Get real - gaming in the real world

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/07/04/Get_real_-_gaming_real_world/1.html

 

Grand Theft Auto, the modern day PlayBoy...

Good article, though as with anything it's those that take it to the extreme that cause the controversy.

 

I've just emailed this article to a friend who has an adiction to world of warcraft. I know, that sounds stupid, but I genuinely belive that he is adicted. He stayed at uni after everyone had left just becuase he knew that coming home his parents will stop him plying so much. I managed to check out how many hours he had racked up on one of his characters. On a lvl 44 he had over 4 weeks of playing time. He has 2 level 60's and about 5 other characters which he plays regularly. I can only imagine what his total playing time is on the lvl 60's.

Its not just unhealthy physically, its also mental as well. If given the choice between going out with some mates on a night out. He will always choose WoW. He's even blown of a weekend holiday because he had a raid with his guild.

I think Blizzard need to take more responsibility with regulation of the time people spend on that game. Playing more than 5 hours a day is just rediculous. Its ok once every so often. I can't say i'm a perfect example of a regulated gamer, I often find myself playing a whole game, and just like a good book, i can't put it down, but i have the self controll to stop, whereas some people don't. I used to play world of warcraft, but then i kinda took a step back and realised that I was playing arround 4 hours a night, i wasn't blowing of real life for it, but i was definately playing too much. On top of that, i wasn't even playing the game and enjoying it. I was simply playing to get a higher level, if i'm honest, i was finding it booring and highly repetitive. There is only so many gathering missions you can do before they are the same. I've since gotten back into source games, and i find these to be far more fun as you can simply play a little and then get on with something else, there is no real reason not to pause and play later, which is one thing you can't do in mmorpg's as there are other people who may be depending on you.

 

I know how you feel. I played Galaxies for 9 months solid, during my second year at University. I regret it now, as I regularly turned down nights out to the pub and sat in on an all-nighter. I've played from Server reset to shutdown many times too (23 hours). But I eventually got bored of the game and realised how much fun I was missing in the real world. Since then I've barely touched a game.

My brother was the same with WoW, he played it from Beta until a month or so ago, when he finally cancelled his account. He had 2 level 60's along with several high level (40+) characters. He often skipped meals as he had to go on raids with his guild.

It's hard to stop someone with the addiction, but if you tell them how much they're missing, they should eventually give in. Hope that WoW becomes boring for him?

 

Well, it's easy to critisize China, When you are not in China

I was in Jinan when the murder happened, and nothing changed. Absolutley no censorship or limitations to the gameplay or online content. Chinese High school students will show you some bizzare things... , to say the least.. even the girls...

I can agree with this goodly informitive article on two points: the desensitized generations, and the delibret influence or censorship of graphic media and entertainment by governments.

Desensitized populations like western ones, need violence. There are restless middle and lowerclass populations with out warzones or civil conflict. Not everyone will go to Iraq or grow up in Palestine, so you bring the battle experience to the citizen and they are sastisfied in many ways. They can play games like Halo and Doom3 and Medal of honor, and get a chance to be the lone hero sending guilt free death to those strange looking Demons, Aliens and or Nazi's.


In postal2 you can urinate on characters in the game... Now that may sound "cool" to simulate, but in reallity you would not urinate on Gary Coleman. And it's just wrong for young people to grow up thinking, it's okay to pee on Gary Coleman.

 

theres one solution to this and suprisingly it's not regulation but people acting with more responsobility.. If you find a game ofensive don't buy it... if your addicted to a game stop playing.

Personaly I'm rather sick and tired of violent games and films, it's been done too many times. I would like to see more sex as games tend to be childish in there aprach to it, as do films for that matter.

 

violence is at the heart of nearly every game in which you controll a character. Its not going to go away.

Also, people acting more reponsibly?? I'm affraid that the whole reason they get into messes like adiction and killing people is because they are just the opposite, and if thats the case, its not the consumer that has to worry about it. Its the provider. THE ONLY case in which people can be more respoinsible is the sale of 18 rated games to kids, not just the parents but the staff. Its stupid, but if my little brother went to a shop and bought silence of the lambs and gta, but made sure that gta was on top, the sales person would happily sell him gta but as soon as they spotted the film they would ask for ID? its the same with parents. My mum wouldn't even buy me 15 rated films when i was 13, but she bought me goldeneye on my N64. I know, its hardly violent compared to todays standards, but it was definately was back then.

