Blog FeedStat Cocaine
I’ve recently been looking at my fellow gamer’s gaming statistics, namely through Xfire. I won’t name names, but some of them stand out significantly. They’re the people who play MMORPGs, or games with statistics that often fuel the passion to keep them playing for ridiculous amounts of hours.
From these numbers it appears that hours upon hours are spent each week ‘leveling up’ or ‘getting items’ in games that people have to pay monthly for. I’ll take World of Warcraft for example. Sure, the in-game world is very impressive, has vast amounts of art implemented into the game, and has thousands of people to interact with per server, but the one purpose driving the majority of these players is the greater numbers that are applied to their so-called ‘character’.
This isn’t a very positive thought for me. Surely something with a RPG in the title would consist of some story. Well, yes, it does. But beyond the quests of beating x enemy and obtaining x item, there seems little point to spend so much time playing it. Surely by the time you level your character to the maximum limit the game should be finished. But no, developers create more items to keep people lurking around for hours upon hours with a small chance of getting a rare item. One of my friends recently commented on how frustrating this was.
Now, I can understand the theory behind Role Play in an MMORPG, where people will act out as if their character is from a Tolkien book, and I think that is great if people do that, but from the majority of screenshots I’ve seen from games such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest 2, Lineage II, etc, people are always asking to group up or trade items, going on quest to fuel their number needs.
The same can be seen in games like Battlefield 2. Looking at it’s ranked server stats you can immediately see that some people have spent insane amounts of time in trying to get higher on the leader board. What is the reward in Battlefield 2? More strips on a badge next to your name and an extra weapon every thousand or so points.
I understand if someone finds the game incredibly fun, but the majority of people who have spent 300+ hours on it already must be trying to achieve something; most likely the extra medal that they’ll be able to flaunt through a signature image on their clan’s tree house, or somewhere else. I find it sad that some gamers have devolved into using amount of time spent in-game or higher statistics as a measure of their skill, and care enough to compare themselves to other people.
I honestly don’t believe such amount of game time can be healthy either. I have friends, or, people who used to be but I don’t see anymore, spending 100+ hours a week on one game. I don’t think it’s good for the gaming industry to keep games running based on numbers; it should be story and the believability that you are in a virtual world. The Role Players in MMORPGs have the right idea; that’s what such games should be used for to create an even more fictional but interactive world.
Some might disagree with my views, and say if people are having fun, what is the problem? I don’t mind if people find fun from spending half their day trying to get to the next level, obtain a special pair of boots that you have 5% chance of getting, or want the veteran knife combat badge. If that’s what they want from the game, they should get it, since they paid for it. However games to me shouldn’t be taken so seriously. They should promote entertainment, not the struggle to obtain more wealth (if you call it that) which we already do in real life.
If anyone could enlighten me as to how spending thousands of hours on one game for the reward of higher numbers, it would be appreciated, since I do not see the appeal behind it.
20th August | Reply
I think that it comes down to our materialisitc nature a lot of the time. I’m not going to disregard WoW’s entertainment value, as it does look like a lot of fun, but there is certainly a level of addiction that comes with gaining rank, items, or renown. When I played Diablo 2, even though I was only in singleplayer, I went out of my way and redid parts of the map quite a bit to gain experience to level up my character. I also spent a lot of time trying to acquire better items, through gambling or redoing maps and what not. I’m now quite proud to show off my Barbarian, and he looks very swank in Sigon’s Complete Steel.
People just love to be rich and popular, and in an RPG, you are essentially living that through your character. I know in other RPGs where you control a whole party rather than just one person (SP Dungeon Siege for instance) I don’t feel any of the same urges as I did in Diablo. There isn’t the same attachment, but then that may have had something to do with Dungeon Siege itself, rather than all party-based RPGs.
20th August | Reply
What I don’t understand is the concept of “wealth” especially in World of Warcraft. People actually loan other people fake money and expect to get paid back for it. There is no real economy, you beat up a bunch of mobs in Scarlet Monastery and you’ve made all your money back. I just find it weird that in fake games with fake currency or fake medals or fake whatever, that people are still as possesive of them as they would be of the genuine article in real life.
