Online  games  and  excessive  playing  

 Fal2n  Karlsen|NITH  Arc2Children  InNet|Alta|October  8th  2013  

About me •  Associate professor at The Norwegian School of Information Technology. •  PhD in media studies from the University of Oslo.

•  Computer game culture: main object of interest for several years.

•  Controversial topics: media violence, media addiction (media panics).

Faltin Karlsen

What’s at stake?

Psychological research

1 4 3 2

Online game addiction

Gaming and knowledge

Faltin Karlsen

What’s at stake?

Psychological research

4 1 3 2

Online game addiction

Gaming and knowledge

Faltin Karlsen

Faltin Karlsen

Cultural conflicts

"   New media have always been objects of conflicts in the general public.

"   Violent media content is the one issues that has ignited most debates.

"   Media effects have been discussed widely at the introduction of the cinema, comics, cartoons, the video machine, and computer games.

"   Lately, time spent on media and media addiction has become a heated issue.

Faltin Karlsen

Regulation in Asia "   All massively multiplayer online games in China has to

implement a fatigue system, which regulates play time.

"   South Korea has a curfew on online games between 12:00 and 07:00 PM for citizens under the age of 16. Thailand had earlier a similar curfew.

"   Several countries, including China, run boot camps, where teenagers are weaned off Internet or game addiction under strict military discipline.

"   Some European countries, including Norway, regulate gambling in similar ways.

Faltin Karlsen

Gambling versus gaming

"   Is online games and gambling comparable?

"   How should online games be regulated?

"   Should freedom of expression also apply for online games? What about the Internet?

Faltin Karlsen

What’s at stake?

Psychological research

1 4 3 2

Online game addiction

Gaming and knowledge

Faltin Karlsen

Pathological gambling

"   Internationally recognised as a diagnosis since 1980.

"   Diagnostic criteria build upon criteria for alcoholism.

"   The theoretical assumption is that people get addicted to patterns of behaviour: behavioural addiction.

"   Internet addiction is proposed as a new diagnosis with online game addiction as a sub-category.

“If the clinical nomenclature can accept pathological gambling, then similar compulsive behaviours should be recognised as ‘addictive’”. (Kings et al., 2009)

Faltin Karlsen

Gaming and gambling research

"   Focuses on the relationship player-game.

"   Reward mechanisms are often the focus.

"   Employs behaviouristic theories.

"   Mainly quantitative studies.

Faltin Karlsen

Game structure - near miss

Slot machines are regarded as especially problematic as they are

easily available, reward the player

often and on variable intervals.

“It has been argued that a slot

machine gambler is not constantly

losing, but rather constantly ‘nearly winning’” (Griffiths 1999).

Source: casinoonlinebets.com

Faltin Karlsen

The illusion of skill

Source: roulettenation.com

Faltin Karlsen

From gambling to gaming

"   Most of the research on online games is conducted by researchers having earlier conducted research on gambling games.

"   They focus especially on reward mechanisms, for instance how frequently you win (a virtual sword versus real money).

"   The social context of the gamer and the life within the game are seldom objects of research.

Faltin Karlsen

What’s at stake?

Psychological research

1 4 3 2

Online game addiction

Gaming and knowledge

Faltin Karlsen

Research questions:

•  Why do players use MMORPGs

excessively?

•  Is excessive gaming comparable to

pathological gambling?

Context-sensitive approach: •  Participant observation from the

game.

•  Interviews with 12 high frequency

players of World of Warcraft. •  Analysis of run web sites dedicated

to World of Warcraft.

•  Structural game analysis.

Faltin Karlsen

1. Introduction

2. Game genre, case and empirical material

3. Media narratives and public concerns

4. Addiction and randomness

5. Game structure and loyalty programmes

6. Pathological gaming and social context

7. Theorycrafting: between collective

intelligence and intrinsic satisfaction

8. Life phase and meaningful play

Faltin Karlsen

World of Warcraft "   Launched in 2004, peeked with 12 million subscribers in 2010.

"   13 races and 11 classes of avatars.

"   Questing, trading, fighting, exploring.

"   25 players team up for larger raids.

The informants

"   Between 20 and 27 years old, three female, nine male.

"   All had played World of Warcraft excessively, up to 16 hours

a day for weeks, months or years.

"   All had played computer games from early childhood.

Faltin Karlsen

Excess and consequenses

"   Severe long-term: Struggles to adjust their playing habits to new phases of life and new living conditions.

"   Severe short-term: Adjust more easily to new phases of life and new obligations.

"   No effects: Schedules the excesses to holidays and weekends. Time management skills from childhood on.

