Computer Game Addiction

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Computer Game Addiction
By Brandon Bennett
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Table of Contents

• A brief introduction into Online Computer Games
• How online computer games can be addictive
• Explanation on the factors of online gaming which
  facilitate addictions
• Why Addiction is a Problem
• Ethical Analysis
• Concluding thoughts

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Introduction to Online Games

• 3 Primary Online Games
• World of Warcraft
• Final Fantasy XI Online
• EverQuest
• These are called MMORPGs Massive Multiplayer
  Online Role Playing Games
• MMORPGs never end, there isnt a final goal state
  which you can achieve. You ultimately strive to
  be the best of the best within the game.

4
Player Demographics

• Many people believe that online games are played
  by teenagers alone, yet a survey on MMORPGs has
  shown the average player to be about 26 years old
  (Nick Yee, Player Demographics)
• It has also been common to stereotype gamers as
  loners or socially anorexic, yet the same study
  showed that 80 of gamers would play with someone
  they knew in real life (Nick Yee, Player
  Demographics)

5
Personal Bias

• I currently play Final Fantasy XI Online, and
  also own World of Warcraft.
• My opinion of online games is that they are a
  great way to spend free time, and playing with
  people I know is more enjoyable than playing
  alone.

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How can a game be addictive?

• Addictive Game A game which hooks players into
  playing.
• Addiction to a game varies from person to person.
  Usually involves repetitive game-play, and an
  increase in time spent playing
• Playing for extended periods of time doesnt
  express an addiction problem, much like gambling,
  yet abusing the privilege is a cause for concern

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An Overview of the facilitators of Game Addiction

• Services which act as a convenience to players
• Online Subscriptions
• Websites which provide help and strategies to
  players
• Guilds or Online Communities

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Services of Convenience

• Description in-game features which reduce a
  players need to leave their chairs
• A good example is the /pizza command in
  EverQuest
• Each game has some sort of chat privileges, and
  also allows for players to send other players
  in-game messages or mail
• Farming allows players to receive money by
  selling in-game items/currency. Usually is bad
  for the economies within a game, because these
  people develop monopolies on items which players
  may need.
• If making a profit off of a game you play is your
  desire, then you should look to playing Project
  Entropia - allows players to put in and take out
  real-life currency. Ex. One person bought a
  virtual space station for 26,500.00 (BBC News,
  2005).

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Online Subscriptions

• World of Warcraft costs 14.99/month1
• While Final Fantasy XI and EverQuest cost
  12.95/month each1
• These prices are on top of the 50.00 of base
  software cost (Taken from price at the time of
  software release)
• On average a player can spend anywhere from 15
  21 hours a week playing an online game1
• Because you are paying for time to play, a player
  may feel an obligation to get their moneys
  worth.

1. (Project Massive, p.2)
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Strategy Websites

• Definition A website which gives detailed help
  to players of a specific game in order for them
  to gain knowledge about where to find in-game
  items, defeat certain monsters, or complete
  missions or tasks within the game
• Ex. www.thottbot.com, www.allakhazam.com
• Allows players to get past in-game barriers,
  instead of giving up and trying again at a later
  time. Makes repetitive play easy, and encourages
  players to continue playing.

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Online Communities and Guilds

• Great way to create friendships within the game
• However, problems within guilds and online
  communities can create tension and drama which
  can create real-life problems because players
  become too involved with the game and their
  communities
• Also, players may form more of a preference to
  their online friends

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Why addiction is a problem

• All of the previously mentioned facilitators can
  lead a player to become addicted because they
  develop a preference to the game compared to
  reality.
• Shawn Woolley A 21 year old man from Hudson, WI
  who committed suicide from stress caused by a
  personal friend within the game EverQuest.2
• A Korean couple left their 4 month old child
  alone to suffocate and die, because they were
  playing World of Warcraft at a local internet
  café for too long. We were thinking of just
  playing for an hour or two like usual, but the
  game took longer that day3

• (Death of a Game Addict, para. 2)
• (Gamespot, 2005)

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A disclaimer from Final Fantasy XI(Displayed
every time before logging into the game)
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Possible methods of Prevention

• World of Warcraft allows players (entitled
  Parental Controls) to limit the time in which the
  game can be played
• Removing in-game features which arent needed in
  order to play the game, but are just a
  convenience to have (I.e. /pizza)
• Monitoring or removing guilds and online
  communities since they arent necessarily needed
  to play the game, to prevent online problems
  which could hurt a persons physical being.

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Ethical Analysis

• Discuss the Morality of the services which
  provide a convenience to players
• Discuss the Morality of the proposed methods of
  prevention
• Discuss my Final Thoughts

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Kantian Analysis of Convenience features

• Is it moral to provide in-game features because
  they are convenient?
• Kants Second Categorical Imperative Act only
  so that you always treat yourself and other
  people as ends in themselves, and never only as a
  means to an end (Quinn, p.70)
• Players use features like online website guides
  and the Pizza command for their own personal
  benefit. Providing these services indirectly
  increases profits for the game company. With
  online guides, players can easily continue their
  adventures in a never-ending game.
• Both players and providers are using these
  services as a means of personal gain, and can be
  rationalized to being immoral in Kantianism.

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Act Utilitarian analysis

• Benefits They are convenient and easy to use.
  Online strategy guides reduce frustration with
  games by showing players how to get past areas
  they get stuck in.
• Harms There is a potential for players to feel
  the need not to leave their games, resulting in
  forgetting to eat or sleep. Having the pizza
  command doesnt remedy this, because a player may
  not be able to afford it.
• Since the harms of online convenience services is
  undeterminable, we cannot find the morality in
  this viewpoint.

