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What is Video Game Addiction and !"#$%&'()$&*##"+,"%-&.-&/%01&2%+,%0%345&For the Win
Steven Fetter, Joseph Kerwin, David Veerman, and Patrick Wells
Santa Clara University
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Essay 1: Introduction to Video Game Addiction Video game addiction is present when excessive gaming interferes with the daily life of the gamer in an extremely negative way. They step away from their life, their family and friends, and online interactions trump real life interaction. Those suffering from video game addiction lose focus on the real world in favour of in-game goals, successes, and achievements. Their abandonment of the real world leads to a curious status where some of the most intense gamers spend the majority of their day (as in more than twelve of twenty four hours) in-game. This status is acknowledged in the gaming community by jokes made about how the video game world is real life, and the outside world is actually the second life. In the novel For the Win, by Cory Doctorow, the three younger main characters, Mala, Wei-Dong, and Matthew, are shown to be effected by video game addiction. Their lives and stories revolve entirely around their overexposure to video games. Each new chapter in this novel provides more insight into this addiction. Doctorow introduces the world of gaming as it is, addiction, dirty nerds, and all. A theme which continues to manifest throughout the novel is the exploitation of children as gold farmers 6 in-game players who are able to harvest enormous amounts of valuable items and gold extremely efficiently. They then sell them back to other players for a profit. Bosses then come in and take control of these children, secluding them in factories where they harvest large amounts of gold for hours and must pass their profits on to their superiors. The character of Matthew is a perfect focal point for this discussion because of his unwillingness to cooperate with Boss Wing, the man who runs the gold-farming factory.
A Comedic Portrayal of an Addicted Gamer It is important to remember this novel is a work of fiction. However, we must also be aware that since the late 1990s, gold farming has been a steadily expanding industry. Economic theorist Edward Castronova is quoted in a McClatchy-Tribune article by Tim Johnson as stating ,7(,&"-&899:&;%<#&=(0)"-;&3(5&(&>?899&)"<<"%-&#%<<(0&(&1$(0&"-#@5,01A&(-#&growing. (http://jameslogancourier.org/nucleus/plugins/print/print.php?itemid=551). With the increasing @5$&%=&,$+7-%<%;1&(-#&,7$&"-+0$(5$#&B%B@<(0",1&%=&$5B$+"(<<1&CCDEF'4s (e.g. World of Warcraft), I can only imagine how much this industry has grown since 2006. So, how does video game addiction factor into this whole practice of organized gold farming? Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, in his study on gold farming in China, suggests that companies that harness gold farming as a business venture are organized in much the same way as drug cartels are in terms of the social interactions they seek out and the hierarchy of the groups themselves. Jin Ge, a researcher from the University of California San Diego, adds to ,7"5&-%,"%-&3",7&,7$&=%<<%3"-;&5,(,$)$-,G&>/7"-(&"5&,7$&=(+,%01&%=&H"0,@(<&;%%#5I&J%@&3%@<#&5$$& 3 some exploitation where employers would make workers play 12 hours a day. They would have no rest through the year. These are not just problems for this industry but they are general social B0%K<$)5A&Lhttp://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/gamer-addiction.htm). The gold farming industry $MB<%",5&,7$5$&1%@-;&B$%B<$45&#$5"0$&,%&B<(1&H"#$%&;()$5I&N7$& environments they work in foster video game (##"+,5I&O1&,(P"-;&(#H(-,(;$&%=&,7$&;%<#&=(0)$054& addiction, the bosses are essentially hooking their employees. They are creating an industry where the worker feels compelled to play even to the point of obscenity. An addict can make more money for their bosses than a regular kid could. In For the Win, Doctorow portrays the ;%<#&=(0)$054 working conditions as extremely exploitative and taxing. These conditions are imposed on the children employees of Boss Wing, including Matthew and his gang. The gold farmers need and want to play the game even when they are not working. He sat down at a vacant chair and stared at their screens. They'd been playing, of