A reason behind addiction to MMORPGs

Since the MMORPG champion World of Warcraft was released in 2004 we have seen quite a lot of MMORPGs. We've seen both fantasy world ones, like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, but we've also seen superhero based ones, such as champions online and DC Universe. But why is it we keep seeing more and more releases of new MMO? I think that the answer is quite simple, and quite obvious too.



As most people know, you have to pay a montly fee of, averagely 13 €, there is of course games like Eve Online that cost a little more. Even though it costs money to maintain servers and patch up your game, if you got a million gamers you will still earn quite a lot of money. And if you release an expansion pack to your game, your gamers will have to buy that one too, and if we take WoW, then about 10 million people will buy that expansion pack of yours in order to see your new content. So the developers do it, simply in hope of earning a lot of money.

I believe the reason behind there being so much money in the MMO market is because of all the addicted gamers out there. To take World of Warcraft, as it's currently the biggest MMO out there, a lot of the people who play World of Warcraft don't really play other games. One might wonder why, but it simply because MMOs are very time consuming, in order for you to obtain something you need to ”grind” stuff, which basically means you have to do the same thing over and over, until you get what you want. This might seem boring but it all brings us back to the Skinner Box, which I wont be talking about in this article.

But beside being addicted to the small victories like leveling up (Still skinner box), there's also the fact that you interact with other living beings online. You're able to chat to complete strangers about anything, and you are able to make online friends. A normal person would say that you can't make online relationships, as you can't see the person and can't interact with the person in real life, but to this I can only say it isn't entirely true. Obviously one could question how good these relationships are and if you're really having a friend online, but I've heard of quite a lot of couples who got together through WoW or EverQuest etc.

I think the reason behind this is, online nobody can see your face, nor do they know who it really is behind all those pixels, so you can actually talk about anything you want freely, you can speak your mind and don't care about the consequences. If people happen to not like your opinions or think you're a jerk they can't do much about it and you wont be affected in your daily life. If you happen to make everyone dislike you on the server you're playing on, there's always the option to create a new avatar else where, or move your existing avatar. All in all allows MMOs people to speak up their mind freely, but this doesn't mean that people you talk to will like your opinion.

Another thing I'm going to point out is that when people come online in a game, they're all playing the same game, and by that I mean that everyone can talk about the game, as everyone's playing it. So there's basically always something to talk about, you can talk about your experiences you've had in the game, and share funny stories about something that happened in the game.

In other words, an MMO is like any other chat room, but in this “chat room” you're actually given a subject everyone knows something about and everyone can talk about it, which makes breaking the ice a lot easier.

Now, if you haven't figured it out just yet, then I'm personally a MMO gamer, I've played Warhammer Online, Eve Online but the the game I've put a lot years into is World of Warcraft. But in WoW I've experienced that I spoke to people I would never have imagined speaking to, if I met them in real life. In real life we might have just ignored each other and moved on with our lives, but as we met each other in WoW we both had something common to talk about, the game that is. Still with the game as main subject I've discussed such things as politics, as well the daily life and what might have bugged me on the given day.

When you first have met these kind of people you come online, at times just to chat with them, you don't necessarily play the game, you just chat with them in-game, and I've personally experienced that I've been cheered up when I was annoyed or the like, about something.

I think that's the reason why a lot of people, most of the people I've met online, are addicted to games like WoW, because they enjoy chatting with the people they meet online and they can get cheered up if something sucks outside of the game.

I also think that's why people get very annoyed if some things aren't working in their MMO, as the MMO is their “hiding place” to to speak, it's here where, when everything else seems bad, they come and they get cheered up.

Now I can't just talk about the good things about a MMO, so therefore he comes a few bad things about them as well.

As everyone's hiding behind a lot of pixels they can, as mentioned before, speak their mind about anything, so if they're unhappy with something you're doing or disagrees with your opinion, there's the chance that they wont be expressing what they think about you in a nice way. But my reply to that, and it's helped me the past few years, is to never take something a random person says about you seriously. Because firstly the person does not know anything about you, and therefore is just firing blanks at you. If the person happens to hit a soft spot, then it's most likely because the person was lucky. Secondly, mind that the person is sitting behind a screen, the person knows that you wont be able to find the person and therefore the person's more likely to overreact. And my last point will be, it's a game, and you're supposed to have fun in games, and if some jackass is ruining the game for you, put him on ignore or the like, or simply just go some where else.

I think that's about it, I hope you enjoyed my very first article, on my very first blog.

If you have any comments or the like feel free to post them!