Smed has room to talk.
I saw a post today, a blog by the Smed. In case you don’t know, Smed is John Smedley, El Capitan Gran Poopoo of the Sony Online Entertainment good ship Lollipop. Basically, he’s the guy who makes your game his bitch. Oh yeah, before I forget, here that be the linky.
Basically he’s touching on an article that I have personally read about a man who quit World of Warcraft because he came to the realization that it was destroying his life, which I can see, I can totally see it because my life is currently being eaten alive by said games. That is beside the point however. Now, Smed may not be to blame for the Everquest addicts of the world, but mind you at one point, Everquest was the biggest MMO in the land. For the sake of holiness, they called it Evercrack. There were people who DIED playing Everquest, more than one. WoW does have the same dubious honor, but it all comes down to cycles. Every game goes in cycles, addiction is a very strong thing, a very, very strong thing. To compare an MMO to something as nasty as say….heroin, would be remiss, rather you take it in the same vein as anything that has an addictive side. The continuing, everlasting nature of such games brings about dependance, dependance on the feeling of being the best. Human nature.
Continual improvement is a base portion of human nature, we strive to be better than best, it is in our primitive brain to be the best at what we do. When we can’t be, we become obsessed to the point of being unhealthy. It isn’t just with the invention of MMO’s that we had this urge, MMO’s just took it to a new place, a somewhat dark and unhealthy place, but I think that possibly we will work beyond this, and if not, well….there are always support groups eh?
Oh, and that whole business about video games affecting people’s real lives, at least in the form of turning little Timmy into a mass murderer, isn’t wholly realistic. The only people who blame deaths via kids on music, video games, television, and movies are politicians looking to further their own agenda, and irresponsible parents who don’t parent, they set the box and leave the child to absorb. Parenting by proxy is your fault mom and dad. Stop giving your kids entertainment, start giving them attention. Oh, and let them experiment with pot, they’ll be better for it later…..but thats up to you mom and dad, at least I gotcha thinking.
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