/. discovers MMOs can be addicting

[Bixxby]

What a crying pussy, his life isn't ruined. He wasn't married, had no job or responsibility really. Oh no, he missed out on some drunken nights and slutass, he should probably try to get on Oprah to convince the world of the evils of these truely addictive and horrible games.

[Bizanich]

Originally Posted by Dynalisia

You know, even if you ruin your life, I don't understand this defeatist attitude of "oh my god it's all over I lost at life, everything is gone", you can always get back up and make things right for yourself. It's you all the way.

That's a lie propogated by the liberal media.

[Zarcath]

Suck dick for epics?

[infernus]

Yeah, when i read 70days and 1 year, i stopped reading then, that's really pathetic. As most of you along with me did 5years EQ and like a previous poster said more than a year actual play time.
Next....

[Mist]

70 days /played is casual, imo.

[Zefah]

I fucking hate this "blame the media" shit. The articles name is "How World of Warcraft Can Ruin Lives". Why does no one blame the guy who had no self control and ruined his own life by doing nothing but play WoW? Does anyone blame alcohol when a guy turns into a raging alcoholic? Not usually.

This scapegoat searching shit with video games and movies is really annoying.

[robustyoungsoul]

Hey there folks! I followed the link one of you guildies must have provided in the comments section of my blog, and wanted to drop in and get an alternate opinion on the matter. Your moderator was kind enough to provide me access, and as I am a guest in your house, I'll be glad to abide by your rules.

So yes, I'm the fellow who posted my friend's story. Needless to say we were dumbfounded at the degree of the response we received, and we were even more surprised by some of the interpretations of the post.

A quick background: I introduced him to the game some time ago. Although there was definitely a very short period of time (about a month) where I played a significant amount of time ("significant" for my personal schedule is 30-40 hours of gaming a week), and my own inability to keep things under control got me in a spot of trouble, mostly due to lack of sleep. Fortuitously for me personally, I realized the problem was mine and I did not have the self-control necessary to play a game like this... pathetic in a way I suppose, but at least I can admit it.

My pal and the author of the post took things a lot further. I don't need to elaborate, you're all at least aware of the post, even if you haven't read it in its entirety (difficult to blame you, it is quite long).

Anyway, since it clearly appears you guys have a different opinion on the topic, I wanted to get your side of the Warcraft story. Again, the reason I came here is because somebody put a comment on the blog post and I followed it, nothing more, nothing less.

Thanks to whomever it was who stopped by and linked your forum!

-Yeags

[Sean]

It's pretty simple. He's just a loser who lacked self control and is crying about it.

We've all heard the same story a thousand times, we've all seen the same thing. It's nothing new.

The thing that got me was how he DARED to compare it to real drug abuse. That's just insulting. It's nowhere in the same league, the same scale, even in the some fucking reality as drug abuse and he's an ignorant moron for trying to do so.

[robustyoungsoul]

Originally Posted by Sean

It's pretty simple. He's just a loser who lacked self control and is crying about it.

We've all heard the same story a thousand times, we've all seen the same thing. It's nothing new.

The thing that got me was how he DARED to compare it to real drug abuse. That's just insulting. It's nowhere in the same league, the same scale, even in the some fucking reality as drug abuse and he's an ignorant moron for trying to do so.

No doubt self control was the critical issue. You'll get absolutely no argument from me on that.

Also no doubt that it's nothing new. Again, we were shocked at the level of response... if you look back over the history of the blog, it's really just yet another personal blog with a readership of like a dozen friends and family members where I typically just spew whatever is on my mind.

You know, the kind that pointlessly takes up space on the internet.

Next thing we know the thing is getting bombarded. You know how it goes, somebody puts in on digg, then it gets on slashdot this morning, and all of the sudden we become the poster children for wanting to ban Warcraft or something.

Neither one of us wants to ban Warcraft. It's a sweet game. Too sweet for the likes of me and him. Its design, for whatever reason, pushes all the right buttons for me to forget about any of my responsibilities whatsoever. It's my problem, I quit the game.

He did the same thing. It just took him a lot longer and a lot more damage was done.

As for the drug addiction analogy: this was a comparison based on personal experience on his part. It's anecdotal evidence and ergo worth approximately nothing.

Regardless, let me give you a little more anecdotal evidence: I have a sister who had a very serious drug problem, and her behavior was very similar to his. The same? No, but similar enough I think to make the comparison far from insulting. Exaggerated perhaps, but not insulting. Not to mention the fact that it has been shown time and again that certain video games trigger the same response in the brain that heroin and certain other addictive drugs.

Again, not the same thing... but I don't know about insulting.

In short, what I am really hoping to find out is just how you guys are able to do it. This is an attempt at open dialogue, nothing else.

[Faille]

He should probably be thankful he got sucked into MMO's since he seems to have the sort of personality that would get addicted to any of the far worse things that he could be.