course. They were always playing. When they worked in Boss Wing's factory, they'd pull an 18- hour shift and then they'd relax by playing some more, running their own characters through the dungeons they'd been farming all day long. It's why Boss Wing had such an easy time recruiting for his factory: the pitch wa5&5$#@+,"H$I&Q'$,&B("#&,%&B<(1R4 But it wasn't the same when you worked for someone else. (21) There is such a definite mark of addiction in this description. After eighteen hours, the gold farmers relax by running the exact same dungeon they have been running. Wei-Dong, formally known as Leonard, a young man from Orange County, also shows signs of extreme video game addiction. He is involved in the clan that the Chinese boys have made; he runs dungeons with them, and has become friends with them, as best as you can through a video game. Spending more time with virtual friends than with real people is another distinct indicator of video game addiction. Wei-2%-;45&+7(0(+,$0&B0%H"#$5&(&H"$3&"-,%&(-%,7$0&#$)%;0(B7ic of gamer addicts, the middle-class American teenager living in suburbia. In his story, Wei-Dong is so involved with playing his MMORPG with his friends in China that he begins to forget about school. "Leonard," she said. "Leonard, you need to understand just how serious this has become. You're one term paper away from flunking two of your subjects: history and biology. You've gone from being an A student in math, English and social studies to a C-minus. At this rate, you'll have blown the semester by Thanksgiving. Put it this way: you've gone from being in the ninetieth percentile of Ronald Regan Secondary School Sophomores to the twelfth. This is a signal, Leonard, from you to us, and it's signalling, S-O-S, S-O- S. (24) These symptoms described by the vice-principle stem from exactly the kind of behaviour that video game addicts display when they become deeply entrenched in their virtual worlds. The website TechAddiction supplies a <"5,&%=&51)B,%)5&3",7"-&37"+7&"-+<@#$5&(&>lowered interest in 5+7%%<&(+7"$H$)$-,A&(5&%-$&%=&,7$&51)B,%)5&%=&;()$&(##"+,"%- (http://www.techaddiction.ca/symptoms_of_video_game_addiction.html). Essay 2 - Symptoms of Game Addiction Symptoms of game addiction are numerous. Lee Kem, in her essay titled Gamer Addiction: A Threat To Student Success! What Advisors Need To Know, suggests the constant between these symptoms are the expressions of isolation, withdrawal, and a decrease in the emotional control 4 that is present in addicted individuals. Emotional dysregulation is a mental state comparable to mood swings, where the subject in question has an inability to control how they feel or act when they are not playing the game and, because of that lack of control, sometimes lash out without warning. There are a number of variables to consider when discussing emotional dysregulation; however, it seems in the novel that Mala has slowly transformed into a state where she has lost control of her emotions. There are instances in the novel where Mala seems to react hyper- aggressively toward friends. These reactions are inconsistent with the Mala shown at the beginning of the novel. One eM()B<$&%=&,7"5&+7(-;$&"-&C(<(45&B$05%-(<",1&+(-&K$&=%@-#&"-&,7$& beating she affords Dibyendu's nephew when he tries to rape her outside the café (29). She was defending herself, but the ferocity with which she kicks the nephew repeatedly in the chest, puncturing his lung, speaks to a change within her. Her interactions with Yasmin, her best friend at the beginning of the novel, 57%3&(&57"=,&"-&C(<(45&+7(0(+,$0I& "So your army is about taking whatever they can get, even if it hurts someone else?" Mala stood up very straight. "That's right, it's my army, Yasmin. My army! And you're not a part of it anymore. Don't bother coming around again, because, because--." (67) The irrationality expressed by Mala here towards her best friend is indicative of an emotional instability that can be compared to the emotional dysregulation caused by video game addiction. Furthermore, the game persona Mala created for herself in General Robotwallah has begun to assert itself as the dominant form of interaction for Mala in real life. Mala is a gamer that has become so entrenched in this second life that it has become all- consuming. The lines between the virtual world and the real world have blurred for her.
