Farmville Murders

[Ymono37]

Yea it is a good find...and quite frankly points out what many of us (including myself), would not like to believe about computers games being addictive. I have seen it ruin people's personal lives which is why I had learned to become far more casual with it.

I used to play "Vampire Wars" on FB and after originally reading that article I stopped. I was getting to close to actually buying credits - and I wasn't even a regular player of the game. Nowadays I'll play once in a while, but I definitely don't get that involved.



I really liked the line about addiction not being about what you ARE doing, but what your AREN'T because of it.

 

[jakobeast]

I used to play "Vampire Wars" on FB and after originally reading that article I stopped. I was getting to close to actually buying credits - and I wasn't even a regular player of the game. Nowadays I'll play once in a while, but I definitely don't get that involved.



I really liked the line about addiction not being about what you ARE doing, but what your AREN'T because of it.

Now if we can only make you realize that about your masturbatory addiction.

 

[Ymono37]

Now if we can only make you realize that about your masturbatory addiction.

I think it's less about the masturbation and more about my love of killing kittens.

 

[supraman]

I won't lie, I've NEVER bought into the video games are an addiction idea. I'm a rather hardcore gamer as in I play games all the time (I don't have anything better to do and TV only entertains me for so long). But even playing a lot, I can walk away from it. My xbox went down, it was under warranty and I still took like 3 weeks to send it in to be fixed, I just didn't really care. Even since I got it back I barely turn it on. Now I will admit I will get addicted to games for awhile, sometimes it lasts weeks or months but eventually I get bored and move on. I never had my wow account active for over a year. By a year I'd get bored of it and quit playing and then de-activate the account.



I'd be more willing to accept the idea of an addiction to escapism. That's what fictional forms of media are, escapism. And if I'm addicted to anything it is escapism. I'd rather live in a universe like star wars or star trek. I watch the walking dead and think wow it'd be cool to sorta have the future of humanity as your responsibility. Or Fringe and think of the cool sci-fi in that show. Or Eureka (if anyone has seen it), I'd be happy being a janitor in that town.

 

[jakobeast]

I won't lie, I've NEVER bought into the video games are an addiction idea. I'm a rather hardcore gamer as in I play games all the time (I don't have anything better to do and TV only entertains me for so long). But even playing a lot, I can walk away from it. My xbox went down, it was under warranty and I still took like 3 weeks to send it in to be fixed, I just didn't really care. Even since I got it back I barely turn it on. Now I will admit I will get addicted to games for awhile, sometimes it lasts weeks or months but eventually I get bored and move on. I never had my wow account active for over a year. By a year I'd get bored of it and quit playing and then de-activate the account.



I'd be more willing to accept the idea of an addiction to escapism. That's what fictional forms of media are, escapism. And if I'm addicted to anything it is escapism. I'd rather live in a universe like star wars or star trek. I watch the walking dead and think wow it'd be cool to sorta have the future of humanity as your responsibility. Or Fringe and think of the cool sci-fi in that show. Or Eureka (if anyone has seen it), I'd be happy being a janitor in that town.

Maybe you don't have an addictive personality. I know a few folk who can have a cigarette here or there or some other addictive thing and not be hooked.

 

[supraman]

Maybe you don't have an addictive personality. I know a few folk who can have a cigarette here or there or some other addictive thing and not be hooked.

I can agree that I probably don't have an addictive personality. I'm the type that can have one drink and then drink pop the rest of the night.





Though I can't understand the mentality of an addictive personality. For me it is a mind over matter thing. I just tell myself no and move on and do not understand why people cannot do the same (since I don't understand how they think not because I'm better or something)

 

[MassHavoc]

Games can be no different to any other social medium including things like this message board.





I'm going to get you all....

 

[TSD]

Yea it is a good find...and quite frankly points out what many of us (including myself), would not like to believe about computers games being addictive. I have seen it ruin people's personal lives which is why I had learned to become far more casual with it.

That was a great article, and put into words what I couldn't about games like wow being addictive.



