Game On...
I received a text message from my 17-year-old brother last week. Apparently he has decided to stop playing his Playstation 3 online because it is just “way too addictive.” Seriously.
He, like many others, purchased the new Playstation 3 and couldn’t wait to get online and start competing against other game-obsessed individuals across the world. His game of choice – FIFA 2010. Yet, since he has been spending all his spare time on it, becoming increasingly aggressive and refusing to move away from the screen, it got me to thinking – is online gaming a harmless escape or is it a dangerous fantasy taking its players away from their real lives?
Let us move into the realm of World of Warcraft – the online game that boasts over 11 million subscribers. For something that has been designed around being sociable, it would appear its players are missing out on real conversations and real human relationships. The more I find out about this game, the more I realise that it forms a series of contradictions – it is sociable but unsociable, real but fantasy, it brings people together and it breaks them up.
According to Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft, it is an experience that works best with friends. These “friends” could be real life people or characters that are met through the game. I’ve recently begun to understand the extent of these friendships as a few weeks back I attended my very first (and possibly last) World of Warcraft wedding. The couple had actually met online through the game and then in reality at a World of Warcraft convention over in Portugal.
At first this seemed surreal but after seeing two people, and a number of their friends brought together by this game it made for a heartwarming experience. In spite of this, World of Warcraft does not necessarily mean you’ll live happily ever after. This game apparently has the ability to bring about the demise of a relationship. ‘Peter’ and ‘Jocelyn’ were a happy couple according to an article on Yahoo Games, until Peter found World of Warcraft. They eventually divorced after Jocelyn could not take any more of Peter’s obsession with the game.
Further to this, online addictions can actually take over people’s lives. It seems online we can achieve great things, becoming successful in a game can perhaps create the illusion of success in real life. A person may feel isolated in reality; hence why the contradiction between social and anti social runs so deep – for some may perceive online as the only form of “real” communication they have. Playing online games becomes more than just the game because of the friendships that are built up. This was the case for one “internet addict” who has been the subject of recent reports into online addictions. A Guardian article cited a 19-year-old boy who turned to gaming as “an easy way to socialise and meet people.” As a result of his obsession he dropped out of real life, leaving university and eventually having to seek help for his addiction.
World of Warcraft is now a big business brand. It has become a way of life for millions of people who have literally bought into its ideology and it is even being turned into a movie.
Yet, it’s not just World of Warcraft and online games that today’s society is seemingly obsessed with. Although I don’t think of myself as addicted, I just wonder how easy I’d find it to be parted from my beloved mobile phone or from the internet for any length of time. It would seem society as a whole is addicted to technology, gadgets, digital media – they act as our comfort blanket keeping us connected wherever we are.
How did we cope before World of Warcraft, Facebook, Twitter, Playstation 3, iPhone... you get the idea. We cannot get away from the paradox surrounding the social dynamic of these things. It strikes me that what is seen to be sociable, bringing people closer together can actually prove to be just as anti social thus driving them apart.