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General: Study: MMOs More Enthralling, More Fun

SzarkSzark News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420

The associated press is reporting on a recent study performed by a psychology professor at Syracuse University which examined how captivating different forms of video game entertainment are in comparison to one another. Although the scope of the study is too small in participants and the number of games played to draw any concrete conclusions, it does raise some points that may be of interest to MMO players.

NEW YORK (AP) — Role-playing games with an Internet element are so much more captivating than equivalent electronic games that they change users' lives, cutting into their sleep and boosting the time they spend playing, a new study shows.

So-called massively multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPGs, have become a huge phenomenon in the game world in the last five years. The largest, "World of Warcraft," has more than 9 million players.

The study by Joshua Smyth, a Syracuse University psychology professor, says one reason for their success is they really suck in players.

Smyth divided 100 student volunteers randomly into four groups. One got tokens to play at a local arcade, a second played the adventure game "Gauntlet: Dark Legacy" on a Sony Corp. PlayStation 2 console and the third played role-playing game "Diablo II" on computers.

Read the full article here.

Comments

  • BadSpockBadSpock Member UncommonPosts: 7,979

    Yeah, I believe it.

     

  • ValentinaValentina Member RarePosts: 2,111

    lol

  • LeemegLeemeg Member UncommonPosts: 230

    ofcourse its true, anyone played a mmorpg for a longer time knows this. Just a bit puzzled that we need a professor to say it

    --
    Leemeg.

  • brenthbrenth Member UncommonPosts: 301

    their choice of games definatly  affected their data,   and not every game  is embraced by every person

    WOW playes alot different than say camalot or everquest or lord of the rings online

    and having to goto an arcade for instance directly limits its interaction value as you have to make a trip  every time you wish to play  and does this arcade close at night?

    maby if you want better results  you devide up the teams   preferable double the number to 200 

    100 A   100 B         the A squad  teams  select the game thay want to use

    the B squad teams  the OTHER  players vote on the games for the other teams this is to act as a control for the A teams pre determined preferences.

    you could even do a C team that can pick any game  available in their catagory  instead of just a single title for the whole squad  this would maximise the potential.

     

    and lastly as a note  many studies focus on the negative affects of games  what about all the positive effects that games posess?

    social interaction between different cultures

    skills working with complex systems operations (crafting, economy, quests)

    resource management  (mana , hitpoints or iron ore )

    teamwork and cooperation in a group gives far greater proformance than the individuals.

    some serious problem solving and solution anylasis  (bait and switch,  kiting, root blast )

    failure mitigation  if you died in a mmo once  you died a thousand times and still kept going till you suceeded.

    these are just a few off the top of my head  and games could do much more if they wernt so simplistic and arcade like.

    schools could take lessens from MMOs  if they were as interesting as MMOs  they would be much more effective  games open up parts of the brain that absorb knowlege like a sponge.

    brains effectivly dont differentiate between real expirence and game expirence.

    make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.

  • BadSpockBadSpock Member UncommonPosts: 7,979

    I was hoping to NOT see any "I'm smarter then a college professor and they should have done this, this, and this differently!" posts....

    but I guess not. Anywho...

    It's all in the title.

    Compared to other genres of games, MMOs are more enthralling and more fun. Players played more, and because they played more had more negative side effects. Simple math. I see nothing wrong with this study, though any MMORPG gamer could probably tell you that we are a little more fanatical about our genre of choice then most gamers.

    True, there are some crazy FPS and Madden nuts, but still I'd say us MMORPG games take the cake as being the most "enthralled" with our games.

  • DrowNobleDrowNoble Member UncommonPosts: 1,297

    Nice to see the professor say that MMO's can't be called addictive.  Although I'm sure the Clueless Politicians and Overeactive Media will ignore that. 

    Kinda odd he didn't use WoW as his MMO, maybe he was specifically going for something he was sure fewer people had played? 

    Overall I agree that it really didn't tell me anything that I already didn't know.

  • LouiseKLouiseK Member Posts: 258

    Originally posted by DrowNoble


    Nice to see the professor say that MMO's can't be called addictive.  Although I'm sure the Clueless Politicians and Overeactive Media will ignore that.
    MMOs are addictive... there is no doubt in my mind about that.

    When i played WoW i would play constantly... i'd wake up and play until it was time for bed. I dumped my fiance and dropped out of uni, shut myself away and would play as much as possible... I sit there in Orgrimmar complaining about how bored i was lol

    I HAD to play.

    I know loads of people saying they were losing touch with friends so had to stop... they'd give away all their gear... always came back.

    When i finally stopped it was cold turkey and fortunately TBC helped a lot.

    Not everyone tries drugs and smoking and becomes addicted, but they are still called addictive.

     

     

     

  • SnikesSnikes Member UncommonPosts: 76

    while I think some people are addicted to video games I don't think that MMOs are addictive. Their nature is just bringing to a videogame addict what he wants as long as he wants. MMOs are created to bring constant challenge to their players, there is always something to do, if it's not levelling that's get a better rank, a better stuff and when the challenge goes down for HLs, a new expansion is released with newer and harder to get stuff.

    I know a guy who almost lost his wife because he was ranked #1 on a top list and couldn't afford to spend time with her because every minute wasted out of the game could cost him his #1 rank. Blame their brain not the game.

  • JulianDracosJulianDracos Member UncommonPosts: 1,528

    Actually the most you can draw is that people prefer DAOC compared to those other games. 

  • DrowNobleDrowNoble Member UncommonPosts: 1,297

    Originally posted by LouiseK


     
    Originally posted by DrowNoble


    Nice to see the professor say that MMO's can't be called addictive.  Although I'm sure the Clueless Politicians and Overeactive Media will ignore that.
    MMOs are addictive... there is no doubt in my mind about that.

     

    When i played WoW i would play constantly... i'd wake up and play until it was time for bed. I dumped my fiance and dropped out of uni, shut myself away and would play as much as possible... I sit there in Orgrimmar complaining about how bored i was lol

    I HAD to play.

    I know loads of people saying they were losing touch with friends so had to stop... they'd give away all their gear... always came back.

    When i finally stopped it was cold turkey and fortunately TBC helped a lot.

    Not everyone tries drugs and smoking and becomes addicted, but they are still called addictive.

     

     

     


    You may have been "addicted" to WoW but WoW itself doesn't cause addictions.  What you are describing is only a small minority of MMO players.  Now I am not saying you didn't have a problem or your issues weren't real, far from it.  However you can't say all MMO's are addictive since you got hooked on WoW and went to far.  I read every day, I rarely go a day without a book, I'll drive for an hour to pick up a book from an obscure store ... am I "addicted" to reading?

    Next, drugs and smoking have chemical agents in them that are addictive.  Caffiene is addictive, that is why many soft drink companies add it to their products, so you'll get hooked and keep buying them.  The  nicotine in cigarettes is addictive, which is why it is so hard to quit.

    Games are not physically addictive.  There is no chemical oozing out of my keyboard that is making me "crave" WoW, CoX or whatever.  Now as far as emotional (or mental) addictions that can happen to anything.  People can fixate on something and seem "addicted" to it, even though there is no physical action causing the addiction.  Essentially it's all in their head.  Too often the word "addiction" is thrown around without understanding what it really means.

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