The Times: The EverQuest widows
Getting hooked on an internet role-play fantasy: A game said to be as addictive as drugs attracted 120,000 players last week. By David Rowan
IT CAN be the internet's equivalent of a Class A drug: an online game so addictive that it has been cited in marriage break-ups, child-neglect cases and even an obsessive player's suicide.
As internet media businesses struggle to attract paying subscribers, the entertainment giant Sony has quietly persuaded 430,000 people to pay almost £100 a year to join a fantasy role-playing game called EverQuest. Last week, a record 120,000 of them were online simultaneously in the biggest tournament of its kind.
Set in a three-dimensional mystical world populated by dwarves, wizards and ogres, EverQuest lets players invent online personae as they pursue adventures learning spells and building alliances with other players around the world. They explore an enormous virtual world with its own diverse species, economic systems, alliances and politics. There are multiple races, classes and continents to choose from.
Because they can play together with vast numbers of allies and rivals, many fans find themselves unable to log off even after 12 or 16 hours of consecutive involvement.
It is no accident that the game is commonly known among players as "EverCrack", and support groups of "EverQuest widows", have emerged to counsel players' neglected partners.
Now Sony is planning to attract even greater numbers to the game, when it extends EverQuest's reach to the PlayStation 2 games console in 11 days' time. Once players buy the software and a PlayStation 2 network connector, they will need to spend £6.20 a month to be part of the EverQuest community.
It will be the first time that a "massively multiplayer online roleplaying game" (MMORPG), as the phenomenon is known, will be accessible to a games console that, with more than 50 million users, is fast winning the battle against Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube.
Sony attributes the game's huge success - its 430,000 subscribers typically pay £8.10 a month - to its ability to promote "teamwork, social interaction, problem-solving and positive peer communication".
"You can be a gallant knight or a fierce warrior rescuing a princess in an epic battle," Tamara Sanderson, a spokeswoman for Sony Online Entertainment, the company's games division, said. She describes the EverQuest fan base as "crossing all walks of life: we have doctors and lawyers, even a US Naval commander on a battleship in the Indian Ocean playing via satellite link." Interest is so great that the company employs 150 full-time customer-service staff in its San Diego offices, and runs 44 computer servers to cope with demand. The game, launched in March 1999, has a following matched only by the hugely successful South Korean roleplaying game Lineage, which claims more than 5 million subscribers, mostly in Asia. Now Sony is preparing to target that market, too, with plans to open new EverQuest servers in China and Japan, as well as further expansion in Europe.
But the game has its critics. A woman in Wisconsin blamed EverQuest last year when her 21-year-old son killed himself after playing. Shawn Woolley, an obsessive player who had a history of mental-health problems, shot himself while the game was still on his computer screen.
In another case, the game was implicated in the death from neglect of a child in Florda , whose father was allegedly unwilling to stop playing.
Sony responds that EverQuest is "just a game", played in moderation by most subscribers. "As with any form of entertainment, it is the responsibility of each individual player to monitor his or her own playing habits and prioritise his or her time as necessary," the company says. "It is not our place to monitor or limit how individuals spend their free time."
Andrew Johnson, an unemployed 25-year-old living in Guildford, Surrey, who plays EverQuest regularly, accepts that it can ben an addiction for some, but in his case he says he is attracted by the fun. "I might wake up at 10am and play til 4am the next day, admittedly with a 20-minute break for lunch and tea," he said. "It's almost like a party that you don't want to be the first to leave because you don't know what you're missing. It is completely open-ended, and you do what you like, when you like.
"But unfortunately for some it can consume them, so much so they lose themselves in the game, and real life ceases to be important. I've heard stories of people quitting their jobs so they can play more. That's just sad and scary."
[PANEL]
The psychologist's view
Professor Mark Griffiths, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University who studied EverQuest, credits its success with the "social and physiological rewards" players achieve as they strive to improve their skills.
