Everquest bashing

[Tewligan]

Didn't they mention at the beginning of the story that the guy had had mental and/or social problems for most of his life? I was only half paying attention, but I don't remember that minor point coming up again after they first mentioned it. I kinda think that might have more to do with the whole thing than a game.

Edit: Tricky, tricky spelling.

 

[RobNJ]

PBS would report that Dick Cheney was a Martian invader if they thought it would somehow increase the National Endowment for the Arts.

This is a pretty wild accusation without any backup.

 

[Ravellion]

This is a pretty wild accusation without any backup.

That's what his emoticon was for...

Rav

 

[Mistwell]

You know, I have a bit of sympathy for this news report. Many people here seem to be putting forth the defense that Everquest is a symptom, and not a cause, of this anti-social behavior.

Sorry, but in my opinion that is not always the case. I have 3 friends, all of them formerly close, that are essentially lost as friends as a result of Everquest. Prior to playing the game, while not socially extroverts, they were all at least somewhat engaging conversationalists interested in going out on the weekend and seeing a movie or having dinner or something like that. They watched the news, read the paper, discussed politics and sociology and philosophy, etc... And none of them had any addiction prior to the game that interfered with their social relationships.

Since becoming addicted to the game, they all three no longer go out and do things very often, and their ability to socialize has been serious reduced to discussions of the game. They all three, in fact, eventually (after years) found girlfriends who play the game, and rapidly moved in with them, so that they could feed their addiction and still have a love life. Now each couple sits at home every weekend and plays the game on their separate computers, often developing their relationship via the game itself.

This is not healthy behavior, nor is this behavior they ever exhibited prior to playing the game.

I think it is foolish to place 100% of the blame for an addiction on the individual, rather than the object of their addiction. Objects of addiction often share at least some of the blame, particularly if designed to be addicting.

If a game is built to encourage you to play it as many hours as possible, then the game designers do have some blame in my opinion. And that is exactly what this game is about at this point. As higher level caps are permitted, and higher level areas are added, the game encourages you to keep up with your fellow players, and play many more hours than you would ordinarily want to play (as a way of protecting your costly investment of time and money in the game).

Regardless of the player's natural tendency to be prone to addiction, playing on those tendencies is not a good thing for a company to do, and companies that do it share some of the blame for the natural, predictable consequences of that addiction.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

This is a pretty wild accusation without any backup.

I think it's pretty wild to label my comment as anything as inflammatory as an accusation.

The Dick Cheney as Martian part didn't clue you into the fact that I was being at least partially facetious?

It wasn't an accusation. It was a personal opinion crossed with a joke (perhaps not a very good joke, but a joke nonetheless).

Unvarnished opinion: I find that PBS has a definite agenda on some few issues. They remain less biased than other forms of media on just about everything, but they are not above pandering to fulfill their agenda on occasion.

I know of very few people and NO organizations which are above such activities at all times. So this is not so much an indictment of PBS as a comment on my part encouraging people to question all information provided to them, especially when it costs them nothing. Someone's paying for your access to that information.

Disclaimer: This isn't one of those "The Media is lying to you!" speeches. It's a "Be aware that every human being (and certainly every organization) has built in bias, and you have to correct for that before you start preaching their word as gospel" speech.

Edited for clarity

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I think it is foolish to place 100% of the blame for an addiction on the individual, rather than the object of their addiction. Objects of addiction often share at least some of the blame, particularly if designed to be addicting.
...
Regardless of the player's natural tendency to be prone to addiction, playing on those tendencies is not a good thing for a company to do, and companies that do it share some of the blame for the natural, predictable consequences of that addiction.

Can't really back you up here. It takes a certain kind of addictive personality to get that wrapped up without a significant biological hook. And even when there's a significant biological factor, it's not like anyone pushed the person into it.

Despite the modern perceptions of the Culture of Victimhood, you don't become addicted overnight. It takes a lot of effort on the part of the addictee.

But that's taking personal responsibility, which is, like, so 1950's, man.

 

[Ranger REG]

Heh. That's what they say about D&D being the object of addiction long ago except you also gain a cult-like behavior, drawing your friends into this kind of escapism to the point of losing reality.

To this day, RPG is still being blamed for being outside the norms of society. Most recently the profiling of the Beltway Sniper.

 

[RobNJ]

I think it's pretty wild to label my comment as anything as inflammatory as an accusation.

It was certainly inaccurate to label it as an accusation, since there wasn't any specific accusation, there was more a tone of accusation (in the way I read it).

The Dick Cheney as Martian part didn't clue you into the fact that I was being at least partially facetious?

I thought you were exaggerating, but that doesn't mean it's not something you believe.

The implicit message is that PBS has or would smear Republicans unfairly to punish them for failing to fund public broadcasting. As to that, I think it's inappropriate to say--or imply--unless you have some evidence to back it up. That's all.

Of course every organization may be biased. I would guess that from a certain, thickheaded perspective, my local PBS station is probably part of the gay mafia for airing a "gay life" docu-show at 1 AM on Sunday night/Monday morning. But then those people with that opinion would be bigoted morons.

Unvarnished opinion: I find that PBS has a definite agenda on some few issues.

And this is where I'm asking for an explanation of what the bias is and evidence of its affecting their reportage.

 

[Breakdaddy]

Can't really back you up here. It takes a certain kind of addictive personality to get that wrapped up without a significant biological hook. And even when there's a significant biological factor, it's not like anyone pushed the person into it.

Despite the modern perceptions of the Culture of Victimhood, you don't become addicted overnight. It takes a lot of effort on the part of the addictee.

But that's taking personal responsibility, which is, like, so 1950's, man.

I agree 100% with your retort to the original post, Canis. I have a cousin that got a PS2 last Christmas and hasnt lead a significant social life since then, but I dont blame the Playstation 2 for his woes. He can literally sit in front of this thing for hours and lose track of time, not eat, not interact with other people, etc. Nobody thinks that Sony is evil for addicting this guy to the PS2. He bought it with his own money and made a conscious decision to play games every spare moment of his time. The worst crime Sony can be blamed for is being in business to make money and creating fun pastimes that facilitate an individuals natural addictive proclivities.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

And this is where I'm asking for an explanation of what the bias is and evidence of its affecting their reportage.

Their editorial slant, primarily. Any instance of money being shifted away from the Arts gets the kind of emphasis and editorial exposition most people would reserve for full scale war, whereas full scale war gets dry fact and short airtime.

Granted, my data is a little old here. It's possible they've cleaned that up a bit since I last paid any attention to them. As I mentioned before, I've been relying almost exclusively on print media for a few years now.