Last week saw the release of the latest World of Warcraft expansion pack – Wrath of the Lich King, and as with previous releases the hype and anticipation across the gaming community was huge. But in the news and press once again questions are being asked about computer game addiction and the negative consequences of virtual ‘living’ – with WOW unsurprisingly at the center of the debate.
Not for the first time I found myself wondering – how serious is gaming addiction, and also who or what (if anything) is to blame? It can’t be a simple case of pointing the finger at Blizzard and ignoring the wider contexts in play…
Firstly though one quick observation about the release evening. As thousands of fans waited outside stores all night in order to ensure getting a copy, with many dressed up as favourite characters, camped outside shops with mock battleaxes and pointy hats, the whole thing reminded me of the Harry Potter mania of recent years or maybe even the Beatlemania of decades gone by.Â
This surely is an indication that gaming is slowly but surely encroaching ever closer to being viewed as a credible mainstream entertainment format, which can only be a good thing – though judging by how few titles inspire such devotion there is still a long way to go.
Anyway onto the issue of addiction, which I do believe to be a serious one. There can be no doubt that many WOW players do play the game to levels that justify the use of the word addiction. While many would say that since they feel they can stop tomorrow then such terminology is harsh, the same arguments are often used by smokers and drug addicts in denial about the level of their habitual dependence.
This is by no means to say that all WOW players are such – indeed the majority are probably what one could describe as casual or hobby gamers, but nonetheless there is a significant portion who could be termed gaming/WOW addicts and it is these players who are here relevant.
The interesting thing about the public debates in which gaming is discussed is that sadly often highlighting such issues has the negative consequence of pushing gaming back towards the margins of the entertainment world by virtue of the stigma that comes from the addiction problem. Yet the logic is the same as implying that all who drink alcohol are addicts to varying degrees, and that alcohol and pubs inherently are harmful and damaging things – something we would all probably see as an overly simplistic rationale.
This is the huge problem faced by Blizzard and other game developers – it is that their product is often perceived to be a huge part of the problem, when in actual fact this is the same as blaming a pub landlord because a pubgoer ends up very drunk on a regular basis. After all, how is playing WOW any different from watching television? (Some would argue that as WOW contains a social aspect, it is actually less of a problem in terms of the consequences of addiction). But for some reason since the average Briton watches just under four hours of television a day then the bar for an addict is much higher – and since even ‘non-addicts’ do it – tv addiction is somehow less wierd.
The fundamental challenge in tackling gaming addiction is not simply to do with getting developers to design games differently, nor is it a problem which can be solved solely by awareness and discussion of the issue – though obviously both of these things are important.
The most pressing initial task is to understand gaming addiction, something which can be difficult especially for people for whom games are a strange and bizarre hobby. It is time to recognise that gaming addiction is essentially pretty similar to many other common addictions (which we both understand and tackle better). It affects people in a particular way, and on the surface would seem less immediately dangerous – but regardless of this it can cause serious long term problems for the (mostly) young people affected by it.
Ultimately blaming Blizzard, WOW, or anyone else is short-sighted and unconstructive to addressing the issue. Firstly we must look in detail at the details of gaming addiction and recognise where it is similar to other addictions and where it differs – only then can we identify strategies for solving the problem. The blame culture which dumps the responsibility at the door of developers or gamers solely simply offloads the problem and stigmatises all gamers at a time when the industry is making huge strides into the mainstream of entertainment media. In answer to the question above, perhaps it’s better to deploy another question; does one blame a television company or a television channel when we discover that someone watches it for ten hours a day, every day? No, me niether…
Dejan Levi