 

I disagree, it's not the content providers job to be parents to people. If people don't want to accept personal responsability for their lives then fine, but it's not a companies job to be the parent and say "you've had enough now".

 

The Bellingham Public Library has two copies of the Anarchist cookbook in henetal circulation

Excellent article, as usual.

 

Yes an interesting read that article was.

Speaking of WoW... the only thing I see Blizzard doing to address the issue of addicts is a little tool tip i see in the loading screen which says "Play with your friends in Azeroth, but don't forget to play outside Azeroth too" or something on the lines of that. No joke... I mean I laughed at it but given that I raid at least 4 times a week I guess I'm being a bit of hypocrite.

 

But why should it be the responsability of the content provider to "control" one's access to play? Why should Blizzard be the one's responsable because little Johnny plays Wow 16+ hours a day and is turning into a fat @rse and losing grip on reality?

It's down to the user(s) or depending on the age, the parents/legal guardians. Not the provider.

People don't sue Smith & Wesson, Heckler & Koch, Colt or Remmington when someone is killed by a gun. People don't sue "Ginsu 2000" when someone is stabbed with a knife. It's down to the wielder (sp?) of said instrument.

Hell, give it 50-60+ years when we actually have the first gen of "holodecks". Imagine the level of madness, recluses and mentally disturbed people that will either flock to them or be the result of them.

In the end it's the people that use the games -- not the providers. Human nature - you want what you can't have -- a nice fantasy world where you don't have to do homework or get up and go to work

 

yes, thats true, but there is a responsibility to make sure that their game doesn't cause harm. As soon as they realise that the game is a massive hit and will have people obsessively playing it, or reinacting its stunts (i'm thinking of the wrestling games, several people broke limbs at my school because of those) they should have warnings.

I have never seen such a warning in game on wow. I think that when you hit a todays playing time of over 2 hours on wow, it should have a popup saying something like, "you've been playing for 2 hours, we advise you take a break" I don't agree with the way that korea is handling it, by limiting the online time, that would just make them want to play more..

even if people ignore it, there will be people that notice it.

No matter what anyone says, it is most definately not just down to the parents and the person themselves to monitor their online time. Take any addiction, people with them often don't want to quit. People arround them give up trying to force them. The manufacture has to take some form of responsibility. Cigarette packets now have writen warnings and threats, alcahol has the same in some countries, soon there will be graphic images. All because someone made a product thats function is to become adicitve and provide income to the manufacturer.

 

Unhealthy meantally? I don't really see how, hes just enjoying himself, and like me, probably finds computer games alot more enjoyable than pickling your liver and damaging your hearing. If you havn't played an MMO before then you should know that all these people don't go around oblivios of each other, people can make some pretty strong relationships with people they otherwise wouldn't have met before (it also removes the prejudice of what people look like).

Again, I'm gonna say that people are looking in completely the opposite direction when they balme violent computer games for the worlds problems. The only cases of murder or death that you mentioned that were to do with gaming are very, very extreeme and very rare. I would also imagine that the main cause of this isn't the computer games, these are just a match to an unstable mind.

I for one can't wait untill this stupid contorversy dies down, but alas, I don't think zealous mothers in america (mainly, but all over the world too) are willing to explain thier childs problems because of poor parenting, or mental unstablity, but choose to tack it onto a scapegoat, and for the past few years it's been gaming.

People don't need games to do that, people were recreating wrestling moves long before wrestling games were out. You see, there is this thing called TV, and it's just as bad as games.

 

Do you work for the Daily Mail? Becuase I think this is a classic case of scare tactics done by the media.
Sure, there will always be people who play solidly for 60 hours or go and murder someone for some crappy sword, but that is a tiny tiny minority, nothing else compares to it.
Anyway, gamers are far too lazy to actually go out and kill someone, hell, it's taking all my reserves just to type.

 

Firstly, i have nothing againts violent games, I enjoy them. If kids play them, its the retailer and the parents fault. I understand this, that was not even the point. If some little **** goes and kills someone after playing a game, fine it may have influenced them, but for someone that mentally unstable to be playing a game gta in the first place is simply stupid, and if the parents did not spot the troubles early enough, they are to blame.