Faltin Karlsen

Geir, male, 27 years old

"   Started playing online games at an age of 16.

"   Has spent 1000 days on different online games.

"   Have a repeating history of excessive playing being replaced with abstinence.

"   Is keeping the excesses in check by playing less demanding games.

“I was about to become a habitual criminal at the age of fourteen, and although the computer club wasn’t exactly healthy for us, it was a far better option for me.”

Faltin Karlsen

Kent, male, 21 years old

"   Played World of Warcraft during high school and didn’t manage to graduate.

"   Socially very active, also as a player.

"   Is currently working as a manager, has a small child and doesn’t play any longer.

“My mom and dad have always been very understanding when it comes to hyper-hobbies like this. (…) My father actually sat for several hours with me when I played, asking about it. He told me he understood why it is such fun.”

Faltin Karlsen

Heidi, female, 25 years old

"   Started playing World of Warcraft eight months prior to the interview.

"   Has chronic health problems and plays to distract herself from her illnesses.

"   She gets totally engrossed with the game but the playing never interferes with other obligations.

“I often forget the time when I’m in front of the computer. I mean, an hour on the Internet is not an hour in reality. It is a completely different concept of time I think. Time just disappears.”

Faltin Karlsen

Proposed criteria for game addiction

1) Salience: Video game play becomes the most important activity in the person’s life and dominates their thinking, feelings and behavior.

2)   Mood modification: Subjective experiences that people report as a consequence of engaging in video game play i.e. an arousing “buzz” or, paradoxically, a feel of “escape”.

3) Tolerance: Increasing amounts of video game play are required to achieve the former mood modifying effects.

4) Withdrawal symptoms: Unpleasant feeling states and/or physical effects that occur when video game play is discontinued or suddenly reduced.

5)   Conflict: Conflicts between the video game player and those around, conflicts with other activities or from within the individual themselves.

6)   Relapse: Tendency for repeated reversions to earlier patterns of video game play to recur also after periods of abstinence. (Mark Griffiths 2010)

Faltin Karlsen

Findings "   In a short-term perspective, it is very difficult to separate between players

with or without a problematic playing pattern.

"   Relapse is the clearest indication that the players can’t control their playing.

"   Informants with poorest control over their playing suffered from other

psycho-social issues (comorbidity).

Faltin Karlsen

Life phase

" Playing amount correlates negatively with obligations.

"   In developed countries we have stopped entering an adult

phase designated by marriages and children at the start of

our twenties but rather postponed it until the late twenties.

"   Jeffrey Arnett defines the period between 18 and 25 years as

the age of emerging adulthood where we experiement with

identities especially connected to ‘love, work and worldview’ (Arnett 2000).

Faltin Karlsen

What’s at stake?

Psychological research

1 4 3 2

Online game addiction

Gaming and knowledge

Faltin Karlsen

Faltin Karlsen

‘Theorycraft is the attempt to mathematically analyze game mechanics in order to gain a better understanding of the inner workings of the game’ (wowwiki.com).

Photo: JohnM, Wikipedia Commons

In World of Warcraft, theorycrafting is often associated with raiding and achievement driven players. Theorycrafting shares similarities with reverse engineering, which is the process of exacting the design blueprints from anything man-made.

Faltin Karlsen

Faltin Karlsen

Faltin Karlsen

Knowledge is success

I want to have as much knowledge about a game as possible. When I played World of Warcraft I knew everything about the

classes I played. All of the abilities, every talent, every potion and

other stuff they could use. As a raid leader and class leader it is very important to know how the game works. And it is never an

exploit; it is only creative use of game mechanics. To know all of

the quirks, that’s how you get on top.

(Frank, 22)

Faltin Karlsen

I am one of those that have gone quite far in order to understand the math involved, how different things work … That’s what interests me, to analyse the game. (Andreas, 27)

I have always been interested in game design. After the worst play period is over, you obviously want … you start to look at what’s behind it. I have often thought about becoming a game designer. (Geir, 27)

Faltin Karlsen

Findings

"   For my informants, gaming and theorycrafting opened a door to a broader field of interest.

"   To understand the meaning games have for people, we need to look also at the context outside of the game.

"   It may be a more general issue, that we in studies of the players neglect the importance of everyday life.

Faltin Karlsen

Thanks for listening!

www.facebook.com/AWorldOfExcesses

Question?

Faltin Karlsen

Group work

Media policy: "   What are the pros and cons of implementing more strict

regulation on the Internet? "   Should social media, online games and other parts of the

Internet have separate types of regulation? "   What types of use should be more actively promoted?

Surveillance: "   Should parents be allowed to monitor their children online? "   How do we assure children’s and youth’s right to express

themselves freely?