There have been debates and discussions since the days of EverQuest (or EverCrack) about the addictive nature of MMOs. Here at Massively we've repeatedly discussed the nature of addiction. Whether it's commentary from Dr. Phil, gender-based addiction studies, China's schizophrenic attitude towards online games, crazy gaming spouses, or out-and-out comparisons between MMOs and drugs ... we've talked about it.Whether MMO addiction is all perception or has some basis in reality, it's a topic of discussion that just won't die. I think this stems, at its base, from some basic components of MMO game design. Massive games are designed, simply by their very nature, to be played for long periods of time. The speed of going from 20-60 in World of Warcraft may have been increased, but it still takes a fantastically long time. Compare 'beating' WoW by hitting 70 with finishing the story in a game like BioShock or Half-Life 2. What many argue is the best game of last year, Portal, takes about as long to complete as some guilds use just to get organized for one raid.
Should designers try to make these long play sessions unappealing? Cameron Sorden over at Random Battle wonders aloud about this, and I'm forced to wonder along with him. Read on for my thoughts.
Cameron's commentary is based on an original article over at GamesIndustry.biz. That piece covered a meeting of the UK-based Children's Charities Coalition for Internet Safety, a group trying to keep kids safe online. While that's an admirable goal, executive secretary John Carr delved into the realm of design when he opined that online games should 'dis-incentivise gamers from long periods of play'. The way he offers to do this is to '[allow] players to achieve the highest scoring aspects of a title early on in the game's life cycle.'
Essentially, he's saying that the big-ticket experiences in a game should be front-loaded. Imagine doing all your raiding at level 20, or getting epics at level 15, and I think you'll get what he's driving at. Cameron talks a bit about the challenges this could pose for game designers, and eventually concludes by saying this is more a social issue than one that can be solved by tweaking mechanics.
Says Cameron, "Developers shouldn't be artificially limiting how long someone can play a game based on a state-mandated "appropriate play time limit," or something (which is the ultimate logical conclusion of his argument). What is this, China?"That's a pithy way of addressing the issue, but ultimately doesn't solve some of the deeper problems MMOs create. The next time you want to be thoroughly depressed, go do a survey of all of your MMO characters (on all of your games) by using the /played command. Add up all the time across all your characters and you'll see how much of the last X number of years you've spent in an online world. For me, as you might imagine, that number is pretty high. My oldest WoW character, for example, has been in-world for over three weeks. Itinerant gamers like myself (and you, I imagine) who have characters spread across games from here to Meridian 59 have even more to sigh about.
I feel like the answer to this problem is more design than social. Publishers should be working to ensure that users are educated, true. That said, it's hard to take "don't play too long" with a straight face given the grind-time needed to play some of these games. It seems a little disingenuous to me that 'tip of the day' messages tell you not to play too long, and the first thing you see in game is another event, contest, or quest intended to keep you in-world for another span of hours.
At the same time, it's foolish to think that you should get all the good stuff up front, as Mr. Carr seems to suggest. He seems to be missing a basic understanding of the whole risk/reward structure games are built on. Instead, designers should look to provide meaningful experiences in smaller chunks; if you play for 24 hours in seven days that's not so good. 24 hours spread out over a month is a lot more understandable. And designers are responding to this kind of thinking, across many of the new games we see on the horizon.
Warhammer Online is attempting to bring the raid and PvP experiences down to a more approachable level. Public quests are basically raiding without the setup time; instant-action large group experiences that can be enjoyed no matter how many people are participating. Most of WAR's PvP instances are going to be timed to avoid endless deadlocking. SOE's upcoming titles The Agency and Free Realms are also built to avoid requring long play sessions. Agency missions will come in short, medium, and long flavors, allowing players to customize and evening's play experience as they see fit. Free Realms, as a title aimed at a slightly younger crowd, requires nothing from the player when it comes to time commitments. Heck, you'll be rewarded just for wandering around the world.
Playing an MMO has been referred to as the "Fine Art of Wasting Time". It's tempting to think that way. But for every session spent meaninglessly trudging through levels how many nights have you had a blast chatting with guildies on vent, or arguing with PUG members, or actually playing the game with your friends? It seems like so much of the MMO experience is the not-playing parts that sometimes actually getting in and interacting with the game world gets left behind. What we're really looking at, when it comes to MMO addiction, isn't so much addiction to gameplay or world design but an addiction to the shared experience. Spending time with people isn't so bad at the end of the day, right?