Secondly, online relationships.. i completely understand where your coming from. I have several friends that i havn't seen for years now, but we are always chatting on msn and on games, and i can easily see how playing a game like WoW, which i did for the best part of a year would make those connections even stronger. but to rely on those relationships alone is not a good way to go. People need real human contact or they just go weird and use the internet as a sheild to their real life. As for the jab at drinking and clubing, i don't like clubs, i hate the culture and everything that goes with it. I do drink, but its hardly doing any dammage, and i do it so infrequently. I use times like going out into town with friends as social occasions, to talk face to face with someone. You cannot compare that to chatting on the net, or even voice conversations, or even video conversations. IT IS JUST NOT THE SAME. Its a cut of reclusive lifestyle.

 

The V-chip for the PC! aha! Microsoft needs ESRB restrictive software for parents to limit.

I do blame the parents a bit. Just as much here as is in the east. There are far too many teenagers without direction and guidence. All over Japan it's like the matrix, everyone is "plugged in". The difference between wealthy countries and poor countries with the computer market is the Personal computer or the internet bar/cafe'.

You have your kids here in "the states" with their own custom pc, a DSL connection and they live at home and are 15, then you have a country like India or mexico, and it's 15 year olds smoking ciggarets and spending 16 hours a day playing W.O.W.

In a country like China, where a Playstation2 or Xbox are barely known, (due to bad blood between the Japanese and Americans) the PC is the sole gaming platform. In my gaming experiences in Zhongguo, very few people had playstions, PSP's, etc. it was excluisively PC and a little arcade (King of fighters). Great Basket ball too.

 

Why on earth do you feel that? The world owes you nothing. If someone cannot control their own lives, others should not be forced to. WoW is not addictive in the proper sense, you do not suffer physical withdrawl symtoms if you do not play WoW for a few days.

I'm tired of people not taking responsibility for their lives. If people want to get treated like 10 year olds then maybe we should treat them like 10 year olds, no driving lisence, no alcohol, no vote. We can have an underclass of people too pathetic to look after themselves. For the rest of us who have the balls to take responsibility for our lives, I think we can do without stupid measures in online games that only lead to them being more expensive for the end users.

 

Addiction does not have to be a physical thing. Trust me, it can be mental as well. But for someone who plays wow all day, i recon the effort of moving arround may take an effect... weight loss might be one of them, or possibly severe exhaustion. The mental effect is simply the lust to play again. The friend i mentioned.. If he was away from wow for more than a week, he has openly admitted to dreaming about it. and getting urges to play, thats not normal and its not a unique case.

As for people taking responsibilty of their own lifes.. of course i don't think that everyone should be controlled. HOWEVER, what i am trying to point out is that people who show signs of becoming obsessive and reclusive. Need to have someone there to get them out and about. Again, to bring my friend into this, he has his parents standing by, they turn of the power to the house, they have cancelled the broadband. They are controlling his access to WoW and he is already better for it. The other day must have been the first time he went to the cinima in ages.
For the people WITHOUT someone there to help them though, there has to be at least some effort directly from manufacture.

What you seem to be misunderstanding is the target of what i'm getting at. I'm not talking generally about everyone. I myself play a lot of games, and my mum seems to think i'm addicted. However I know i'm not, I have a social life, both on the net and in real life. This is the situation for most people. They have self controll. The people i'm talking about are the ones that don't. The ones that have prior histories of obsessive or compulsive behaviour. These are the people that need to be helped out of situations.

 

lol. pop-up warning you of how much time youve played...

next thing you know, itll be *WARNING* may cause addiction, myopia, loss of job, insanity, gain of weight, many other unknown effects ad well as in some cases, death.

kinda like the *warning, hot* on the cofee cups at burger king or MC donalds.

 

I dunno about real-world gaming equivolents. For the first time yesterday I went 'airsofting' with my brothers-in-law to be. Running around playing capture the flag whilst shooting pellets at each other is definitely as much fun as a 1st person game online, and I worked up more of a sweat too. And then there's the improvisation, I don't think i've ever seen an old west style dual online before... (but i don't plaly games that much either)

Anyway, yes, a nice well-reasoned article. And for those of you that need to get work or study done, I seriously recommend un-installing ALL games from your primary work/study machine.