A few years ago, when I was working at Electronic Arts, a coworker of mine had a problem. He spent much of his time playing Sony's massively multiplayer on-line roleplaying game EverQuest, and when he wasn't playing it, he was talking about it, posting to online forums about it, or dreaming about the next time he could log on. He played obsessively, often signing on as soon as he got home from work. Predictably, his behavior had a negative impact on his family and social life, and eventually cost him his job.
Many of us have known people like my coworker. The problems of online gaming addiction date back to the days of text-based MUDs, but in more recent years terms like "Evercrack" and "World of Warcrack" have entered the popular lexicon. Now, Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack, a clinical psychologist at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, has come forward to claim that up to 40 percent of World of Warcraft players are addicted to the game.
Dr. Orzack, who is the founder and coordinator of the Computer Addiction Service, told Ars in an e-mail that the 40 percent figure came from "a forum that Nick Yee runs" but did not reveal any additional methodology for arriving at this number. She added that "even if the percentage is 5 to 10 percent which is standard for most addictive behaviors, it is a huge number of people who are out of control." Orzack states that she has been studying the problem for the last 11 years. She claims to be swamped with people asking for her help, usually concerned parents, neglected spouses, and sometimes the players themselves.
She points out that MMORPGs typically use what is known in psychological circles as variable ratio reinforcement. Variable ratio reinforcement is the idea that the best way to optimize the desired behavior in the subject is to hand out rewards for correct behavior, and then adjust the number of times the subject is required to exhibit that behavior before a reward is handed out. For instance, if a rat must press a bar to receive food, then it will press faster and more often if it doesn't know how many times it needs to press the bar. An equivalent in World of Warcraft would be purple (epic) loot drops: you never know when they are going to happen, but that just increases the anticipation of getting them.
Orzack feels that the games are at fault more than the players. "This isn't about willpower or restraint," she said in an interview. "These games are very elaborately designed to ease you in gently, entice you, and keep you there. And it's a cycle: people begin to spend too much time playing and their careers and personal relationships begin to deteriorate."
So what's her solution? She believes that MMORPGs should come with warning labels on the box, much like cigarette boxes do today. In addition, she feels that computer-related addiction (not just gaming, but also excessive chat and Internet use) should be considered to be legitimate mental disorders, and thus be eligible for health insurance. Currently, there is no entry for gaming or Internet addiction in the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Orzack isn't the only one worried about people playing too many online games. The Chinese government recently instituted time limits for MMORPG players, citing concern that its citizens were spending too much time playing games such as World of Warcraft. A recovery clinic for video game addiction was recently opened in Amsterdam. There are definitely people who fall into the MMORPG trap, but I'm not sure it's an epidemic. With World of Warcraft's player base at 6.5 million and climbing, if 40 percent of those people are actually addicted, that's 2.6 million people doomed for the psych ward. Either there are more mentally ill people in the world than I thought, or Orzack's figures are somewhat exaggerated.
This story is also a personal issue for me, because I avoided MMORPGs for many years over concerns about their addictive qualities, yet finally succumbed to World of Warcraft because many of my friends were already playing it (I suspect many other people fall into this category). While I admit to the game's addictive nature, I sometimes wonder if the word addiction is being spread too thinly, and perhaps being applied to areas where it is not necessarily relevant. In life, we all do things that operate on the variable ratio reinforcement principle. Work, for example. Bonuses, raises, and promotions are handed out at a variable rate. Yet we don't worry too much about becoming addicted to work. Getting excited about variable ratio rewards seems to me to be very much a part of the human condition.
Still, there are people who we would consider workaholics, just as there are people addicted to working out, or other activities generally considered positive. And yes, people who spend too much time on these activities to the exclusion of all others risk negative real-world consequences. But in my opinion, the answer to these issues is not to simply label them as addictions and blame the activity itself, or to get the pharmaceutical companies all excited about more new products that they can push on the general population. The solution is to promote greater awareness about the necessity of balance in our lives. That, perhaps, is the greatest variable ratio reward of all.
Doctor Claims 40 Percent of WoW Players Are Addicted
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Re: Doctor Claims 40 Percent of WoW Players Are Addicted
) it was all about role-playing online with lots of other people. Those friends are still what keeps me there nearly eight years on - though I must admit, the concept of housing was one of the most brilliant hooks - I can admit to a sense of mild distress at the thought of that virtual home being lost - so I'm clearly not immune to the bug.
Originally Posted by Navaros
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