He also lays some portion of the blame at the feet of the game's creator, Blizzard Entertainment, for structuring the game to encourage such heavy addiction. Once your character reaches the game's maximum level -- currently level 70 -- the time commitment required to keep advancing "skyrockets," as he put it. "When you master the game, another patch is released and your work is now obsolete."

http://videogames.yahoo.com/ongoingfeat … 289&page=0

Of course, I don't know the entire story, but from what I can tell a few people who simply don't know when to take a break find it much easier to blame game developers for their lack of control and responsiblity. I think such articles, even though it kinda tried (in a lame sorta way in my opinion) to say games aren't necessarily bad, nevertheless paint video/computer games as destructive. Of course, as accurately mentioned in the article, the average American sits on his or her ass and watches 4.5 hours of TV per day!! I spy hypocrisy...

-avatar!

I was happy to get out of WoW over Christmas. No regrets. I do not remotely blame Blizzard for the ridiculas amount of hours I put into it. I knew what I was getting into before I even started, wasting my time like I did was my own fault.

BUT right now I'm blaming Facebook for not helping me finish my papers due tonight.

I myself have once been pulled deep into the grasp of MMOs (granted Diablo II isn't as expansive as WoW or FFIX) but it severed well as my vice for about two years. But no, I don't blame the game developers. I myself can now admit I used the game as a way to escape from reality and fill a void within myself: at the time I didn't have many friends, the ones I had where playing the game to begin with (I just had to be "one of the guys") and I had my parents on my ass about my grades. There were a lot of outside influences outside the control of the game creators that drove me to play the game like I did.

However, after going to college I forgot all about Diablo II and pretty much swore off playing another MMO. I just don't want to go back to being like that again. Granted, I can and will play a console game for 60 hours - but after those hours are over I don't need to play or touch it again for another year or two. There is a definitive *end* to the game unlike a MMO and I like and personally feel the need for time and place to step away.

This reminds me of that teenager who shot and killed two cops and said he did it because of GTA. I thought this is a load of bull because, like in real life, there are consequences for your actions in the game. Want to down a few cops in the game? Expect more to show up and kill you - same thing will happen in real life. It is true real life and fantasy are two different things, but you can learn about the one from the other.

So, no, MMOs are not evil... some people just don't want to look inside themselves and admit there are other pieces to the puzzle...

my little brother pretty much plays those games all day,, of course he takes a break to goto work where he works on OTHER people's computers...  im kinda glad i bought the ps2 version without the network card,,

It does say he lays some of the blame on the developer. This isn't a "GTA made my kid kill people" type article, though I could see others taking that stance.

I've only dabbled in MMOs and, personally, I think they are hideous, manipulative, ultimately unsatisfying experiences. They are designed to suck people in for hours, days, months and years. In fact, that seems to be their only purpose as far as I can tell. Yes, people should just regulate the time they spend on gaming and get out more. That, of course, will get harder to do as teams of developers are working to hook more people in for longer and that is not, in my opinion, something to be encouraged.

Edit: By the way, Avatar - you put the word evil in quotation marks in your thread title. I'll be damned if I can find the word "evil" in that entire article. Your post title is more alarmist and sensational than the article itself, which seems to give quite a balanced overview and is more questioning than damning.

I can relate to the article seeing as how I've logged over 250 days played in World of Warcraft since November 2004.  It's addictive and I'm addicted, no doubt about it.  The difference is I don't blame anybody.  In November 2004 I was in my last year of college taking 2 classes each semester, living off campus working 40 hours a week just to pay rent and playing the game in my spare time.  I had no heavy course work, my job schedule was heavy so I played the game in my off time. I lived with some friends, we went out every once and a while, I didn't shrug off a social life or anything (mostly because I didn't have much of one, take the opportunities when they arise I guess).  After I graduated though, I came home and really had nothing to do.  The majority of my friends at home, that all live locally, are in bands and on tour all the time.  When they're not on tour they're working furious hours at local restaurants paying off their debts.  It doesn't leave too much time to hang out =O.

