The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
Should video games be listed as an addiction?
Posts
All depression is neurochemical. Some external forces may cause those chemical compositions that we classify as depression. Conversely, there's no "will" that can force your brain to change its composition via "personal responsibility" or just wanting it badly enough. People that are permanently depressed aren't weak-willed, they have biological flaws.
My point is that in cases where depression is due to a fleeting event - i.e. a bad day at work, temporary self-medication (i.e elevating endorphins/blood sugar by eating, playing games, exercise, partying) will fix the problem. If you have a permanent neurological disorder like an addictive personality or are bipolar, then game-playing won't fix it.
Similarly if your unhappiness is chronic and caused by an external factor, like an abusive boss, then game playing won't fix your depression and is going to add another layer of pathology to your problems, where the proper thing to do is to change jobs. However in either of those scenarios, the issue is chemical. Treatment options vary depending on the person and their situation. Becoming addicted to video games is not going to help someone treat their depression, and it will likely add to it. It's like eating candy bars when you're hungry - it may help in the short term, but it won't fix nutritional problems and it will rot your teeth out.
The parallel to depression is that addiction itself is always chemically based - the reason anything is habit-forming is because it triggers endorphins when you do it. It's a simple stimulus-response. If there's a difference in the addiction you get with heroin and in video games, it's because you get more endorphins from heroin and introduce them exogenously. You can't "will-away" a heroin addiction any more than you can a video game addiction - you'll go less bonkers during withdrawal and cope better, because the initial endorphin response wasn't as severe, but you'll still find yourself with withdrawal symptoms.
We don't have to agree to disagree because you don't understand what I am saying.
When the best possible gear in the game can only be attained by raiding, which is something into which you have to put in huge time investments -- and big chunks at that -- what you just said is invalidated.
I mean, nobody in their right mind enjoys getting killed left and right in battlegrounds or while questing out in the world. I used to not raid, and I had the best gear that could be attainable with that playstyle, and when I went to the forums after getting continuously one or two-shotted by hardcore raiders, I was told, by CMs no less, that "I needed to get better gear, which is attainable through raiding or faction grinds". Now, I already addressed the problem with raiding. With faction grinds, it's true that one could enjoy them at their own pace, putting in small bits of time here and there and eventually get the rewards. The problem is that by the time one accomplishes that, a new content patch comes out, with more factions that offer more powerful loot, and the "end-game" moves forward, effectively leaving casual players behind.
Now, Guild Wars got around this problem perfectly by limiting the effect of gear on characters' power level. What this means is that there is only one thing that determines the outcome of a fight: skill. If WoW was like that, as in, if it was less gear dependent and more skill-dependent, perhaps people would feel less pressured to raid in order to even hope of standing a chance in PvP, which is, you have to admit, a huge -- if not the central -- part of the game.
The CMs, on various occasions, gave two reasons for why the raid lock-out timer exists:
1- It would ruin the economy in the game.
2- It would put even more pressure on Blizzard to come up with new content quickly, as existing content would be beaten within a matter of days.
Again, the lock-out mechanism doesn't exist because they are somehow concerned about the well-being of their players. It exists purely for Blizzard's benefit.
Perhaps you play on a PvE server? Because on PvP servers this is definitely not the case; you cannot hope to survive in green gear. Even on PvE servers, your effectiveness on arena games and battlegrounds will be very limited (depending on class of course), especially when you go up against a hardcore guild.
The design of most single player and massively multiplayer RPG’s is based on the old Dungeons & Dragons design where power is defined by level and gear. On the PvE side obtaining the higher level blue or purple gear or raid armor sets is almost pointless unless you intend on doing the dungeons further up the raid ladder. In a PvP setting this kind of gear can become the only way you’ll survive the trip between towns. It is also where the biggest flaw in the Dungeons & Dragons design becomes apparent and the real possibility of addiction comes into play for certain types of people.
The Dungeons & Dragons formula works very well in single player games with a defined ending. This has been proven time and time again by such games as Fallout, Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur’s Gate, and many others. The defined time frame allows the developer to tell their story without leaving anyone out. In a MMO setting not only is there no real ending the developers need to make sure everyone who plays the game can be the hero too. Have you ever noticed how many kill quota quests and loot collection quests World of Warcraft has? These kinds of quests make up about 70% to 80% of the quests you do. Ever notice how these kinds of quests are amplified to the extreme when the quest chains run out? Once the quests run out all that is left is raiding or grinding rep or honor which is just more collection questing. It’s really easy to start the “just a few more points†thinking and end up spending hours grinding rep, honor, or experience. I’ve done it a few times myself. These kinds of games can become a real problem for someone who is inclined to purse something until it’s over.
If you add someone who has an addictive or obsessive personality or if you mix in some personal problems like a recent loss in the family or difficulty in fitting in and you can have real recipe for addiction. I doubt developers/distributors are doing any of this on purpose it just that they seem to have a really hard time trying new things when so much money is at stake. It is past time for some changes to be made in MMO development. The Guild Wars development lead said they used Magic: The Gathering as a basis for Guild Wars and it works really well. Best of all there are no needs for grinding.
I’d like to see some changes in single player development as well. Mostly I’d like to see developers finally get it through their think heads that being told where we can and can not save is no fun at all. The argument of ruining the tension doesn’t work when the developers of the only real stealth game, Thief, allowed their players to save anywhere. They figured out people who want the tension will play the level from beginning to end without saving.
Rant over.
I'm still waiting for the part where you show that you can't kick an addiction because there's no such thing as will. No one ever claimed that willpower was magic, except you.
