5 creepy ways video games are trying to get you addicted

This

Read it, made sense. This explains why most people pays thousands of dollars to get to lv 200 on MS.

Not your typical Cracked article.

Explain SSBM then.

 Spoiler

Oh wait, not the funhouse. The article did make sense though. I'll totally use those statistics the next time someone says "it's not real".

Explain SSBM then.

 Spoiler

Oh wait, not the funhouse. The article did make sense though. I'll totally use those statistics the next time someone says "it's not real".

Wrong section.

PS: The animal-foodpellet thing, I knew about a while back while taking Psychology. So I can see how it correlates with gaming.

All I could read is truth.
I saw myself a couple years back (13-14), I was just a rat in nexon's/wizet's box, until I found out that the door was always open and I could exit the cage whenever I wanted to, making me leave it for longer periods everytime.

Can be somewhat linked with that youtube video I showed a couple weeks back "The Only Thing I Know". But yeah, I pretty much given up most of my desire to get to 200 on Maple because I did have that mentality back then. Getting to 17x is good enough for me, and of course I no longer pay out my ass anymore for NX.

I managed to escape maplestory by deleting all my characters, but still it took me 2 years to escape from the horrible skinner box.

Yeah, the Skinner Box takes a while to escape. Not sure if most gamers would ignore a pair of breasts, assuming they're male, but when a girl was flirting with me IRL, I turned over and stared at her rack instead of paying attention to how much EXP I get per hour at Squids 2 years back.

I need to get out of this, that's actually really scary how they're sucking people in to giving them money. Brb finding something to busy myself with so I can quit.

I made my NW around a month ago or so, I think I only spent like 10k on it. :/ I don't intend on spending too much money at all. Waste of time anyways. I used to spend a lot on my NL, I don't think I'll spend money on anything other than a shop and maybe a transparent helm. Meh.

I need to get out of this, that's actually really scary how they're sucking people in to giving them money. Brb finding something to busy myself with so I can quit.

You don't mean DFO do you? It's one of the least "Skinner Box" addicting worthy games. Least the grind to 50 can be taken slowly, because there's no ppl2pass mentality.

Why I play S4 League.

You don't mean DFO do you? It's one of the least "Skinner Box" addicting worthy games. Least the grind to 50 can be taken slowly, because there's no ppl2pass mentality.

No, I mean ALL video games. I like DFO because it's not so competitive, but I have a lot of work and the forums distract me from that (like right now).

Eh i realize all of this while playing, but thats not what keeps me coming back. What keeps me coming back are my friends on ms, and even more than that, beating them to 120 whenever i have a character that is not 120. I look at it as a competition. I mean I started playing MS a little over a year ago, in december of 2009, I started and I got to 120 before all my friends that had played the game for 2 years, now granted this was because I pretty much only played on 4x, but still. lol and once I hit 120 on that character, and job advanced, I quit for 5 month, then came back for aran, once I hit 120 ill probably get to like 130-140 because its really easy, and them im done forever.

Addiction in any form is scary stuff. It's just insane how deep you can go before you even realize you're addicted. Basically MMO addiction went like this for me:
- Start playing game
- Spend less time socializing because of it
- Feel more bored because of it
- Play more of the game to fill the void
- Spend even less time in the real world
- Feel even more bored
- Play even more of the game

I played MS for over 5 years, but I didn't really hit full addiction until when Pirates came out. I initially only planned on getting to level 70 (I had a previous 4th job character, so it didn't seem like a big deal to get to 70). That didn't last and when I wasn't busy with class or work I was soon spending all my time playing MS, and when I was bored of that, I was on forums posting about MS. (I actually managed to maintain my grades because instead of skipping classes I was just not sleeping). The low point was probably my 19th birthday. I had spent the entire night grinding, and didn't go to bed until around 10 AM. I didn't wake up until it was already night, and I had several missed calls from my family wishing me a happy birthday. I felt pathetic calling back and telling my mother that I had slept through it. And then I couldn't think of anything to do, so I just went back to playing. During my periods of addiction, I found it hard to talk to people about anything. My mind kept going back to what I was doing on MS. I couldn't be funny or interesting; I couldn't hardly think of anything to talk about, even with my best friend.

I didn't really get better until summer, when I went home. It really helps to have people around you that care about you. And over last winter break, I finally quit again just because I actually didn't feel like playing anymore.

I think there's a lot of people you can blame for gaming addiction. Society doesn't make it easy to make the transition to adulthood, gaming companies are really good at making games addicting, and people are just stupid in general. It's a really big problem.

