The Straits Times
Section: Digital Life
November 27, 2007
By Leung Wai-Leng
The debate still rages. While developers may build games to reel players in, a sensible approach can help gamers avoid addiction, reports LEUNG WAI-LENG
TO MILLIONS, games entertain and educate. Surgeons use them to hone their fine motor skills and schools here have started using them to reinforce concepts in subjects, among other beneficial uses of the medium.
On the flipside, detractors to video games call it digital heroin. With South- east Asia‘s estimated 57 million Internet users discovering online games, concern over the issue of games addiction has come to the fore.
Singapore has not been spared. Counsellors and psychiatrists report seeing increasing numbers of gamers who cannot stop playing to the point where they ignore sleep, talking to siblings and even stop doing everyday activities like meeting friends or going to movies.
Manager of the Touch Cyber Wellness and Sports youth outreach programme Poh Yeang Cherng, estimates that the organisation counsels 18 callers a month for cyber addiction.
Said former-game designer Daniel Cook in a 2005 paper published on psychological addiction‘s impact on games: ’Let‘s be blunt about it. Games are drugs.’ The paper was published on top game developer website Gamedev.net.
Games, said Daniel, who has worked for developers such as Epic Games, are a set of stimuli and respon- ses that use risk and reward systems to create addiction.
They create ‘the uncontrollable compulsion to repeat a behaviour’, he said in the study, with most structuring themselves around a simple repetitive activity such as shooting to kill monsters.
The reward? The various treasures or weapons the monsters drop when killed, or simply the thrill of seeing the monster die in a spectacular rain of blood and gore.
Pride, pleasure, anticipation are evoked, adding to the intensity of the experience, said Daniel who had helped develop classic PC shooter Tyrian and Xbox 360 action game Overlord.
When such rewards are received immediately, the effect is greater. Repeating the same sequence of reward for actions performed can turn into a habit.
Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) have also thrown up new avenues for pleasure.
Said Yeang Cherng: ‘Some are driven by the achievement they find in advancing their virtual characters and increasing their virtual assets in MMOGs. The virtual world can become the place to meet their real-world achievement needs.
‘Yet, others are driven primarily by relationships they have in these virtual environments.’
American Neils Clark, who with psychotherapist Shavaun Scott is co- writing the upcoming book Game Addiction, says that people’s attraction to games might have grown out of existing media such as television, which can provide hard-to-ignore visuals with a strong narrative.
Games, however, add the element of interactivity.
‘We’re controlling the action...This is a huge jump in how we can tell our stories. It makes visual storytelling a lot more personal than what you’d be able to watch on TV,’ said Neils.
He believes it is not the game, but how a player interacts with it, that determines the absence or presence of addiction.
‘Certain gamers will get involved with certain structures in a game,’ he said. ‘In my early research of online worlds like MapleStory and World of WarCraft, what we saw was that every gamer would go into the game and initially get attached to one or two things.’
But there, the difference between the healthy gamer and the addict emerged.
‘The healthy gamers seemed to gravitate to certain things, most common was the desire to play with a social group of people.
‘The addicts, those who we saw had problems in their basic functioning, like eating and sleeping, would gravitate to certain other things...the most detrimental factor seemed to be a preference for goal-oriented player groups, or raid guilds.’
Raids in World of WarCraft can require up to 40 people and take nine hours of non-stop cooperation to complete.
Hence, the debate on whether video gaming can lead to addiction.
The American Psychiatrists Association has not accepted that there is such a thing as video game addiction. Moreover, there are also video gamers who play for hours and are well-adjusted with no social impairment.
For example, professional gamer Jonathan Wendel, who at 26 is a multi-millionaire, games eight hours a day to train for competition.
However, he also runs daily and claims to maintain a social life.
What is needed, is perhaps some understanding from parents and teachers on how games work.
Said teacher William Pong, 30: ‘Understanding games and how students play will help when you are trying to counsel them and teach them to play responsibly.
‘This is the entertainment of their generation, we have to learn to deal with it.’
Industry veteran Andrew Carter, who has made games like the first Star Wars game on the Nintendo Entertainment system to PlayStation 2 games like The Transformers, say game designers make games with features meant to keep players coming back for more.
Such as a compelling story accompanied by computer-generated cutscenes that keep the gamer playing in order to see the next plot twist, something Final Fantasy VII used to great effect.
But Andrew said, designers do not build these features ‘in the sinister sense’ and certainly not to create unhealthy addiction.
And it does not make good business sense, he continued. Andrew is now the chief executive officer of local online games developer RealU.
‘Those who play long hours will experience everything the game has to offer in a short period of time and will stop playing in the long term,’ he said. ‘It’s far better to have players who play short hours in the long term,’
This applies both to online games that use a monthly subscription model or micropayments, where players only pay for premium in-game items.
It is certainly possible to build in features that discourage unhealthy gaming.
For his next online game, Andrew is considering implementing mechanics such as the character experiencing fatigue after hours of adventuring, making his actions less efficient in achieving goals.
In the end, however, it might simply boil down to how games are used.
After all, the same features that make games immersive can also be used in pain-management, pointed out Neils.
Said Andrew: ’If you have a fast car, and the driver speeds, who‘s to blame, the car or the driver?‘
Additional reporting by Stephanie Gwee
Heed the warning signs
KIDS’ behaviour may change when they are hooked on video gaming.
Look out for these signs: AHis schoolwork suffers.
He becomes depressed, restless or irritable when trying to cut down on, or stop
playing computer games.
He is aggressive and abusive when prevented from playing.
He skips studies or co-curricular activities (CCA) to play more computer games.
He spends increasingly more time or money on computer games to feel the
same amount of excitement.
Sleep patterns are altered.
He has little energy for other activities such as studies or meeting friends.
He is always tired or sleeping in class.
He ignores everyday basics like eating, going to school and bathing.
Try to help by:
Understanding how video games work, it adds credibility and empathy when
talking to teens.
Monitoring his gaming time and the online friends he plays with.
Working out out a balanced schedule for gaming and other activities instead of
cold turkey treatment.
Finding him other things to do like new hobbies or activities like jogging or
fishing.
Considering treatment from a trained professional who are experienced, and
most importantly able to look at the problem objectively.
