Ever since video game designers were able to put red pixels on their imaginary characters that had recently deceased, there have been people crusading against their subversive ways.
When examined objectively almost all games contain a certain amount of violent content. Constantly struggling in their virtual world to get better equipment, more money and a higher level and looking for a way to advance faster, online gamers are usually trapped in a vicious cycle. If for every player of a game, ten feel compelled to discuss a possible addiction, it's a phenomenon that has to be taken seriously. The outrage at tai game avatar seems to be cyclic, fading very briefly before exploding into the public eye once more with renewed frenzy. The kid-friendly bright and colourful "Mario" games by Nintendo feature a character stomping on animated creature's heads."When players of massive multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) talk about ""death penalties"", they refer to the resources they lose when the character they are playing dies.
There are also signs in the offline world that this problem is existing and growing. The controversy seems to have sparked up again in recent times, with numerous crimes being blamed on the corruptive influence of video games. In fact the majority of games, even children's game free , involve the protagonist crusading against an enemy horde of some sort and generally "disposing" of them in some manner, whether it be striking them with a weapon or body part (feet, hands, possibly a tail depending on the nature of the character). Usually this can be anything from invested time, items they acquired in long play sessions or their virtual currency. In July 2006, the first detox center for gaming addicts in Europe opens in Amsterdam. There have also been various "controversies" surrounding recent video games and their content in the areas of both violence and sexuality. The only real stand out difference is that in a children's game the 'bad' characters will generally bounce backwards in a cute manner and explode with a humorous puff sound (or simply disappear) whereas in a game oriented towards older mature players, the characters are more likely to be (somewhat) realistic, spraying a gusher of red upon their demise. Recent games, like World of Warcraft (WoW) avoid that penalty in order to make the game ""more fun"". More than 20 players have already been enlisted in the 8 weeks program.
The first game to receive widespread criticism and media attention was the martial art fighting game "Mortal Kombat".
Whenever some young person somewhere commits a violent crime these days it seems to get blamed on a video game, from "Duke Nukem" and "Quake" being accused for the Columbine High massacre, to a more recent incident involving a group of minors attributing their violent actions to the "Mortal Kombat" video games. Unfortunately it's not as easy to remove real casualties that result from those games - from suicides of addicted players to parents who neglect their children to the point they starve while they are playing World of Warcraft. They range from 13 to 30 years of age, showing that this is not something that only happens to teenagers. This game included large spurts of blood emitted from attacks and also "Fatalities" that could be performed on stunned opponents after their defeat. Without any solid evidence either way it's hard to say whether or not video game violence actually has much of an influence on players.
Not all stories of excessive play end that bad, but the extent of the problem is being underestimated. In Canada and the US there are already multiple clinics and even in China a facility has opened already. These Fatalities were gruesome animation sequences showing the victorious player killing their defeated opponent in a vast variety of ways. To really be sure you'd probably have to have a control group of isolated children that have never seen a violent movie or played a bloodthirsty video game. Those high profile cases are certainly the saddest examples of what can result from excessive play.
Families and friends of affected players are often at a loss as to how they can help them. Gamers revelled in this new experience and the controversy surrounding the violence caused mass hype that informed the less informed gamers that the game was out there. History does however show that brutal crimes were committed long before video game online or even movies came into existence. But in regards to the people who are affected by serious online gaming addiction, they represent only the tip of the iceberg. Addicted players will often react disinterested or even aggressive when confronted with their behavior. Consequently gamers played the new game just to find out what all the talk was about, thereby greatly increasing revenue.
Children are quite easily influenced by something that they're excited about and I've seen this happen a lot. What goes unnoticed are the thousands of stories of players who get involved in an online game to the point that they seriously neglect or even abandon school, work, friends and families. They become socially isolated, no longer accessible to persons that used to be close to them and tend to loose interest in anything that happens outside of their game worlds.
One of the largest sparks of controversy has been the recent "Hot Coffee" modification for "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA:SA)". Playing a wrestling video game with a group of eight year olds often leads to the eight year olds screaming raucously and trying to pin each other down on the ground. There are no statistics on the depressions that result from extensive immersion in virtual worlds. A successful anti-addiction strategy thus has to come from within. This involved unlocking a sexually oriented mini-game that had been removed from the game before release, although evidently not from the source code. Pre-teens will often punch and kick their way out of a cinema in terrible combat stances after having viewed a martial arts movie. There are no statistics showing how many careers have been destroyed this way.
One possible solution was unintentionally described over a hundred years ago: ""There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it "" Oscar Wilde might have got it dead on for online gamers. The creators of the game, Rockstar Entertainment, obviously realised that this particular part of the game free was not appropriate for the video gaming public and removed access to it. But it gets worse: Final Fantasy XI currently has 650,000 players and it's still growing fast. There are no statistics showing how many divorces this has caused. It is not until the user-made modification is downloaded and installed that the player is able to access the content. An enterprising fan of the game found out and modified the original code to give access to the content once again. Number of results returned for ""final fantasy xi addiction""? 2,140,000.
As one of the oldest MMORPGs, Everquest is still very popular with around 450,000 subscribers.
Regardless of who's to blame, "GTA: SA" was re-rated in America and banned from sale in Australia. Lawsuits were brought against Rockstar for including such content in their game although the validity of the lawsuit has to be questioned. That's 10 pages for every single gamer. A google search for ""everquest addiction"" returns 234,000 results. Oddly enough the gratuitous and encouraged violence in the game went largely unnoticed in the wake of the "scandalous" sex scenes involving clothed, cartoonesque people. If the game is simply purchased and played as intended by the developers, this admittedly tasteless and inappropriate mini game would never be encountered. While not all of them are directly related to cases of addiction. it certainly shows the importance of the issue.
