gaming addictions and you

[dhex]

http://neilsclark.blogspot.com/2009/10/big-trouble-in-little-articles-ten-game.html

this guy has written an interesting book (or so i've heard, not having read it myself) and isn't a dink. his complaint about media templates can be expanded out to cover any number of "trends" or even "epidemics" (see radley balko's work on the "meth epidemic" for a good example in the world of law und order).

[FortNinety]

I guess this might be a good place to mention the following: recently watched a documentary called Second Skin, which is all about folks who plays MMOs online, and its a fun watch.

Some of the folks featured are those dealing with their so called game addictions. First you have the group of dude friends who are dopey idiots and you wonder why their women tolerate such stupid behavior, let alone bear children from them. But then there's this one guy who completely bottoms out of society due his WoW playing habits... he loses it all, his girl, his job, his home, his life, etc.

Things get really interesting when he hooks up with Online Gamers Anonymous (http://www.olganon.org/) which is essentially run by just one woman. Aside from essentially being AA but for gamers, right now to their list, it turns out to be nothing more than a coping mechanism for the loss of her own son who committed suicide, the blame for which she places squarely on the lap of video games.

Anyhow, its an awesome film that I can't recommend more (I'll lend it to you if you'd like Mike, or just wait for my GSW review for the full details).

[isfet]

is that the mother of the mentally ill guy who killed himself when some online "friend" killed his character and stole his loot?

yea, definitely Everquest's fault.


i'd like to check out the link, but it's unfortunately blocked from work.  but anyhow, defining games as an "addiction" always seems problematic.  though perhaps it can lead to a type of delusion in people who have serious self-worth issues.  perhaps it's possible to get lost in the escapism of an MMO, but that's not something i really understand.

whenever i played FFXI, it was more like team Counterstrike but turnbased.

[dhex]

the original author's example of a kid in wow who restructured his entire life - including deferring high school graduation - to play wow 20 hours a week definitely points to destructive, compulsive behavior.

i'd be interested in watching second skin, though i have the feeling i'd be burning my router in effigy afterwards.

[isfet]

for the record, i don't really think it's wrong to hit children.

beating them unmericifully for no reason is uncalled for, of course.

but if your son is doing something like that, why isn't beating his ass/kicking him out an option for these parents?

i guess perhaps i could agree games could have "addictive qualities" in the way gambling might, but it's not like heroin, per se.

i guess the thing that always confuses me with this stuff is that, as a rule, nerds tend to be rather horny.  one would think that, at some point, they would begin investing time in learning how to get laid.  it's like 1CCing a game on the hardest difficulty level!  totally hardcore!

[dhex]

i think the unifying string is the compulsion that takes away from things they used to value. in some cases it's a fine way of saying "i don't approve of his/her life choices". in others it's "margaret used video poker to avoid dealing with her life", which is a different kind of behavior, i think.

[FortNinety]

The kid in question from the documentary was just some dork who found solace in the games, whereas he was a total loser in regular society. But the game took over his mind, or so the mom claims, forcing him to forget about college, which led to him eventually getting kicked out and forcing a move back home. Couldn't hold a job and had no interest in finding a new one, eventually became so depressed that he shot himself.

It's worth noting that the mom does point out that her son was always into video games, but there's something about MMOs that caused her child, and many others, to go completely insane.

The documentary again is a really good, and presents all the sides, though the real thrust is how it doesn't just interview folks but follows them along for a good amount of time.

There's also a couple that met via a game and we get to see their first face to face meeting, and it is rather uncomfortable. It's not a trainwreck, which to a certain degree would have been beneficial to them both.

As for the power of documentaries, once again, We Are Wizards will make one advocate the right to hit other people's children.

And for using the internet to get laid, I still remember being called a degenerate when all I did while online back in 2001-02 was try to get in the pants of girls who were part of a "online social network" that was designed to hook fans of music together so they had a place to crash when their fave band was in town. But again, that's a story best saved for Texas!

[dhex]

http://ow.ly/wcuI

having never played an mmo - and more importantly, having never known anyone who was compulsively drawn to them - i find these narratives intensely fascinating.