"It is a totally engrossing, interactive game that has no end to it - you can go on and on, boosting your self-esteem or getting a buzz each time you rise up a level," Professor Griffiths says. Like Scrabble or chess, the game is easy to pick up and takes a lifetime to master.
In an unpublished study, he found that for many, the main attraction is the social contact the game provides. Most people play with friends. These positive findings challenge the conventional view of gamers as introverted loners.
Four fifths of players in his study were male, with an average age of 28, and although half played for between 10 and 30 hours a week, 15 per cent were playing for more than 50 hours and some, more than 80 hours. A small minority sacrifice important activities, he found, such as school, family time or sleep.
Professor Griffiths accepts that some players are addicted. But for "primary addicts", drawn specifically to EverQuest as their drug of choice, its "highs and buzzes" can offer a positive means of escaping daily pressures. It is "secondary addicts", those who play to escape personal problems, who may need attention.
[EXTRA PANEL]
'Victims' meet online to air their grievances
by David Rowan
THERE are more than 3,000 members of the EverQuest Widows support group, an online community "for partners, family, and friends of people who play EverQuest compulsively". These are among the concerns shared by members in recent days.
From Viv: "I'm a paralegal, and one of the last cases I worked on involved three small children who were grossly neglected and living in horrible conditions due to the mother's addiction to EQ . The children are now in the sole custody of their grandparents and are doing very well in a world that doesn't include EQ. The mother gave up all parental rights and is still playing EQ.
"On a more personal note, my husband isn't the only EQA (EverQuest addict) I have to deal with. Here is my EQA list: mother-in-law, who still works and pays the bills but has little else outside of EQ; sister-in-law, who three years ago lost her job, home, and fiancé because of her EQ addiction. She has used the money she gets for child support to pay for the four EQ accounts she has; son-in-law, who had to take an extra year of college to get his degree because he neglected his studies to play EQ; cousin, who lost custody of her one-year-old because she moves every two or three months to be with someone she met online playing EQ."
From Martin: "I abandoned my wife, the woman I loved so dearly. She felt lonely, no intimacy, no talking, no one there for her to support her emotionally. So by chance, without her looking for it, she meets someone who was there for her ... And do I blame EQ? Absolutely, no question in my mind.
"Before EQ I may have had an addictive personality, but we didn't have any of these problems. EQ comes into my life? Now my life is crap.
"I had played as much as 20 hours a day. I would get up in the morning, not even go to the bathroom, light a cigarette, and log on. I wasn't showering, eating or taking care of myself . . . EQ was all I needed."
From Katira: "My husband and I have been married two years, and for one of them my husband has been playing that game almost 24 hours a day.
"We use to do things together. Now all I hear is, ‘I've had a bad day at work, let me relax and play my game'.
"I just can't take it any more. I found out three and a half months ago that I am going to have a baby. I can see myself taking care of the child and him still playing that game. I am so depressed I don't know how to get though to him."
From Patrick: "I can hardly breathe at the moment as I am losing the best person in my life over games. Please help me . . . I can't stop, even now after the final battle with my lovely wife; she left the house, and guess what, I went straight for the game.
"I am truly sick and need help. I don't want to lose her, I don't want to play games at 40 years of age. Why do I need the adrenalin? Give me some direction to make a difference, please."
(The Times, February 1 2003)
IT CAN be the internet's equivalent of a Class A drug: an online game so addictive that it has been cited in marriage break-ups, child-neglect cases and even an obsessive player's suicide.
As internet media businesses struggle to attract paying subscribers, the entertainment giant Sony has quietly persuaded 430,000 people to pay almost £100 a year to join a fantasy role-playing game called EverQuest. Last week, a record 120,000 of them were online simultaneously in the biggest tournament of its kind.
Set in a three-dimensional mystical world populated by dwarves, wizards and ogres, EverQuest lets players invent online personae as they pursue adventures learning spells and building alliances with other players around the world. They explore an enormous virtual world with its own diverse species, economic systems, alliances and politics. There are multiple races, classes and continents to choose from.