Okay, I'm going to play ref here for a second because I think I see the disconnect between you and kali.
It's pretty common for somebody who is suffering from a psych condition to be told to "just snap out of it" by a family member or spouse, or to even have this internal voice in their head saying that they should be able to cure themselves out of pure force of will. So those who work in the mental health field have to fight against this attitude so frequently that they sometimes ride the pendulum a little too far in the other direction by claiming that raw willpower is totally ineffective. It's not totally ineffective, it's just that raw willpower typically has to be strategically channeled into positive external actions.
Yes, some people can kick depression or addiction by sitting on their couch and trying really, really hard to fight their mood or cravings. Many (most?) can't, though, and many (most?) of those feel guilty or impotent because they can't. Those people need to be told that it's okay that they can't recover from raw willpower alone, and explaining that depression and addiction are complex neurological processes is a schema that helps them channel what willpower they do have into effective strategies.
I think that's what kaliyama was trying to say.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
That's more or less what I was trying to get across; thanks for articulating it for me. (Assuming that VC agrees now. If not, thanks for nothing. :P )
I'll post a few examples that clearly show that there are many different, but common reasons why a person may spend an "excessive" amount of time playing video games:
1. Hiding from real life problems.
Some MMO players are online a lot because they have serious problems in their real life that may be short or long term that they want to ignore.
2. Boredom, lack of anything fufilling to do.
Certain types of people, such as college students or retired older people simply have a lot of time to spend playing while having the ability to place priority on their responsibilities.
3. Playing due to social pressures.
The MMO's design inherently makes it a social game where teaming up with other players is an important part of progressing one's character(s). Sometimes a player may be pressured to play more in order to please in game/real life friends or participate in more time consuming content.
While I have never seen any accurate statistics to show how prevalent any of these examples in any specific game, they do show that there are other compelling factors that have nothing to do with addiction that cause players to spend a lot of time playing MMO's. If a player has an addictive personality or serious real life issues he needs to take care of, going to a "gaming detox lab" would not help the individual with a problem that affects every facet of his life.
It is very disappointing to see video games presented in such a sensationalist manner by both media and medical professionals. The article that the OP refers to treats video games like rock music was in treated in the 80's. Video games are the uninformed adult's scapegoat of choice for explaining the current younger generation's failings. While some persons truly have addictive personalities and really do not have the ability to control themselves while playing video games, not all people that spend a lot of time playing a video game because they believe it is "absolutely nessessary" to their mental stability.
As I already said, you're the only one who ever assumed willpower was magic, my argument has only ever been that it exists (which you claim it doesn't, repeatedly).
No, they can't.
A condition is only a mental illness if it interferes with your life or causes undue distress. This is implicit in the definition of any mental illness. You can think of this criterion zero: the hidden criterion that all health professionals understand but does appear in the definition of any one illness. So when you're reading articles on this subject, mentally insert criterion zero at the beginning of the criteria list.
These are not "factors aside of addiction." There are risk factors for addiction. If somebody told me that they were playing WoW for 60 hours a week because they were bored with life, or hiding from their problems, or because they were succumbing to peer pressure, I'd urge them to quit and go get counseling, because I'd be more worried that they were addicted having heard that.
If kaliyama said something that could be strictly interpreted to that effect, I don't think he meant it.
That itself is indicative of a problem. Online relationships do not substitute for real life relationships. If a relationship is both real-life and online, that's great, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about people who have no social contact outside of an MMO.
If somebody, when deprived of one unhealthy activity, would substitute it with a more unhealthy activity, such does not imply that his participation in the first activity was not excessive.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
3DS: 1521-4165-5907
PS3: KayleSolo
Live: Kayle Solo
WiiU: KayleSolo
True, but it's still pretty fucked up. Not to mention anyone arguing against games, or arguing that games are addictive, now have that bit of ammo in their pocket. Gamers fucking over Gamers would be a decent thread.
3DS: 1521-4165-5907
PS3: KayleSolo
Live: Kayle Solo
WiiU: KayleSolo
Teamkillers don't restrict themselves to public Counterstrike servers.
Nor to videogame-issues.
Fuck them.
Just because I don't -like- doing the shit that they're talking about doesn't mean that it's the fault of video games that I am not doing that stuff. I don't like going out to parties where people are drinking, so I don't do it. It's a fucking simple thing that they don't seem to get a grasp on and their utter ignorance and inability to understand my side of the argument makes me want to fucking punch them in the face. It's like saying the reason I don't eat salad is because I am addicted to meat. Fuck that.
As for the few sensationalized stories of idiots letting their children starve, fuck them too. The problem is the people, not the games. The people are retarded assholes who shouldn't have the ability to reproduce. It's not the fault of the game makers that stupid people end up playing their games.
This shit just makes me so unbelievably mad. I can't even think about it without it tuning into an angry, hate-filled rant in my head.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Sounds like you play violent games a little bit too much.
Right now I'm living half a world away from my parents and I'm approaching the end of my college career. And when I look back, I can say with no reservations whatsoever that they were right. I seriously regret how much I let video games stunt my social growth. Furthermore, I feel ashamed that my juvenile, rebellious attitude got in the way of me understanding this sooner.
Yeah, I had fun while growing up thanks to video games, but at the same time I wish I had listened to my parents and played less and instead picked up other, more constructive, healthy, and useful hobbies.
Perhaps they're just worried that you'll turn out to be an unsociable asshole who pimps children to middle-eastern crackwhores?
Agreed!
World of Warcraft IS a drug, if you are playing it seek rehab immediately.