The MMORPG phenomenon: digital addiction?
For the uninitiated, MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. The basic premise of these epic online games is that players from all over the world converge on the servers to battle computer-controlled opponents, and often each other. Each server can hold an average of up to 5,000 players at a time. So it’s no wonder that these servers become home to a unique subculture of gamers who eat, sleep, and breathe these fantasy worlds, sometimes to the detriment of everything else in their lives. Countless news articles tell of gamers who have abandoned their family, friends, jobs, and sometimes even their own lives to keep playing. Large companies continue to make money while people’s lives are turned upside down by the constant attention that these types of games demand of their players. So what keeps players coming back every day and why are they paying for the privilege?
As a former MMORPG enthusiast, I can tell you that the hooks for players are many and varied. For the casual gamer, leveling and associated character stat boosts are their first cheats. Knowing that you are only hours away from being better at fighting the monsters that haunt your existence online is a very good reason to keep playing. Who wouldn’t want to be 10 points stronger for just a few hours of work? The problem with this is that game designers are always one step ahead of you. Now that you can easily kill the monsters you were fighting just moments before leveling up, they are practically worth no experience points. This means that to get to the next level, you will have to go out and find some more difficult monsters to kill. For someone who is out of the trap, it is painfully obvious what is happening here: you have not really made any progress at all. So why do people keep playing?
Equipment falls. As you battle those creatures for more experience points to level up and fight more monsters, they have a chance to drop useful gear every time you kill them. Unlike the leveling process, which is very linear, a good team can fall at any time, but often it doesn’t. It seems that no matter which team falls, there will always be something bigger or better that the player is waiting for. Once again, the viewer can see that this is nothing more than a form of play. Okay, the cost is only slight in real dollar terms, but the players’ time is the product that goes into this transaction.
The combination of winning new levels and waiting for the team to drop can keep a player busy for weeks. So what happens when the player realizes this is happening and decides that they could be better off doing something a little more productive with their time? Game designers hope at this stage that players have become friends in the virtual world with whom they can chat and share their experiences. This makes quitting the game even more difficult, as other people may have come to rely on the unique abilities that a certain player can bring to the game. Peer pressure is as alive in MMORPG players as it is in the schoolyard, and this can be one of the most important factors in keeping people playing. When players are in the game for more than a few months, they are highly unlikely to quit due to a combination of all these hooks.
Like anything else that carries the risk of addiction; this does not affect the entire player population. It is also something that I think we can no longer ignore. There are so many similarities between an MMORPG and any other type of addiction that it is hard not to care about the people who are caught in this particular trap. You don’t want any of your friends or family to have an uncontrollable problem with alcohol, drugs, or gambling, but we don’t see any immediate harm in someone who plays a computer game excessively. With the influx of new players to this genre, I think our attitude will have to change towards the growing problem of digital addictions before we start losing too many good people.