[Sean]

Similar to this? That's a joke.

I'll show drugs. My little sister got into heavy drugs around age 13. You name it, she tried it. She ended up never going to highschool. I've seen her trip out and think the world is trying to kill her and her in the most fucked up state of physical health.

She got Pregnant at age 15, and has two kids now. She's also pretty damn crazy even after being clean for a long time. She's even attacked me with a knife before because she thought I ate her lunchables. She's all sorts of screwed up, can't get jobs, has tons of problems. She's 20 now.

Ever seen someone on Heroine or Coke dude? How about Meth? I'm going to guess you haven't.

Don't give me your fucking pussy ass pot and shrooms stories.

[Gauss]

Originally Posted by Bixxby

What a crying pussy, his life isn't ruined. He wasn't married, had no job or responsibility really. Oh no, he missed out on some drunken nights and slutass, he should probably try to get on Oprah to convince the world of the evils of these truely addictive and horrible games.

I think he mentioned he actually had a 9-5 job. Still, 70 days /played is pretty light for a person in a so-called world class guild (btw there are no well-known RP guilds so I know he's full of shit with his story). I know many people who were 100 days or more on Nov 23, 2005, including myself probably. The guy is just a puss who thinks he should be languishing some other way than playing a video game. Maybe becoming a raging alcoholic or weight lifting 30 hours a week would be more socially acceptable to him so he wouldn't be weeping all over his damned computer screen as he tries to convey how his addiction to x ruined his life.

[robustyoungsoul]

Originally Posted by Sean

Similar to this? That's a joke.

I'll show drugs. My little sister got into heavy drugs around age 13. You name it, she tried it. She ended up never going to highschool. I've seen her trip out and think the world is trying to kill her and her in the most fucked up state of physical health.

She got Pregnant at age 15, and has two kids now. She's also pretty damn crazy even after being clean for a long time. She's even attacked me with a knife before because she thought I ate her lunchables. She's all sorts of screwed up, can't get jobs, has tons of problems.

Ever seen someone on Heroine or Coke dude? How about Meth? I'm going to guess you haven't.

Don't give me your fucking pussy ass pot and shrooms stories.

That is terrible, and she is probably very fortunate to have an older sibling that still cares for her. I mean that sincerely.

As Heroine/Coke, I can answer yes to both of those. I have not tried them myself (as another poster stated, I can only imagine the result seeing as how I managed to completely lose any semblence of self-control in the latter stages of WoW... and as for my pal, let's just say that would be an unmitigated disaster). But yes, I have seen friends use these things before. I've had to take a knife out of friend's hands myself.

As for meth, I have never seen this used in person.

[Sean]

Then if you really knew you wouldn't make the comparison.

You can't just stop using drugs. They physically destroy you, fuck up your brain, ect. They truely ruin lives.

MMO "addictions"? They're a joke. They're just about people who are crying about turning themselves into losers. They had control, they didn't use it. Nothing was physically forcing them to continue doing it and they can just stop. And the people who do stop and come to "realizations" are over it in a matter of fucking days or weeks.

So you didn't play with your friends and stopped drinking in clubs for a while. Boo fucking hoo. Drug abuse is permanent, developing a hobby where you don't "hang out" in the real world is not.

[robustyoungsoul]

Originally Posted by Sean

Then if you really knew you wouldn't make the comparison.

You can't just stop using drugs. They physically destroy you, fuck up your brain, ect. They truely ruin lives.

MMO "addictions"? They're a joke. They're just about people who are crying about turning themselves into losers. They had control, they didn't use it. Nothing was physically forcing them to continue doing it and they can just stop. And the people who do stop and come to "realizations" are over it in a matter of fucking days or weeks.

So you didn't play with your friends and stopped drinking in clubs for a while. Boo fucking hoo. Drug abuse is permanent, developing a hobby where you don't "hang out" in the real world is not.

That's a very good point. In a head to head contest between any of the drugs you mentioned and WoW, drugs would "win" every time.

Perhaps the issue is one of semantics? What I mean by this is that I don't agree with folks who claim the game itself is addictive. However I think it would be difficult to deny that some people exhibit addictive BEHAVIOR when playing the game.

Maybe to some that's a fine line to draw, but I think what you're saying has a lot of validity. Make the mistake of trying one of the things you mentioned and you can be completely debilitated. Self control goes out the window because the individual is physically prohibited from using it.

On the other side of that is simply addictive "behavior", i.e. nobody is forcing you to do something, but for whatever reason it is really, really difficult to stop. Compulsive eaters talk about how eating makes them happy, and studies show again that reward areas of the brain are triggerred by the act of eating. That doesn't mean this person's problem is the same as a drug addiction, because this person could stop any time... there is no physical limitation in place, they just crave the feeling. Perhaps this could apply to some people who lack self control when it comes to playing WoW?