Eh i realize all of this while playing, but thats not what keeps me coming back. What keeps me coming back are my friends on ms, and even more than that, beating them to 120 whenever i have a character that is not 120. I look at it as a competition. I mean I started playing MS a little over a year ago, in december of 2009, I started and I got to 120 before all my friends that had played the game for 2 years, now granted this was because I pretty much only played on 4x, but still. lol and once I hit 120 on that character, and job advanced, I quit for 5 month, then came back for aran, once I hit 120 ill probably get to like 130-140 because its really easy, and them im done forever.

The competition part is the worst. There never seems to be an end to online games. Once you beat your friends, you look for other people to beat. Once you reach your goal, you set a higher one. I played MS for over 5 years. I quit 2-3 times after reaching big goals (3rd job, 4th job), but every time I came back I just started on a completely new character and played even more hours than I had previously.

btw I've seen a a poster on GameFAQs called Homerowed, and I've never seen that name anywhere else. Same person?

It's interesting how many of these tactics companies use, without a lot of people noticing.

Creepy, indeed.

Has anyone else had issues trying to play Maple after reading this?

Has anyone else had issues trying to play Maple after reading this?

I haven't gone on tonight since I read it, actually. I've been on Youtube, being inspired by violin players.

Coincidence?

Truth be told, as other users has already stated in their posts, a lot of things can be addicting. Actually, video-game addiction will be considered as an illness in the future. Look it up on Google. It's not widespread and evident at the moment in our current generation, but over the next couple of years, psychologists speculates that it could be considered as such. I did some researching on online-gaming as a final-presentation in my English class, and I forgot the exact website(s) I went to, but video-game addiction can be hazardous to your health, though this is obvious. It could be worse than if one were to choose the path of substance-abuse as well. Video-game addiction can lead to:

*Loss of money over a period of time (continuous and on-going, this applies to MMOs especially)
*Less interest in social activities
*Ignoring your children / parents / obligations, etc
*Loss of appetite.

EDIT ; Rephrasing for clarity reasons.

 Spoiler

Addiction in any form is scary stuff. It's just insane how deep you can go before you even realize you're addicted. Basically MMO addiction went like this for me:
- Start playing game
- Spend less time socializing because of it
- Feel more bored because of it
- Play more of the game to fill the void
- Spend even less time in the real world
- Feel even more bored
- Play even more of the game

I played MS for over 5 years, but I didn't really hit full addiction until when Pirates came out. I initially only planned on getting to level 70 (I had a previous 4th job character, so it didn't seem like a big deal to get to 70). That didn't last and when I wasn't busy with class or work I was soon spending all my time playing MS, and when I was bored of that, I was on forums posting about MS. (I actually managed to maintain my grades because instead of skipping classes I was just not sleeping). The low point was probably my 19th birthday. I had spent the entire night grinding, and didn't go to bed until around 10 AM. I didn't wake up until it was already night, and I had several missed calls from my family wishing me a happy birthday. I felt pathetic calling back and telling my mother that I had slept through it. And then I couldn't think of anything to do, so I just went back to playing. During my periods of addiction, I found it hard to talk to people about anything. My mind kept going back to what I was doing on MS. I couldn't be funny or interesting; I couldn't hardly think of anything to talk about, even with my best friend.

I didn't really get better until summer, when I went home. It really helps to have people around you that care about you. And over last winter break, I finally quit again just because I actually didn't feel like playing anymore.

I think there's a lot of people you can blame for gaming addiction. Society doesn't make it easy to make the transition to adulthood, gaming companies are really good at making games addicting, and people are just stupid in general. It's a really big problem.



The competition part is the worst. There never seems to be an end to online games. Once you beat your friends, you look for other people to beat. Once you reach your goal, you set a higher one. I played MS for over 5 years. I quit 2-3 times after reaching big goals (3rd job, 4th job), but every time I came back I just started on a completely new character and played even more hours than I had previously.

btw I've seen a a poster on GameFAQs called Homerowed, and I've never seen that name anywhere else. Same person?

This basically is me. Nothing is as interesting as MS seems to be. I always feel bored playing MS, but then when I am doing something else MS seems like it would be so much fun to play. So what do I do? I go play MS for a few more hours, rinse and repeat. Because of my gaming addiction I haven't been able to learn things I need to learn to be a successful adult. I look at myself and I see what I've done to myself, but I can't seem to stop. Hell, I've been saving up even more money just so I can get NX on my dual blade even though I said I would stop. It all scares me so much. It even changed my personality. I used to be a social butterfly, optimistic, and the guy who was funny. Who am I now? I'm the quiet, shy guy who rarely speaks and spends every moment thinking about how well I am going to gaming that night. And, the worst part is, I have been in residential treatment for my addiction. I was put into a treatment center for 10 months where I couldn't have access to a computer ever and my whole life was scheduled doing therapeutic activities. I just don't know what to do with myself, really.