I’m sure people would appreciate at link to the article for their own perusal if you have it available.
Blizzard is actually going the opposite way in my opinion (Activision influence?) by adding more and more content for higher rewards encouraging you to complete them all within each time frame.
WQ Embassies, M+ caches, warfront quest (when available), PvP cache, PvP weekly item, IE’s, Invasions weekly tortollan quest etc all provide excessive rewards for the content they are derived from encouraging you to “participate or miss out”.
Personally I’m not a big fan of that form of time-gating. I would rather see players get rewarded appropriately for the content they are completing because they want to, not because they get a bigger shinier reward.
It’s subtle psychology tricks to influence us to interact in a way that is beneficial to them.
We need to make sure to draw a distinction between scummy and manipulative practices, and what people call “gaming addiction”. Gambling has a long documented history of its addictive properties. It’s why we don’t allow minors to gamble and why a lot of people are worried about “lootboxes” simulating gambling. But this is about our (humans) weakness towards gambling, and isn’t itself a negative mark on video games themselves.
I’m not sure I fully agree with that. A lot of video games companies pay a lot of money to research those strategies and then deliberately put them into their games knowing full well the implications that it can have.
However my initial response about those incentives was not about the addiction per se. I was more targeting Acti-Blizz itself in regards to Alabstrjones’ comment of “why doesn’t Blizzard do more about awareness”.
The simple fact is that currently the company philosophy revolves more around getting people to play the game in any means rather than the actual players themselves.
So it isn’t really worth their effort to implement any additional warnings or reminder notices outside of the one loading screen tip that has been in for years (and is able to be switched off).
Apparently that is as far as they need to extend for their duty of care, and that’s apparently as far as they are willing to go.
Pretty much this,it seems pretty asinine to play a game and then get preachy that people are somehow addicted due to articles that are pure clickbait journalism [this is towards OP of the forum for context,to the post I’m replying to I’m wholeheartedly agreein with ya,mate.] >_> Dunno about you,but I prefer a quiet evening of playing video games,having a cup of tea and giving my fluffball of a cat many pets over going out for anything other than groceries and work and risk getting mugged and whatnot by a tweaker. I go out once in a blue moon,function fine at work but still play plenty of WoW and various games from time to time. People will do what they want and seldom like being told what to do,and if anything BEING told what to do and their hobby is bad or that they’re somehow addicts especially telling people on the internet,they will keep doing said thing to spite the preachy person in question. Linking a “helpful article” is akin to favoriting/retweeting something on facebook or twitter,it may make you feel good but will do actual bugger all in problem solving. As one said if you really wanna make some sort of difference then go volunteer somewhere or give blood but making gamers sound like addicts on the forums isn’t exactly gonna win people over. Also,narking on introverts won’t win anyone over either…just sayin’. People already know to play in moderation.
It’s pretty telling that we always get articles that go “gaming ruined my life” and not “the people I met online encouraged me to go back to college,” or “I met my spouse on an MMO,” or “I’ve been in the same guild for ten years and know the people in it like family.”
I guess I wasn’t speaking directly to you, more just quoting you as a frame of reference to make sure to say if we’re talking about video game addiction, we need to draw a distinction between “video game addiction” and video game devs manipulating our natural weakness towards gambling. They are separate animals.
As to the rest, it really isn’t in Acti-Blizz’s best interest to get people to stop playing. I think the addition of all the hundreds of different “lootboxes” shows they’re perfectly OK manipulating their customers. And honestly, I don’t care, I don’t hold them morally responsible. They’re a public company and have a legal duty to do what they think provides the best return for their investors. I think it’s scummy and dirty, which is why I don’t give them money anymore.
Can a game company be blamed for making a good game, the one that people find it so interesting, making them want to play all day everyday?
It is true, there is an element of behavior psychology used in WOW in order to get people hooked. It’s skinner’s box theory built into RNG of WOW. Instead of giving people tokens or coins to collect and trade for gears at NPC vendor, they made the whole gear drops RNG. On top of that we have WF/TF. Every time people get the impossible, they get to experience that dopamine fix in their brain and our reptilian brain makes the connection WOW = Dopamine = Happy. So, is this evil? I don’t think so.
It’s because pretty much anything we do can trigger the dopamine release, like exercising or passing an exam, and it’s not a straight up gambling like Casino either. To me, it’s kind of cute use of human psychology that’s all.
I think people who are addicted to WOW have 2 things in common.
They are smart people. think about it. people with low IQ can’t see the beauty of the game or feel fun doing the WOW stuff that those WOWzors do.
They have focused mind. just not the best use of their focus.
I remember the time I was young, winning the local chess tournament. It was many many years ago and the prize money was like $500. 2 week after I won the chess tournament, there was a golf tournament at a local golf club and the prize was? whopping $50,000! I remember feeling kinda upset. Had I played golf instead of chess, I probably could’ve won that $50,000. That was the thought that occurred in my mind at that time. You see, all efforts are the same. It takes the same amount of time and effort to sell a pencil as it takes a car or a house(a bit of exaggeration here )
Anyhow, they just need to remember “the less you play, the more you enjoy”
As for me, I see WF/TF as a bonus and don’t really think about them or expect them to happen every single time. It is something nice to have if they happen but definitely not something I would spend time grinding for them. As long as I have the Best-In-Slots I have in mind iLvL 400, I am happy with that, cuz I know gears mean nothing in WOW every 3~6 months or so.
IMO there are far worse things people get addicted to out there with no legal repercussion. Tobacco, Sugar, Caffeine, and food to just name a few. I support at least Tobacco does have warnings its bad for you but others not so much.
It is not the game. If there wasn’t a game, the person would turn to some other addiction in order to avoid their life. The problem is the fact that these days, parents do little to prepare their kids for the responsibilities they will encounter as adults. When I was a kid, it was expected that I get a job and pay for my essentials and entertainment. Because of that, I learned how to deal with the stress that advanced responsibilities have. Today, kids are allowed to spend time playing their games so they don’t bother their parents. Then when they go off to university, they don’t have the mental tools to deal with the stress involved and so they turn to the babysitter of their childhood. If you want to fix this issue, you need to have a chat with parents.
I don’t disagree with your overall message, but I do disagree with Blizzard needing to tell people their game can be addictive and to take breaks. Whenever I see that in a game I feel like being talked down to.
And while this is a side tangent, anyone find it odd BBC thought the rest of the world needed to be told “Hey playing games for longer than a couple of hours isn’t a healthy habit”? I think we all know that already, we just ignore it.
As I recall, one of those suggestions that pops up when you log on is " Bring your friends to Azeroth, but don’t forget to go outside Azeroth with them as well".
So they do advise people to take breaks. Beyond that, what can they do?
Gaming can be just as bad for your health as cigarettes. As long as your taking the game in moderation, its fine. The problem is when it takes over your life. Aside from the mental issues associated with gaming, you can also have physical issues associated with gaming addiction. People that sit for extreme periods of time can start to have spinal problems. Your immune system can suffer from not coming in contact with enough people (depending on the age you start gaming and become addicted.) This is an addiction that can start at a very, very young age. Normally, cigarettes, alcohol, and most other addictions start later in life or sometime in the teenage years. Gaming addiction can happen to kids much younger than just teens, it can happen to toddlers or elementary age children.
To everyone here who thinks im pointing a finger at WoW. Im not. Im just trying to get the word out that blizzard should be advocating for peoples health not just in their games but all games. Naturally, it sounds like a bad thing to people…but in reality too much of anything can make you an addict, so just seek help if you need it and dont if you dont want to. This is post was supposed to be throwing an idea at someone thats been searching for an answer…
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