Introduction
EverCrack is a pun combing the words EverQuest, a computer game, and Crack, an addictive substance. EverCrack then suggests that EverQuest is an addictive substance with a detrimental effect on a person’s well-being. EverQuest is just one of the many Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) out there.
Other more popular games include World of Warcraft, Anarchy Online, and MU. All of them have the same general elements, Killing monsters, quests, loot, and of course, interacting with other people. MMORPGs can be entertaining, they combine highly addictive gameplay with social interaction right in the comfort and safety of one’s home. However, too much of a good thing can be bad. The focus of this paper is on the negative effects of online video games, including addiction that can lead to death and efforts to have videogame addiction classified as an actual psychological disorder.
The MMORPG industry
Computer games are entertaining, from the ancient days of DOOM, Command, and Conquer, and Warcraft, video games were already an amusing part of life. However, computer games had an isolating effect, playing DOOM at home meant ignoring friends who want to go place baseball and there was no point in going to the gym to work out if one could be Triple H in WWF Smackdown. It was not until the internet became a household thing that it became possible for people who played video games could interact while playing. When Ultima Online came out in 1997 the fusion between social interaction and video gaming was crystallized. There was no need to leave the comfortable confines of the home to socialize. We can all meet in Lord British’s Castle (a locale in Ultima Online)
Today the MMORPG industry is massive with millions of people playing online games and paying huge sums of money to play. For example, in World of Warcraft, there are 10 million players around the world who pay about $15 a month to blitz around the world of Azeroth. Some MMORPG like World of Warcraft and EverQuest can boast up to half a million subscribers. At $15 a month, the 10 million (conservative estimate) players of World of Warcraft generate Blizzard a sweet $ 1.8 Billion a year! It is difficult to question the enjoyment that the people who play MMORPGs get from playing these games after all they pay good money to keep playing when there are MMORPGs that are free while others only require that you pay for the software. Below is a chart current market share from mmorpgchart.com; note the total number of online gamers is around 16 million.
MMORPG is highly addictive, I have spent as much as four days locked up in my room doing nothing but farming my World of Warcraft (WOW) character. This is because WOW is very engaging and there is always a strong incentive to reach the next level, get the next cool weapon or armor, and other in-game rewards that keep me playing and playing. Aside from in-game rewards, there are also many chances to interact with my fellow WOW players and to interact with my Guild. While we don’t dare rival the geekiness achieved by The Pals for Life Guild of Leeroy Jenkins (Pearson) we do hang out and plan our moves carefully lest we embarrass ourselves in front of the other guilds.
WoW Addiction
While I don’t consider myself a WOW addict, WOW has even been derided as ‘World of WarCrack’, just yet I am not alone in my dedication to the game. As I mentioned there are 10 million other denizens of Azeroth. A Harris Interactive poll found that 8.5% of youth gamers are addicted to online games (Harris). In Britain, that figure rises to 12% (BBC) suggesting the Brits are either more addicted to gaming or Americans are in denial.
The addiction to online games has become so extreme that Comedy Central’s South Park made a parody episode of WOW entitled Make Love, not Warcraft which was shown in October 2006 (Miller). In that episode, the boys play WOW but are harassed by a griefer, simply put a jerk who ruins the game for everyone, that kills them as soon as they log on. Because the griefer is a high-level player there is no hope of defeating him and there is even a section of the episode where the Blizzard executives are aware that the griefer was ruining the game for other players and they even later decided to help the boys conquer him. At this point, the boys became World of WarCrack addicts playing 21 hours a day, not even leaving their rooms unless necessary and growing fat, lazy, and acne-ridden from a diet of Hot Pockets and Rock Star energy drinks, all in a relentless effort to gain experience and become strong enough to finally defeat the griefer. The Blizzard execs notice that their characters are growing so fast that they must have no life outside of WOW but they have the best chance of beating the griefer. After a 17 hour hunt and Blizzardesque divine intervention in the form of a special sword they defeat the griefer and Cartman utters “finally we can play the game”. At that point, their WOW characters were probably the strongest in the world, but their real-life (RL) selves were completely wrecked, they were fat, long-haired, acne-ridden and their relationships outside of WOW were in tatters.
While it might be fun to see Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny become grotesque World of WarCrack addicts in a heroic effort to beat down a griefer, Online Gaming addiction is NOT funny. While I spend a large amount of time playing WOW, I can still step into the outside world and live a normal life. My Night Elf and I still have a clean separation. My folks might think I’m a gaming addict but that’s their opinion. Now when I start pawning the family jewels or snatching handbags to fund my gaming cards then they can say I’m an addict with all the dangerous tendencies of one. While my gaming fix has not reached critical levels others have not been so lucky.
Deaths in game world
Lee Seung Seop a 28-year-old repairman from Daegu, South Korea died on August 3, 2005, after playing StarCraft for FIFTY HOURS straight. He didn’t die of a gunshot or a car accident like normally associated with young deaths but of sheer exhaustion. Lack of sleep, exhaustion, and dehydration (apparently he neither ate nor drank during his marathon) caused him to go into Cardiac arrest and he died later at a hospital. While one might dismiss Seung Seop, he is Korean so Lee is his surname, he is not alone in his tragic death. An overweight 26-year-old teacher from Jinzhou named Xu Yan died in February of 2007 after a marathon of 15 days of gaming. Since the malls and other places were closed so all Yan, like Korean names Chinese, have their surnames in front, could do for the Chinese New Year holiday break was play games.
With people dying in RL and Billions of Dollars being spent on it, the question is; Is online gaming addictive? Do online games deserve to be classified alongside controlled substances like Crack, Marijuana, and Alcohol? Should online games come with the warning “Surgeon General’s Warning: Online gaming is dangerous to your health”? Are online gamers to be treated like Drug Addicts or Alcoholics and sentenced to incarceration in Detox camps? Unfortunately, except for the Surgeon General part, the answer seems to be yes.
After the Xu Yan incident, the Chinese Government reacted in a big way to curb cyber-gaming. For example, teenagers were banned from cyber cafés and they even inserted anti-addiction macro which severely limited in-game rewards to MMORPG players who have been online for more than three hours. For the truly addicted, there was boot camp with military training, psychological counseling, and even electrocution to help the addict snap out of dependence.
Since 1998 there have been moves by the American Medical Association (AMA) to have Gaming addiction included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–IV). The debate is still ongoing. If included in the DSM-IV Gaming Addiction will join the illustrious ranks of psychosis or ‘head cases’ such as Schizophrenia, Alcoholism, Necrophilia, and Homosexuality, all of which are still listed in the DSM-IV as dangerous mental diseases in need of medical attention. If the measure succeeds one can only imagine all the youths confined to mental hospitals’ minds addled by brain-bending anti-addiction drugs crying out “Just let me bring my character to Orgimar inn!”
Thankfully, as of 2007 the last AMA meeting for DSM-IV the head doctors are not yet convinced that gaming addiction deserved to be included as a psychological illness just yet. Although there is no guarantee they will thumb down the proposal in 2012 when they meet again. Online Gamers Anonymous, in the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous, which focuses on a twelve-step treatment to try and help a gaming addict get out of his addiction. In a way that does not expose him to shame or ridicule.
References
MMOGChart.com. Web.
Pearson, Craig. “The Ballad of Leeroy Jenkins”, PC Gamer UK, 2005.
Video game addiction: is it real? Harris Interactive, 2007.
Online gamers addicted says study. Web.
Miller, Ross. South Park: make love, not Warcraft (update 1). Web.
Chinese Gamer dies after 15 day session. Web.