Forked Thread: "The Death of the Imagination" re: World of Warcraft

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The expression "World of Warcrack" is widely used for a reason. Many, many people experience the same thing.

There are 12.5 million people playing World of Warcraft. I suspect many, many of them have a craving for Coke and Cheetos while playing. I'm not going to make the leap that because a bunch of gamers want Coke and Cheetos that WoW causes people to want junk food.

As has been said, people have been trying to prove for YEARS that the Internet and MMOs exert some sort of sinister pull over users. The reason you haven't seen the proof about it on the cover of Time Magazine is that they haven't been able to find it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is not actually correct. There have been many studies that have shown that violent video games are associated with increased aggression.

And other studies have shown that both violent entertainments actually make people less likely to behave violently overall, as though it's a cathartic sort of process to participate in them.

And really, if we want to go down the road that videogames make you more violent, a game where you describe in detail about killing other people, use charts to determine just how badly you hurt them (Millennium's End actually had an amazing overlay so you could see just where your bullet, or whatever, hit the other guy) and then become more powerful based on how many people you have dispatched is just another popularity boom away from being put under a similar microscope.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would say I've been a semi-hardcore player of WOW, and would say it's often a game of chasing stats. Right now I focus on two characters; a hunter and a shaman healer, and it's basically comes down to what gear you have. Most WOW players don't really care about the lore, and sometimes you wonder if Blizzard cares that much about it.

I think it really depends on your peer group. My guild, and the people I associate with, will stop in the middle of a raid to debate whether some rumored upcoming addition to the game makes sense with what we know.

Every time I'm in my raiding alliance going through Serpentshrine Cavern, someone complains that the lore about what the naga are up to is seemingly incomplete.

Even the cesspool that is the official boards have a new "lorelol" meme that's used to complain about when Blizzard seemingly drops the ball on lore.

If you're looking for people who care about the lore and such, they're out there. The MMO community I frequent has more debates about lore than just about anything else.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This site is a truly work of art, I wish I had the skills and time to set up something like this.

Congrats on excellence.

Thanks. My wife is the artist. My contribution was abusing a Wordpress template and a little more than half of the writing.

 

[Fifth Element]

This is not actually correct. There have been many studies that have shown that violent video games are associated with increased aggression.

Associated with higher aggression, or shown to cause higher aggression? Remember that correlation does not imply causation. I haven't read these studies you allude to, but my first thought is "perhaps aggressive people like violent games more?"

 

[apoptosis]

There are 12.5 million people playing World of Warcraft. I suspect many, many of them have a craving for Coke and Cheetos while playing. I'm not going to make the leap that because a bunch of gamers want Coke and Cheetos that WoW causes people to want junk food.

As has been said, people have been trying to prove for YEARS that the Internet and MMOs exert some sort of sinister pull over users. The reason you haven't seen the proof about it on the cover of Time Magazine is that they haven't been able to find it.

While the study of this phenomena is relatively new, t is pretty well thought by the general scientific community (i work in neuropyschiatry) that online online gaming have an addictive quality. The reward cycle in those games seem to be paradigms for addiction. Now many activities have addictive qualities with similar reward paradigms (gambling, shopping). That doesn't make these things bad but does signal that for people with a predisposition for addiction it could potentially be a problem. It is not in any way sinister any more than shopping is.

 

[apoptosis]

And other studies have shown that both violent entertainments actually make people less likely to behave violently overall, as though it's a cathartic sort of process to participate in them.

And really, if we want to go down the road that videogames make you more violent, a game where you describe in detail about killing other people, use charts to determine just how badly you hurt them (Millennium's End actually had an amazing overlay so you could see just where your bullet, or whatever, hit the other guy) and then become more powerful based on how many people you have dispatched is just another popularity boom away from being put under a similar microscope.

Honestly, that violent video games make people less aggressive is definitely not supported to any real degree in the scientific literature. Every recent review,study and meta-analysis that i know of pretty much states a positive association or possibly no significant association. I would definitely be interested in a recent study that says otherwise so if you could provide a citation that would be great (i am saying this in constructive way)

 

[apoptosis]

Associated with higher aggression, or shown to cause higher aggression? Remember that correlation does not imply causation. I haven't read these studies you allude to, but my first thought is "perhaps aggressive people like violent games more?"

That is a very valid point for the epidemiological studies. This is always an issue with those types of studies. For other studies where they look at behaviors and physiological measure following playing the video games (experimental vs epidemiological study) this doesnt really hold.

Once again though long-term behavior/aggression cannot be ascertained in the experimental studies.

As i said before the data for this area is very convoluted and definitely not conclusive by any means. There seems to be a signal in the data but it is hard to say what this signal is or what it means (like you brought up causation vs association becomes a very big issue in the long-term epidemiological studies)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Honestly, that violent video games make people less aggressive is definitely not supported to any real degree in the scientific literature. Every recent review,study and meta-analysis that i know of pretty much states a positive association or possibly no significant association. I would definitely be interested in a recent study that says otherwise so if you could provide a citation that would be great (i am saying this in constructive way)

I saw it mentioned a while back on another board. I'll see if I can dig it up.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

While the study of this phenomena is relatively new, t is pretty well thought by the general scientific community (i work in neuropyschiatry) that online online gaming have an addictive quality. The reward cycle in those games seem to be paradigms for addiction. Now many activities have addictive qualities with similar reward paradigms (gambling, shopping). That doesn't make these things bad but does signal that for people with a predisposition for addiction it could potentially be a problem. It is not in any way sinister any more than shopping is.

I think we can all agree that shopping is PLENTY sinister.