21st August | Reply
I just recently decided to quit Final Fantasy XI and as a year-long addict of an MMORPG, it is a lot like a cult. When you’re in it and playing, you don’t see it, but when you step out, like I did, the absurdity and the time requirements boggles the mind.
That said it’s not all ‘negative’. MMORPGs speak to our desire to be with other people and to play with other people in these fantasy worlds. This is a new function that only became possible to players in the last 10 or so years. It’s relatively new in terms of history of game history.
And to answer the question posed:
“If anyone could enlighten me as to how spending thousands of hours on one game for the reward of higher numbers, it would be appreciated, since I do not see the appeal behind it.”
I would say that many people don’t. Most people quit an MMORPG once they hit a certain point, usually after they hit all their goals. The game maker try to keep people playing by adding more items and harder to find items. The people who keep playing are really addicts. And this is coming from a former addict, so I don’t think I’m being unfair. But maybe there are some players who find their zen in these sorts of games. Maybe they CAN manage their time and log in only on weekends. But the end-game of Final Fantasy XI, and I suspect other MMORPGs require even more time investment.
It is no longer good enough to log in every night to level up for a bit or to make some money. To do well in the end game and get the treasures and rare items, players need to join high level guilds and most of the time, these guilds require frequent participation and put a lot of pressure on people to spend hours at a time in the game.
22nd August | Reply
Just as with Monkey Dew, I have given up on the MMO scene.
Well… for awhile.
I have finally given up on WoW now. Haven’t played it in two weeks. This all came to be when during a Molten Core run (one of the final dungeons) I got conned into running it until 4 in the morning. I was one of the few Shamans on and I had Earthfury gear (Tier 1 Epic armor for Shamans) so I said sure, even though I had work in the morning.
I continued and we finished, and I immediately left the group and logged off. I was still on Ventrilo and heard that since I left the group to go to bed, I got no points for doing the run (points are used to roll on epic items). So basically I stayed up way too late, did too much work, then got punished for needing sleep. I was so angry that I finally realized, “Why am I doing this?”.
The quest for new gear and whatnot is nice, but I really have better things to do with my time. I’ll never have the super gear that the few others have. I have school, work, and other commitments. Even PvP takes too long to get good stuff. Seriously, how much will getting a dagger with a 5% chance to drop really affect me in the long run? I’m not making money off this. I’m not getting assault by hot babes running to me for my dagger. It really doesn’t help me in the long run at all.
So with my addiction quelled for the moment, I have finally started to regain my social life, and I’m doing artwork again. Even met a special lady friend. These are all things that WoW could never give me.
22nd August | Reply
i couldn’t play one game for that long. when it comes to games i’m a cad, always enamoured with the newest thing, but then distracted when the next one comes along… paying monthly to play one game is probably cheaper than what i do… but i just can’t subject myself to the level grind.
it feels too much like work, and i have an ego problem too. i want to be *the* guy. that’s one of the things i like about some games (though not the entirity, so long as the game is fun that’s enough) is that *i* get to save the world, win the girl, solve the mystery and so on.
24th August | Reply
Its not the money that has the actual value, but the time spent gaining it. If I loan someone 200 gold I damn well expect to get it back because it took me quite a while to earn that 200 gold. If I suspect I wouldnt get it back I wouldnt loan it in the first place, because I have better things to spend my gold on.
28th August | Reply
Virtual money is essentially REAL money because almost all virtual currency in games like WoW, EQ and FF XI can be sold and bought with real cash. So there’s an exchange rate.
An economist actually did a study of this and estimated that the GDP of some of the MMORPGs out there is equivalent in size to the GDP of several African countries.
31st August | Reply
That last comment just makes me feel sad.
Also I agree with Hardflip on this, I can’t see the point in a game which revolves around constantly doing the same thing again and again for hours just to get to a higher level.
It requires little skill and to me just seems rather dull.