81–90 of 204 posts
Games in my life reach at most level of wikipedia reading. 12 hours grind once in two months and casual use now and then.
WoW ? if I wanted to do chores all day, I'd get a job.
What WoW needs to do is start hooking in-game rewards to real-life rewards. For example, a deal with 24 Hour Fitness where you need to attend for 30 days in a row to unlock some kind of sword. The biometric system at 24 Hour is now sophisticated enough to permit this kind of tracking [with your permission of course]. I'm completely serious. This is an inversion of the Zynga model in which real life money is exchanged…
I love the idea, but why does WoW need to do this? Any game could do it. A fitness club is especially well-placed to accomplish it. Hmm... I think it could also work well as a Facebook app. I'm going to mull this over and see what I can come up with. This could really drive society to improve itself in all kinds of ways.
People have been trying to game-ify real life for years and its never gained much traction. I think this is because people have to sign up for something additional, and at that point (unless the program gains a lot of steam with a lot of people) there's not much tying individuals in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In principle, sure, but the point is that WoW is indeed especially addictive in a way that a bowling league isn't.
And you say this because you know people "addicted to WoW" but you don't know people "addicted to bowling"? Two million people playing in competitive bowling leagues each week across America. WoW has nowhere near two million competitive players. I don't have statistics for the number of casual bowlers but I'll bet you a lunch that more people spend $15/month bowling than playing WoW. Do you think it is any different…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In principle, sure, but the point is that WoW is indeed especially addictive in a way that a bowling league isn't.
What, the same social pressures don't apply in other team sports? Try to play any sport at a high level and miss a few trainings because you'd rather read a book at home. You'll get bad looks the first time, yelled at the second time and kicked out the third time. (I'm not saying WoW is a sport, just to pre-empt a diversion in that direction). What is morally superior about exercising an hour a day over playing WoW a…
eeeeehhh. As a very avid WoW player of some years now, I would say WoW is something that can easily be something that holds your "life progress" or whatever you want to call it back, but it can also just as easily be played at a successful level (define that however you like) without that effect as well. In the guild I'm in now and a guild I was in in the past I see both: players who are quite literally on welfare or…
You discuss how WoW either hold back life progress or doesn't. Have you (or anyone you know) encountered a case where WoW has helped someone?
I've played with a fair number of people who are in the same field as me, as well as with my own coworkers and managers, which has allowed me to get to know them pretty well and get pretty good job offers and consulting gigs.
But sure, if I had been spending every free moment on WoW, it likely wouldn't have been a worthwhile endeavor.. And for all I know, I would have done something better with the time put into it had I taken up a different hobby.
Caveat: it's very easy to extend the criticism of WoW to life itself. Working all these years to be a paramedic, going to school, going to work, for what? To drive some people to the hospital? They're all just going to die anyway. Life is meaningless! What the author is really saying is: "I find more meaning in the real world than in WoW." But this isn't necessarily true for everyone. Having said all that, I think WO…
In WoW, your character has several skills, stats, and abilities that define it. You choose which ones to work on, how to shape your character, and then you put in the time to make that happen. But what about your skills? You are not getting stronger or better at wielding a two-handed weapon. You are getting better at playing WoW, you are improving your hand-eye coordination, you are bettering your combat-driven teamwork abilities, and you are getting better at determination: being patient and working towards a goal.
The problem comes in the illusion of progression. Your character improves almost continuously, building its skills to a point where it is better than all the other characters. Eventually your character reaches a ceiling, but you can always create another character with different skills and do it all again. But you stop progressing much sooner. Early on, your ability to play WoW tapers off to a suitably-high level such that the real gain is in improving your character. You master the conventions of in-game communication. You develop a routine and diligently set to work improving your characters without question. You stop progressing.
But what happens when you reach that ceiling, when you become the best? In WoW and many other video games, the game ceases to be fun when you are as powerful as possible. Since someone else owns the experience, you are stuck waiting for them to tell you what to do with your newfound abilities. This is why I regret the time I sank into becoming an Expert guitar player on Rock Band. When your playing abilities max out, the game becomes a chore, even if you don't realize it. The best rhythm game players spend their time playing the same songs over and over again in an effort to play them flawlessly. The game ceases to be a game.
In "real life," if you manage to "max out" a "real skill," you can actually do something else, anything you want, with it. Rather than hope that song that I love comes out on Rock Band so that I can put my hundreds of hours to work playing it, I could have spent hundreds of hours playing real guitar and be able to play any song. If I sink a lot of time into becoming a great comedian, I can hit the road, make people all of the place laugh, and make money doing it. If I spend time improving my health and fitness, I can run marathons, play competitive sports, or become a vigilante hero. The choice is entirely up to me.
That's what it boils down to. Is your leveling work tying you to a system where you can't control the direction you're heading in? In play, in art, in work, and in life, make sure that the skills you're improving are flexible in a way that allows you to apply them in any way you wish. Otherwise, you're just playing someone else's game.
Note: I used quotes around "real life" and "real skill" because I'm cheating by defining them somewhat circularly. A "real skill" is a skill that can be applied in many different ways, limited only by creativity. "Real life" is the arena in which you practice and execute those real skills.
What WoW needs to do is start hooking in-game rewards to real-life rewards. For example, a deal with 24 Hour Fitness where you need to attend for 30 days in a row to unlock some kind of sword. The biometric system at 24 Hour is now sophisticated enough to permit this kind of tracking [with your permission of course]. I'm completely serious. This is an inversion of the Zynga model in which real life money is exchanged…
I love the idea, but why does WoW need to do this? Any game could do it. A fitness club is especially well-placed to accomplish it. Hmm... I think it could also work well as a Facebook app. I'm going to mull this over and see what I can come up with. This could really drive society to improve itself in all kinds of ways.
That said, you could be the middleman and not ask permission from anyone. Just build a 24 Hour Fitness/WoW mashup. The 24 Hour Fitness end would be easy if you have a membership (basically just set up a screen scraper for your biometric login history).
For WoW, you might start off by buying a bunch of top swords and stuff from other players to seed it. I vaguely know that Blizzard doesn't like that sort of thing, so maybe you could instead seed it with donations of equipment from people who are going to delete their accounts because of lack of exercise.
At the beginning it'd be semi-manual, with difficult-to-obtain gear traded in person in the game. But I think that would get a lot of buzz on Twitter (and even the NYT) if promoted properly, and would get you a meeting with the Blizzard guys to make it a reality.
Anyway, if anyone is interested in doing something with this, I actually have a whole spec written up (one of 50 startup ideas that I can't actually attend to, what with the primary and all). Drop me a line at sramanujan1729 at gmail dot com if you want to chat.
It seems like the problem is the addiction. The author seems to acknowledge this is the title, but goes on to mostly treat WOW or gaming addiction like it is semi-unique. Granted, blizzard intentionally includes many elements that are more or less designed for addiction (quite common in the industry/genre) and that intention is troubling. But otherwise it does seem like it shares a lot of traits with other addictions…
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3085/behavioral_game_d...