The Key problem with addictive games is NOT that they are addictive, it is usually games that exist in a persistant instance. Like WoW or Farmville (which my mom obsessively plays to the point she runs a farmville on my facebook, and made profiles for her parents one of which is dead and the other of which couldnt use a computer to save his life just to get the leg up on her competition by essentially raping her back up farms and giving the stuff to her farm)



Any game where anything negative can happen by not playing is bad mojo. So anything in a persistant environment. Alot of the games I play are really fun, but lack any "dangerous" addictiveness, because I can save it, go do other shit and come back to it, right where I left off. I will never play another MMO again ever in my life, which is unfortunate, because I loved Knights of the old republic and they are turning it into an MMO which means I doubt we will ever see another single player version.

 

[MassHavoc]

That was a great article, and put into words what I couldn't about games like wow being addictive.



The Key problem with addictive games is NOT that they are addictive, it is usually games that exist in a persistant instance. Like WoW or Farmville (which my mom obsessively plays to the point she runs a farmville on my facebook, and made profiles for her parents one of which is dead and the other of which couldnt use a computer to save his life just to get the leg up on her competition by essentially raping her back up farms and giving the stuff to her farm)



Any game where anything negative can happen by not playing is bad mojo. So anything in a persistant environment. Alot of the games I play are really fun, but lack any "dangerous" addictiveness, because I can save it, go do other shit and come back to it, right where I left off. I will never play another MMO again ever in my life, which is unfortunate, because I loved Knights of the old republic and they are turning it into an MMO which means I doubt we will ever see another single player version.

WOW.... might be time to physically do something about that.

 

[TSD]

WOW.... might be time to physically do something about that.

It annoys me because I am ridiculously swamped with "posted on your wall" crap on face book with crap from her "farmville community" and its really beginning to grate on my nerves.

 

[Ymono37]

It annoys me because I am ridiculously swamped with "posted on your wall" crap on face book with crap from her "farmville community" and its really beginning to grate on my nerves.

It's actually really easy to stop seeing those updates on FB.



I had to do it for more than one game on that particular site.

 

[supraman]

It annoys me because I am ridiculously swamped with "posted on your wall" crap on face book with crap from her "farmville community" and its really beginning to grate on my nerves.

I play Mafia Wars and dabble in Treasure Island but yeah I block all the other games I dont play.

 

[supraman]

See I don't at all see the addiction to farmville. I find the game boring as sin with no real objective. I'm not saying Mafia Wars has great objectives either but at least there I'm working to complete a set of missions. Also farmville is too schedule oriented for me, if I dont show up at harvest time then I lose my crops. Mafia isn't like that if I miss a day or two meh my properties went uncollected...big deal, they are still waiting for me when I do get on.

 

[MassHavoc]

I hate when people complain about posts on their wall. It drives me nuts. It takes one click to never see any of the posts from an application again. People ignore people all the time, yet still complain about apps.

 

[TSD]

I hate when people complain about posts on their wall. It drives me nuts. It takes one click to never see any of the posts from an application again. People ignore people all the time, yet still complain about apps.

I didnt know i could do that, im not savvy with the facebook, so i just bitched about it.

 

[MassHavoc]

I didnt know i could do that, im not savvy with the facebook, so i just bitched about it.

They are starting to change things around some, but you can basically just click on any post like you would to block someone, and it will give you options. You can hide the App and never see anything from it again while still seeing what the people post.

 

[TSD]

I just re read that article and this portion hit a chord:





They call these "Variable Ratio Rewards" in Skinner land and this is the reason many enemies "drop" valuable items totally at random in WoW. This is addictive in exactly the same way a slot machine is addictive. You can't quit now because the very next one could be a winner. Or the next. Or the next.



I remember in wow, every day I would spent and hour or 2 killing these dragon whelps, because they might drop the dragon whelp pet. It never dropped it for me, and I dont even want to know how many hours I probably put into that venture.\





Theres also some other great articles on that site the "7 video games commandments"



http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_the-7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html



on bullshit weapons:



"Gordon, the whole world has been taken over by a race of malevolent aliens. All of humanity is depending on you. Here's a goddamned crowbar."







"How hard would it be to randomize facial features and skin tones? That's what we want, to feel like we're killing hundreds of different people. Not a bunch of clones or twins. We want to know, deep down, that there are hundreds of grieving mothers out there, lamenting the terror of our dreaded blade. "







This brings us to our second category of "enough is enough" gaming elements, which are ones that sold truckloads of games, but that need to be retired. Such as ...



World War II games.



The average gamer has killed more Nazis than the entire Russian army. Where the hell are the World War I games?