Why mmorpgs are addicting

Many MMOs require both an upfront cost for the game and a monthly fee to play, which isn't a problem for most players.

The problem comes when an addicted gamer starts spending money he does not have, paying for the game before paying for housing and food. Many of the most addicted gamers cannot keep a job, because they play the game the majority of any given day.

This makes the trend of spending money they do not have a fairly common sign of MMO addiction. They may use credit cards or money from family to fund their addiction, which is an issue that tends not to go away until the problem is recognized and treated. The second lever in the box behaves different from the first. This lever only appears at certain times during the day. Players will head to a certain location in the game at a particular time in the day to collect their reward.

This could be a monster spawn that's scheduled to appear once every 5 hours. Or a set world event for 7pm on Saturday. Players will have a break from their normal fixed ratio grind to attend an events. They will complete the event and then head back to their fixed ratio grind. One example of this is the Farming skill in Runescape. The farming skill requires players to check on their farm patches after certain time intervals to check that their crops are growing properly.

Players often log in at certain times of the day to check on their farm patches and then log off again. This type of reward schedule encourages players to put the game into their real life schedules.

This last lever in the box is the least commonly used and is really just used to add that extra bit of pice to the players experience. Often players respond to this kind of reward schedule by heading to possible areas these events may occur then waiting for it to happen.

This final lever is really just the icing on the cake. The player will spend most of their time walking between these four levers and pulling them obsessively. But what's it all for? Why do players care so much about levelling their account like this. Why do players want these items so badly? Look at that maxed out character. Standing with his high level friends. One day I will be as good as him! MMO's are not a solo venture.

They're comprised of millions of other players. This is a virtual world, full of humans. And so players online exhibit many of same social behaviours as people do in real life. Higher level players have higher status. Just like in the real world, where rich people have higher status, so do rich players online. The lower levels will look up to them as a role model of what they might one day become. They admire them. And they're jealous of them.

Because the high levels have digital pixels that they don't. So they're driven to play more and more to compete with other players. And so for the majority of the game each player is inside their own box pulling the levers as fast as they can, while comparing themselves with other players to see how many times they've pulled their own levers.

Even after finally maxing out your account, an expansion will arrive. Providing more content to go through. And more food pellets to chew on. For all animals, including humans, all behaviour is molded by rewards and punishments.

You get a promotion at work: Boom. Dopamine shoots up. You feel good. You lose your job : Boom. Cortisol spike. You feel bad. Cortisol is the brain chemical released when you feel stress or discomfort. Rewards and punishments occur naturally in the real world. I call myself an addict, because I share the same symptoms as someone who's addicted to smoking, or alcohol, or some other substance.

I think about EQ while I'm not playing, I get stressed when I have to go 24 hrs without logging on for a fix, and I wasn't able to quit when I tried. If that's not an addiction, I don't know what is. Plus, they recently released an almost Pokemon-like add-on pack that has increased the amount of content in the game exponentially.

It is truly absurd just how much there is to do, and the number of ways there are to do it. Rift is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, and one of the best of this generation of games. How do I stop being addicted to MMO?