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Rule Utilitarian analysis

• In order to find the greatest increase of
  happiness, we state that it is moral to use these
  features for personal convenience when playing
  online games.
• In a Rule Utilitarian analysis, we are to believe
  that everyone is to follow this rule. Because of
  this, it can be assumed that everyone will take
  advantage of using these features, including the
  online strategy guides. This means that everyone
  will know where to get rare in-game items, and
  therefore everyone will try to get one. However,
  its impossible for everyone to get one
  specifically rare item, due to the rate at which
  they drop.
• Thus, these features of convenience only help a
  few people, and because they cant help everyone
  it isnt moral to use them in Rule Utilitarianism.

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Social Contract Theory analysis

• Morality consists in the set of rules, governing
  how people are to treat one another, on the basis
  that rational people will agree to accept these
  rules for their mutual benefit. (Quinn, p.83)
• This argument follows similarly to the Rule
  Utilitarian analysis. These features are meant
  as a convenience for everyone, and not everyone
  is able to quickly and conveniently make use of
  these services. In general rational people
  wouldnt agree to using these convenient services
  if they understood that their purpose of helping
  everyone, is unattainable.
• Therefore from a Social Contract Theory viewpoint
  these online features are immoral.

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The Morality of my proposed methods of prevention

• Well mainly look at the method of prevention
  which involves having programmers change the
  original code so players can complete in-game
  tasks, like obtaining items and defeating
  opponents, more quickly.

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Kantian view on my prevention methods

• Through use of the Second Categorical imperative
  again, we can see that this method of prevention
  uses the game programmers as a means to prevent
  or end game addiction.
• Therefore this method of prevention is immoral in
  Kantianism

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Act Utilitarian view on my prevention methods

• Benefits can lead to decreased addiction to
  games, because players spend less time playing
  the game to receive the in-game items they want
• Harms Could result in people looking to
  programmers the fix the problems with society
  because they occur within their games. In short,
  programmers could get blamed for acts of online
  violence (this goes beyond the scope of my paper
  however)
• Even with the consequences of these actions,
  blame lies solely on the gamers themselves in the
  end, and because this method of prevention can
  decrease addiction I deem it moral within Act
  Utilitarianism.

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Rule Utilitarian view on my prevention methods

• Here we observe the overall happiness of a set of
  moral rules.
• Its important to realize that there are more
  players compared to programmers, this makes more
  sense when observing the overall happiness of an
  action.
• Because the actions of the few (programmers) are
  far more beneficial than the inactions, we can
  rationalize that removing in-game features from
  games is moral in an attempt to decrease game
  addiction within a Rule Utilitarian analysis.

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A Social Contract Theory stance on my proposed
methods

• For this analysis it is important to look at how
  people are to treat one another.
• By using the same method of prevention, we can
  argue that by doing this a programmer is helping
  players become less addicted to their games. In
  return for this, it might be expected that a
  player stay fair to the company by continuing
  their patronage, and also not committing acts
  that may be deemed unethical by the community
  such as farming.
• With this it can be rationalized that this method
  of prevention is moral because players and
  programmers are treating each other fairly.
  Rational people would also agree that changing
  the game to decrease addiction is a good idea.

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Brandons Final Thoughts

• Online Game addiction is a relatively new
  concept, it also extends to console gaming as
  well. Without the latest advances in technology,
  the ideas of MMORPGs would be non-existant. It
  is then due to computers that talks of ethicality
  behind problems with these games is necessary.
• In my personal opinion I agree that online game
  addiction is a problem, but like alcoholism it is
  only harmful if abused4. This requires
  players to take act responsibly in-game, and take
  care not to become addicted.

4 (Death of a Game Addict, para. 6)
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Citations

• 1.) Project Massive A study of Online Gaming
  Communities
• By A. Fleming Seay, William J. Jerome, Kevin
  Sang Lee, Robert E. Kraut
• Conference on Human Factors in Computing
  Systems, 2004
• http//doi.acm.org/10.1145/985921.986080
• 2.) Online Computer Gaming A comparison of
  adolescent and adult gamers
• Journal of Adolescence 0140-1971 Griffiths,
  2004 vol 27, issue 1 pg 87
• 3.) World of Warcraft Community Site
  www.worldofwarcraft.com
• 4.) Anonymity is not Enough Escapist Magazine
  
• By Mark Wallace, 2006
• http//www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/34/10
• 5.) Ethics for the Information Age
• By Michael Quinn, 2006, p. 122
• 6.) Death of a Game Addict
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 30th, 2002.
• Accessed on March 27th, 2006 from the Academic
  Search Premier database.
• 7.) Couples online gaming causes infant's death
• Gamespot Online Article, posted on June 20th,
  2005
• www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/20/news_6127866.htm
  l

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Citations cont.

• 8.) Sony builds pizza-order function into
  'Everquest II'
• Peter Svensson, USA Today, 2/24/2005
• www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2005-02-2
  4-sony-pizza_x.html
• 9.) Project Entropia - Online game involving
  real currency
• www.project-entropia.com
• 10.) Final Fantasy XI - Official online site
  (also used Disclaimer Note in game)
• www.playonline.com/ff11us/welcome/
• 11.) Allakhazam - About the Site
• By Jeffrey Moyer, a.k.a. Allakhazam
• www.allakhazam.com/Staff_Bios.html
• 12.) Thottbot - World of Warcraft Search
• www.thottbot.com (Cosmos add-on found at
  www.thottbot.com/?pdownload)
• 13.) Gamer buys virtual Space Station
• BBC News Online Article, October 25th, 2005
• http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4374610.s
  tm
• 14.) The Daedulus Project
• By Nick Yee, 1999-2004
• http//www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_demogra
  phics.html

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Questions?

• Please feel free to read through my paper, and
  give feedback! It can be found through the links
  http//www.d.umn.edu/cprince/courses/cs3111spring
  06/Projects/