The World of Warcraft that ruins the World of Mortals. - Wow Addiction and its effects on addicts
I myself
have never played World of Warcraft and never intend to after this, but I have
heard of players finding it hard to break free from the grind that is WoW(World
of Warcraft). This issue intrigues me as a person and as a gamer who finds it
hard to stick to the time slots I give myself when it comes to playing video games.
Looking at a game like WoW and thinking about all the time and effort put into
raids and holding together a guild it is easy to understand why someone would
play for so long when they have become so invested. It's that kind of time that
has mainstream media declaring that all of gaming is bad, sadly WoW is brought
to the forefront a lot more due to more extreme cases being directly linked to
people whom were playing this game. The most recent incident being in Shanghai,
China, where the man collapsed at his desk and died after playing 19 hours
straight without a break as Dailymail reports, " CCTV footage shows him sitting in
front of the computer and suddenly turning to his left to cough violently,
before slumping in his chair and dying in front of shocked fellow gamers"(Hall,
J, 2015). This is just one case of many where the person has been adversely
affected from either playing the game for too long or being overly committed.
The question I have is that is the game itself a problem? or is it the person
whom is playing them?.
From research I have found regarding gaming
and addiction when playing WoW, the most common theme is that it's all about
reward and loot. This is not just an issue with WoW this is a hook that most
games use just WoW seems to do it better than most. We as humans have an
in-built system that requires that we do tasks and we accomplish them to have a
sense of self fulfillment. When we create a task and we achieve the task our
brain releases dopamine which allows you to feel good about your accomplishment
which is the first part to it. The next part is the loot that randomly drops in
the game, the loot is completely un-predictable and can happen at any time. As Madigan
states " The real key is that while dopamine neurons fire once your brain
has figured out how to predict an event, they really go nuts when an
unexpected, unpredicted gush of dopamine shows up, giving you an even bigger
rush."(Madigan, J.2009).In psychology it's called the variable ratio
reward system, this system is mainly associated with problem gambling however
with online gaming the reward comes in rare forms of loot. It puts the player into
that feeling of why not grind another couple of hours that epic sword is just
one or two more killed bandits away. This combined with a whole bunch of other
people trying to do the same with gathering items, weapons and armour to
complete the tasks the game sets out for them it's no wonder people can exhibit
addiction like symptoms. Through a common purpose you make friends with other
players who are also just searching to complete tasks and garner rare loot, and
if you are wanting the most rare of loot you will need to co-ordinate teams to
try and ascend to and complete higher raids which will require more time to
level your character.
This is a
new age problem we face as a society, since online gaming is relatively young
there is not enough data to correctly diagnose and treat the issue. The term
game addiction is not yet recognised as a mental disorder by American Psychiatric
Association however they have stated that further studying is required. The
current system that is being used to diagnose gaming addiction is similar to
that of gambling but this cannot continue as some case studies will show that a
player will exhibits the same behaviors of a gambler and some will not. This
comes down to an individual's take on the game. A study done in 2007 by Kraut
and Seay show "The results clearly
indicate that self-regulation is important in shielding the user from problematic
use and reducing or eliminating problematic use once it arises."(Kraut
& Seay. 2007). More studies show that people whom find themselves addicted
to Wow also have underlying issues such as anxiety and depression to name a
few.
Only time
will tell of whether or not Wow is a truly addictive game, or whether online
gamimg as a whole can actually be claimed as an addiction. At the end of the
day WoW does play to our human nature and our biology but it all ultimately
ends with the player choosing to play on or move on, however when does one
decide it's time to move on?.
References
Nardi, B. (2010).
My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft.
Michigan, USA: University of Michigan Press
Hall, J. (2015).
Video game fan coughs up blood and drops dead in Shanghai internet café after
playing World Of Warcraft straight for 19 hours. Retrieved from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
Madigan, J.
(2009). Phat Loot and Neurotransmitters in World of Warcraft. Retrieved from: http://www.psychologyofgames.com/
Kraut, R,
E. Seay, A, F.(2007). Project Massive: Self Regulation and Problematic Use of
Online. Gaming. Retrieved from: http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1106&context=hcii
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