Two leg junkie bad? Four wheel junkie good?

Time for a bit of a full on philosophy post! I posted this comment over on the three pound brain blog...

In terms of junkies, I went to a lecture by Robert Winston once, where he suggested that petrol isn't too expensive, it's that petrol is too cheap. That we are addicted to petrol.

And people, lots and lots of people, do aspire to be this type of junkie.

Futher on the car, what of the tragic reports of people backing over their children in the driveway? Isn't it psychopathic to crush your children under several tons of weight?

"But it was an accident!"

But it'll always seem like an accident, instead of seeming a madness. That's the creeping normalcy. No one wants to become mad. But what happens when you encounter a new situation no one has ever encountered before? How quickly would you be to say you've entered a state of madness, Vs how quick would you be to say you caused a tragic accident?

Really accidents only happen because someone is ignorant of the future consequences. How quickly can an ignorant person suddenly conclude they know enough to know they haven't entered a madness? Very quickly, sadly.

"I'm so addicted!" "It's so addicting!"

Mr Shouty thinks this game is addicting...

It's really surprising how in terms of online multiplayer games, or even single player, the phrase "It's so addicting!" is said with a possitive inflection.

I mean, just chew on that for a second. Is that really a possitive quality?

Perhaps to the person addicted it is. But I imagine people on heroin probably think the world of heroin as well.

Anyway, I'm off to play farcry 2 some more, as I've got an itch to play it...

Allod of addicts?

In responce, in relation to the Allods cash shop prices

What is this ‘gouge with the cash shop’ meme I’m seeing around the net?

I mean, they literally wield it like a knife and run at you?

Makes me think of a user getting cut at their dealer for hiking up the prices. You know your hooked, that’s why you get so upset and vehement about something you could just not buy – because your hooked.

Basically there's this aggitation because people know they don't really have a choice because they are caught between their addiction and the cash shop price.

If there was no addiction they'd just shrug and not buy it.

mmorpgs: heavy personal investment before you even know if you like a game

It struck me the other day, about world of warcraft or pretty much any other mmorpg, how they have an 'invest in the product before you even know if you like it' structure.

Eventually top level raiding is what your either going to end up at, by design, or you will have quit.

But do you know if you'll like that? No, you have to plug in 300 hours or so for something you don't even know if you like.

Heck, even if you had to plug in one hour to find out whether the main part of the game is for you, that wouldn't work.

So why's it work? Well the classic mmorpg doesn't present itself that way - the first few levels seem to go by at the same sort of speed a single player game would. So compared to if you were playing a single player game, you seem to be playing the game.

But then it slows down and...you'd be throwing away all that effort and why not play a bit longer, eh?

And pretty soon you've invested in a game you don't know if you'd actually like. It's like pre ordering a game and can't get your money back, but then trying to think about not playing...not gunna happen, is it?

The critical thing here is once your invested in something, psychologically your more likely to think it's good. It's hard to be invested in something yet then genuinely critically analyse it.

By hooking players into investing heavily well before they see a product, they effectively turn off the players critical analysis.

Imagine just playing a raid on the first day of playing a game. You'd think about whether you like it.

Now imagine having invested 300 hours to get to the raid. Are you really going to think 'Oh, nah, don't like this'?

That 300 hours is likely to have you play a game you normally wouldn't find fun (enough) to play.