Portrayal of a Gamer Cut off From the World Essay 3 - At the Center of It All There are appealing aspects of gaming; the ability to escape into a virtual world of your choosing and ,7$&=$$<"-;&%=&(&>5$-5$&%=&+%-,0%<&37$-&SB$%B<$T&$-ter into the fantasy world of speed, realism, violence, new morals, (-#&"-,$0%B$0(K"<",1ALU$)). Yet the outsider wonders how could gamers become so absorbed in these games that their real lives are forgotten? At the design level it all boils down to intermittent reinforcement. This is the means by which game designers keep players hooked to their game. They provide scenarios where high level achievements or goods have the possibility of being granted to players. Then, within these scenarios, the designers regulate when those achievements or goods will actually be offered. The process of intermittent reinforcement initiates within the game, and this is what causes players to become addicted. We see this in For the Win when Lu is discussing with Jiandi how intermittent reinforcement affects rats and a food lever. It's like someone who wins a little money in the lottery one week and then plays every week afterward, forever. The uncertainty drives them crazy; it's the most addictive system of all. Matthew says it's the most important part of game design -- one day you manage to kill a really hard NPC with a lucky swing, and it drops some incredibly epic item, and you make more money in ten seconds than you made all week, and you have to keep going back to that spot, looking for a monster like it, thinking it'll happen again. (98) 5
What ultimately follows is that the intermittent reinforcement, gained through finding heroic items or defeating an especially hard boss, eventually become insufficient for the players. They want positive reinforcement, expressed in gaining these achievements, but in much larger doses. Therefore, instead of playing the game just for the sake of playing, they play the game in order to obtain epic items and gold because it feels good to win them, in much the same way as a drug affecting your mental processes makes you feel good. This feeling creates a demand for these virtual goods within the world of the game, which in turn creates the gold farmer, or the entity that provides the service of fulfilling these players need for gratification through these virtual goods. It is like a drug dealer having the supply and the buyers coming to him, except in this case its gold and gold farmers who have the supply.
The Only Person Ever to Have Beaten World of Warcraft. He has completed all the achievements.
Playing video games becomes automatic to gamers that are addicted. Like Matthew and his friends, an action is repeated over and over again with the hope they will get a fix in the form of valuable or rare in-game items. Even if this temporary task is fulfilled, there are always more ways to expand upon the video game. If it is a complete-able single player game, then there is the opportunity to see how much better you can complete the game on your second play-through. There are endless opportunities to get your video game fix. In World of Warcraft, possibly the most widely known PC game of all time, there is not even the option of running out of things to do. Games like World of Warcraft are so all-encompassing that it is literally impossible to do everything in the game. There will always be another next fix available if the gamer stays on for just a little longer.
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Works Cited "Video Game Addiction Symptoms and Signs." Tech Addiction. Tech Addiction. Web. 14 March 2012.
V%7-5%-G&N")I&>For millions of Chinese, playing computer games is a livelihoodIA&The James Logan Courier. McClatchy Newspapers, 6 August 2006. Web. 14 March 2012.
Aurangzeb Ahmad, Muhammad, Brian Keegan, Jaideep Srviastava, Dmirtri Williams, and Noshir /%-,0(+,%0I&>Mining for Gold Farmers: Automatic Detection of Deviant Players in MMOGSIA Dmitri Williams. Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE Social Computing Symposium on Social Intelligence and Networking in Vancouver, Canada, 29-31 August 2009. Web. 14 March 2012.
U$)G&X$$I&>Gamer Addiction: A Threat To Student Success! Y7(,&*#H"5%05&Z$$#&N%&U-%3IA NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources. n.p., 2005. Web. 14 March 2012.
Hauge, Marney R. and Douglas A. Gentile. >Video Game Addiction Among Adolescents: Associations with Academic Performance and AggressionIA&Iowa State University Department of Psychology. Society for Research in Child Development Conference in Tampa, FL, Presented Apr. 2003. Web. 14 March 2012.