I can write as many justifications for playing the game as I want, but what it really comes down to is I pay 15$ a month to sit at home and enjoy myself.  I find it much more financially (and socially) responsible than going out to a bar and spending 50$ a night for 3 nights every weekend or driving 1 ~ 2 hours to visit my friends from college every weekend (Gas prices are retarded btw).  I play the game because I enjoy it, I enjoy the people I play with and right now it's giving me a nice financial buffer to continue to pay off my college loans, car loan and other stuff.

I'm sure there are some people that have serious problems, where it ruins their relationships, their marriages, their lives or whatever.  But just about anything is prone to addiction.  Blizzard is pretty genius, from a business perspective, to be able to capitalize on 8mil people monthly.  This article is just pointing out the minority of players, really.  There are a lot of people that play like I do or less, and don't have any problems whatsoever.

~jb

These games have a design structure that tends to cater to addictive personalities.  I do not think developers intentionally do this; it's a consequence of designing a leveling-based game.  The player needs to take responsibility for his/her actions, if they don't have an addictive personality.

I played WoW for three months and got to level 40 of 60 (before the expansion raised it to 70).  It was fun at first because you get to explore the world and do a few quests.  By level 40, I found the game getting repetitive.  Quests kept repeating a set of archetypes (fetch, kill an enemy, etc.).  There was also few quests to do with a small party.

But $15 a month for a lot of content (even if some content is repetitive for me) can persuade people to play that over other games or other activities

I did not find the article balanced. Example:

After World of Warcraft's first expansion pack The Burning Crusade released last month, adding a new continent to the world and a sizable stack of new adventures for players to tackle, we were inundated with tales of Warcraft woe -- stories of broken marriages, ignored friends, lost jobs, and wrecked lives.

There are 8 million WoW players. So were they "inundated" by 100 people? 1000 people? 1,000,000 people??? Furthermore they were directly comparing drugs and games (to a certain extent) and thus giving games an "evil" conotation. In short, I found the article trite and unbalanced. However, if you saw it differently then that is good.

cheers,

-avatar!

Okay but you used the word "evil". Not them.

The third page of the article has quite a different slant, which you obviously read to get to the tv bit. Even if it didn't explain the other side, it wouldn't matter - if there is an article about a bombing, should it also report on all the people who weren't bombed that day? The article is far more balanced than it has any obligation to be.

The very last paragraph of the article says it quite clearly - "harmless when kept in the proper perspective."

You're being alarmist. Not keeping things in the proper perspective.

"good" and "evil" are words people tend to use to loosely; I think avatar was using the word "evil" in that way, but I think he was just trying to show the irony of the situation players of these games can put themselves in. I know people who have dropped out of college and lost companions over games like this. Is a game worth all that? No.

I do agree some people are more susceptible to being pulled in by these kinds of games, but I really doubt the developers stay up at night and think of ways to exploit this in an "evil" manipulative way. Anyone can take anything too far, that isn't anything new as far as human nature is concerned.

I disagree with you, but I see no reason to argue, since you are entitled to your opinion and you certainly haven't convinced me that anything I've said is incorrect. Please see Ashley Winchester's response (above).

cheers,

-avatar!

Agreed with Ashley. More people need to take responsibility for their own lives instead of casting blame about. If you're so addicted to MMOs that your social life completely breaks down (and you consider that a bad thing - some people really don't care), that's your own fault.

I've been playing WoW since Euro beta and I'm probably the most casual player out there. Two years on and the furthest I've got with a character is level 47. I've had short bursts where I've played it all day for a couple of days - usually when I've been on holiday - but the rest of the time I may log in once a week or fortnight and bash about a bit. The potential is there to just keep playing, of course, but in the end it's all down to your individual choices about what you want to do with your time.