World of WarCrack: Don’t Call It Addiction

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World of WarCrack: Don’t Call It Addiction

Mon, Apr 7, 2008

Over at Gamasutra, Neils Clark has a compelling follow-up to his an earlier article about addiction in gaming. It seems as though every few weeks or so, gamers are confronted with another expert ranting about addiction in the gaming world and the detrimental effects of too many raids in World of Warcraft.

One of the central problems about discussing video game addiction in the games industry is that its rather like the cigarette industry discussing lung cancer. Acknowledging it is bad for business. That is not to say that video game clearly exists, but discerning and outlining its limits is more difficult for this quandary:

The public opinions among developers run the gamut. Some talk about unleashed gamers with a tinge of jealousy in their voice -- "The biggest problem in your life is that you get to play games all day? Poor you." Others view it with an air of caution, saying that addiction is, "Bad for business, and the industry knows it."

Clark goes on to discuss a roundtable at which a developer for Blizzard discusses the gameplay elements that might inspire addiction. In talking about the sweet sport for game involvement, the Blizzard representative was understandably coy:

The most interesting voice in the roundtable was a programmer from Blizzard Entertainment, who discussed some of the company's design discussions prior to the Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft.
He said that they wanted to distinguish between gameplay elements that might encourage all players to go overboard, versus those that caused problems for a select few. The idea was to keep the pieces that make the game enjoyable for everybody, but make sure that everyone's enjoyment wasn't punctuated by a design that required too much maintenance.

World of Warcraft is not a game that can be defeated. Once a player reaches the level cap, there have to be other reasons to continue playing because the revenue model for the game is a subscription one. As such, it behooves Blizzard to inspire a certain amount of obsession in its customers. People in WoW forums routinely wax poetic about the game and say things ludicrous such as, "I would pay $50 to see a Warcraft movie." The following is fanatical. And while Blizzard doesn't want to inspire fanaticism to the detriment of more casual players, such fanaticism is necessary for the game to continue grossing so much money.

What the Blizzard designer is expressing is that if addiction--depending on how you define it--is required for game players to enjoy the game, then the game is a failure. But, Blizzard doesn't mind that addiction. People addicted to WoW still have paid subscriptions.

The media has been diligent about informing gamers and the population at large of the dangers of gaming addiction:

The man who died of 86 straight hours in a Korean PC-room was autopsied after all of the sensational press reporting; what the news media failed to come back and tell us was how he died. It was deep vein thrombosis (DVT), the disease made famous by Dick Cheney. At twenty-five, this man had died of a disease normally reserved for genetically-inclined forty-plus-year-olds. . .

Meanwhile, the issues raised by excessive gaming appear very real in the eyes of the South Korean, Chinese and Singaporean governments, whether or not the analysts at the helm have an adequate understanding of gaming. Korea currently treats "Internet Addiction" (again, games inclusive) as one of its chief public health concerns. South Korea has poured money into the research, and as a result they've gone past the pigeonholed Western gauges for IA.

Now, gamers realize that these cases are few and far between. There is no way to draw a correlation between video game addiction and death, but there are other consequences to players becoming too involved in video games:

In my own research into how MMO games might influence addiction, which you can read about on this site, players who preferred goal-oriented groups, or "hardcore raid guilds" were statistically more likely to sacrifice things like food, sleep and other real-world necessities (in regression analysis -- which isolated those guilds from other game elements that might have otherwise contributed).

This is a result I am familiar with. I do not play in a hardcore raid guild, but my guild does raid, and I do plan certain meals around raiding nights. On the nights we're running Karazhan, I make sure that I have dinner planned. If that means I pick it up from a cheap taqueria, then so be it. I also never go out and socialize on raiding nights. Those are the actual implications of game "addiction." The main problem with the story on both sides is the use of the word addiction. It is far too serious, in comparison with true addiction with alcohol or drugs. At best, it should be called video game obsession. Whether or not that is detrimental to the lives of a larger percentage of video gamers than the death-causing "addiction" found in South Korea, it is certainly on a much smaller scale.

Fundamentally, game designers will always try to make a game that is "addictive." The want to make games that players are interested in playing again and again. Particularly if they're subscription-based:

Ernest Adams wrote that, "It's almost impossible to make a game addictive on purpose." He suggests that most people who try are wasting their time, "It's a bit like the Tao: those who set out to look for it are guaranteed not to find it." Good game designers tend to come upon great designs just like any other artist.

The gaming industry needs to set aside its prejudices about the word addiction--and critics needs to stop being so vehement in their criticisms--and have a reasoned discussion about the actual implications, socially, of game obsession. But perhaps its time to shelve that word.