is largely reliant upon the gear you spent those 200 hours acquiring. In a game like StarCraft if I play for 200 hours (as I'm sure many of us have already) I won't be rewarded with more "phat lewt." There is no immediate reward for playing SC in the way that there is for playing WoW. Yes there are achievements, but if you're playing SC to achievement whore then I think your priorities are a bit messed to begin with. However, through playing and practicing I will acquire skills over time. I will (hopefully) be rewarded with improved hand-eye coordination, which translates in to macro and unit control, and minimap awareness, etc. There are skills involved in playing a game like Poker (like in poker, knowing when to bluff, and how to feign a weak hand to make your opponent bet more confidently) which can translate well in to a game like StarCraft. The only skill you get from slot machines is learning how to pull levers. | ||
ezk
Canada239 Posts
On December 20 2011 05:09 Wren.822 wrote: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/content/cultivated-play-farmville This was written by Public Historian Howard Zinn, about why Games are necessary to creating responsible citizens. Definitely worth a read considering the topic of this discussion. Thanks for the share It was worth reading, indeed. If Howard Zinn had but one lesson to teach us, it is that cultivated citizens must constantly look around and examine what they’re doing, because there is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else’s crop. Why do you play games? To have fun, of course... The real question is not wheter the game became an addiction or not... or whether you feel withdrawl symptoms or not... The real question you should ask yourself is why are you doing this. Is the motivation behind the action intrinsic or extrinsic? Do you do the activity for the pleasure it brings you.. or do you do it for the reward you obtain from it? Obviously, if the reward is extrinsic, the game is more like a job to you. You might not be addicted to it (as far as im concern, I dont get withdrawl symptoms from day off) but you're actualy doing something for completly differents reasons than the pleasure gained from the action it self. Edit: Sorry for bad synthax | ||
llKenZyll
United States853 Posts
| ||
Flyingdutchman
Netherlands858 Posts
On December 20 2011 05:57 Lebzetu wrote: I think the person also has a big effect. Companies may exploit weaknesses in some individuals and thats the peoples fault. seriously? So you would be fine with practices like subliminal messaging during movies so you buy the advertised products during the break? Because what some gaming companies are doing is not that much different, it is playing tricks with the subconscious of their customers. Social sciences have uncovered a lot of interesting facts about people, their behavior, and how you trigger those behaviors. A lot of these things they discover are harmless, but can be abused. For the gaming industry, the main driving throught behind development is what scientists have learned from doing experiments on rats. I can't imagine so many people in this thread being ok with this development, it is not going to bring you better games and new content, but less content dragged out as long as possible. That is what the video in the OP is about, that we have to realize some games are just screwing with your conscious decision-making, not that all games are made to be addictive (and should therefore be banned) and people falling for it are weak minded simpletons. Stick to games that do not abuse these skinner box mechanics, and support the companies that make 'good' games. | ||
Shantastic
United States435 Posts
| ||
| ||