Negotiating with the “Addictive” Characteristics of Online Games
Shawna Kelly
Thu., June 16, 3:30–4:30, Browsing Library
This study explores how individual players of World of Warcraft modify their playing behaviors in response to understanding video games as potentially addictive and explores the general response trends among new players. The terms Internet or videogame “addiction” have been used to describe people voluntarily spending extended periods of time at a computer and engaged in an online space. Although addiction is generally a physiological symptom, application of the term to compulsive gamblers created an opening for extending the word to Internet usage, what Griffiths (1995, 2000) and Griffiths and Davies (2005) call “technological addiction,” a non-chemical, behavioral compulsion. At its core, the fears about video game addiction focus on the potential that users will become so immersed in the virtual world that they will neglect aspects of the rest of their lives and may even come to believe that the online world is the real world.
Building on research into communities in computer-mediated spaces (Boellstorff, 2008; Nardi, 2010; Rheingold, 1993; Taylor, 2006; Turkle, 1995), this paper examines the practices of videogame players who are new to online game spaces and whom do not have a firm grasp of gaming culture. The data was collected from ethnographic participant observation and interviews with over 100 World of Warcraft players between 2005 and 2009, specifically women, players of color, and “casual” gamers (Juul, 2010). Given the political inquiries and extensive discussions of addiction in the popular press and within gaming circles, modern gamers are well aware of the rhetoric of addiction as a potential result of playing online video games. Bringing attitudes influenced by news coverage of spectacular cases of spousal neglect (e.g., Alter, 2007), failing school (e.g., Jacobs, 2010) and unhealthy media use (e.g. Mollman, 2008), the case study of the entry of newbie gamers into the World of Warcraft community and their individual wrestling with the “addictive” characteristics of the game offer insights into video game usage choices and best practices.
Beyond questions of the appropriateness of “addiction” to describe video game use (e.g. Williams, Yee & Caplan, 2008), this study explores how new videogame players respond to concerns about addiction and individually negotiate their playing habits. The study found a range of decisions regarding regulating playtime, from heavy playing followed by abstinence, to only playing when certain criteria are met, such as after the children are in bed or only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On analysis, players who set their playtime around social commitments, e.g. only when one's wife works evenings, expressed more satisfaction with the amount of time they played than players who set self-imposed limitations without outside social motivation, e.g. only until one needed to go to bed for school/work tomorrow.
References
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