Hacker News Reader

Comment by mibbitier | Hacker News Reader

Video games are fine. For me, WoW crosses a line to addictive obsession. I don't think games like WoW are good for society in general, just because they are too addictive and consuming. Before you know it, you've lost 5 years of your life and achieved nothing.

View on HN

Key words "for me". Just because you can't manage to control your habits doesn't mean the game is "bad for society in general".

I played WoW for 5 years - usually never for more then 5-6 hours a week. In that time I freelanced and was rather successful for it. I also got married, bought a condo, and did many other things happy productive people did.

I got mocked by friends who insisted I was addicted when they were paying 100-200 dollars a month on new games and spending upwards of 20+ hours a week playing them.

edit: don't play anymore because that type of game is now like melba toast to me. No amount of jam can make melba toast taste good.

I think that's more about the player than the game. Most people would consider Halo a pretty casual game, but I've lived with people that played 4-5 hours of it per day (on average). Similarly, I used to play WoW for a few hours per week, and then just got bored and stopped. Not exactly addictive.

I think a case could be made that games like WoW are designed to attract and exploit addictive personalities. The WoW playerbase probably contains a higher percentage of addicts than most other games, since the game's quest structure is fine-tuned to balance the frequency and quality of rewards. That said, you're absolutely right, this does not mean that everyone who plays WoW is a basement-dwelling addict.

WoW is ethically worse than, say, Mario, but better than a slot machine, which is in turn better than everything from Zynga.

How are ethics involved in WoW? (Sincere question)

Oh, I mean in the sense that it is manipulating players into continuing, I think it's ethically questionable.

See, as somebody who was addicted to the game for a few years during college, I don't see how it is manipulating anybody? The game is fun and it has a lot of content and they keep adding content. It was MY lack of self control that led to me playing the long hours I did, it had NOTHING to do with Blizzards "manipulation".

Blizzard is in the business of making money through making games. It is in their interest to keep users playing month to month because of their recurring fee. In order to do that, they need to keep the game fresh so they introduce a lot of content. People want to play this new content so they keep playing.

The idea of manipulation in games is when they add specifically add game elements meant to keep the user in the game, and encourage them never to leave. Sure it's all a matter of self-control. Not losing your life-savings at a casino is also about self-control. That doesn't mean that casinos can't do ethically dubious things to take advantage of people without self-control.

E.g. The inside of a casino always looks the same, even at night. No windows (being near the entrance is the exception), lots of bright lights. It makes it easier for a gambler to lose track of time.

If she posted "I played WoW all day and did not do any work" on the face that is a genuine ping on her work ethic. You have to look and see what kind of "work" she does though to ascertain that and other details like did she bill her time anyway.

Game design can quite trivially trigger obsessive and compulsive responses and progressively increase time/money commitment to the next 'hit'. (see: Zynga)

Before Zynga and before free to play games were popular, MMO's like WoW were the default case study for arguments about where the line is, between a pass-time and a conditioning chamber.

I agree with your assessment, but the "social games" (Farmville etc.) probably have the highest percentage of addicts, since being an addictive drug is essentially their purpose.

I'd say it may be less about addiction and more about escapism. The problem being that unlike other video games/books/etc, the story doesn't end, but keeps on going. This allows the escapist to allow themselves to be engulfed by the world.

While I absolutely get your point about addictiveness (indeed many games are designed to be addictive) I've always found it odd when people complain that time spent gaming is "wasted" moreso than other hobbies. I don't think I've ever looked at someone who makes model train sets and thought "now there's an accomplishment!" I've never heard about someone buying a stamp and went "well, I bet their parents are proud!"

Both of those are perfectly fine hobbies, and I bet people interested in them absolutely have skills and accomplishments they're proud of. And that's fine. I may not get the hobbies, but I'm certainly not going to judge the value of how they spend their spare time. That's for them to determine if they're happy with. And I'll worry about my spare time.

You state that video games are fine. WoW is a video game, therefore it is fine. But then you go on and state you think that WoW is not good for society, blatantly contradicting your first statement.

To bring an overdone statement in to the mix: "guns don't kill people, people kill people". It isn't the game, it is the individual who already has addictive tendencies. It doesn't matter if it is WoW, another game, or another activity people who are predisposed to addictive behavior will tend to go overboard on their chosen activity. It isn't WoW's fault (because if it is, then many other games should be brought into this blame list).

I mean typical video games - ones you can "finish", or "win".

WoW isn't a game you can finish or win, and it manipulates players into continuing to spend more and more time in it. That's the part I think is damaging.

And here we have a live example of the target demographic the political advert was target towards.

I'm surprised that a WoW player running for political office doesn't in and of it's self alter your expectations of players.

As a former WoW player, I sympathize with your concern. However, there are many people who play WoW casually without being obsessed and addicted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com