Because they can play together with vast numbers of allies and rivals, many fans find themselves unable to log off even after 12 or 16 hours of consecutive involvement.
It is no accident that the game is commonly known among players as "EverCrack", and support groups of "EverQuest widows", have emerged to counsel players' neglected partners.
Now Sony is planning to attract even greater numbers to the game, when it extends EverQuest's reach to the PlayStation 2 games console in 11 days' time. Once players buy the software and a PlayStation 2 network connector, they will need to spend £6.20 a month to be part of the EverQuest community.
It will be the first time that a "massively multiplayer online roleplaying game" (MMORPG), as the phenomenon is known, will be accessible to a games console that, with more than 50 million users, is fast winning the battle against Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube.
Sony attributes the game's huge success - its 430,000 subscribers typically pay £8.10 a month - to its ability to promote "teamwork, social interaction, problem-solving and positive peer communication".
"You can be a gallant knight or a fierce warrior rescuing a princess in an epic battle," Tamara Sanderson, a spokeswoman for Sony Online Entertainment, the company's games division, said. She describes the EverQuest fan base as "crossing all walks of life: we have doctors and lawyers, even a US Naval commander on a battleship in the Indian Ocean playing via satellite link." Interest is so great that the company employs 150 full-time customer-service staff in its San Diego offices, and runs 44 computer servers to cope with demand. The game, launched in March 1999, has a following matched only by the hugely successful South Korean roleplaying game Lineage, which claims more than 5 million subscribers, mostly in Asia. Now Sony is preparing to target that market, too, with plans to open new EverQuest servers in China and Japan, as well as further expansion in Europe.
But the game has its critics. A woman in Wisconsin blamed EverQuest last year when her 21-year-old son killed himself after playing. Shawn Woolley, an obsessive player who had a history of mental-health problems, shot himself while the game was still on his computer screen.
In another case, the game was implicated in the death from neglect of a child in Florda , whose father was allegedly unwilling to stop playing.
Sony responds that EverQuest is "just a game", played in moderation by most subscribers. "As with any form of entertainment, it is the responsibility of each individual player to monitor his or her own playing habits and prioritise his or her time as necessary," the company says. "It is not our place to monitor or limit how individuals spend their free time."
Andrew Johnson, an unemployed 25-year-old living in Guildford, Surrey, who plays EverQuest regularly, accepts that it can ben an addiction for some, but in his case he says he is attracted by the fun. "I might wake up at 10am and play til 4am the next day, admittedly with a 20-minute break for lunch and tea," he said. "It's almost like a party that you don't want to be the first to leave because you don't know what you're missing. It is completely open-ended, and you do what you like, when you like.
"But unfortunately for some it can consume them, so much so they lose themselves in the game, and real life ceases to be important. I've heard stories of people quitting their jobs so they can play more. That's just sad and scary."
[PANEL]
The psychologist's view
Professor Mark Griffiths, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University who studied EverQuest, credits its success with the "social and physiological rewards" players achieve as they strive to improve their skills.
"It is a totally engrossing, interactive game that has no end to it - you can go on and on, boosting your self-esteem or getting a buzz each time you rise up a level," Professor Griffiths says. Like Scrabble or chess, the game is easy to pick up and takes a lifetime to master.
In an unpublished study, he found that for many, the main attraction is the social contact the game provides. Most people play with friends. These positive findings challenge the conventional view of gamers as introverted loners.
Four fifths of players in his study were male, with an average age of 28, and although half played for between 10 and 30 hours a week, 15 per cent were playing for more than 50 hours and some, more than 80 hours. A small minority sacrifice important activities, he found, such as school, family time or sleep.
Professor Griffiths accepts that some players are addicted. But for "primary addicts", drawn specifically to EverQuest as their drug of choice, its "highs and buzzes" can offer a positive means of escaping daily pressures. It is "secondary addicts", those who play to escape personal problems, who may need attention.
[EXTRA PANEL]
'Victims' meet online to air their grievances
by David Rowan
THERE are more than 3,000 members of the EverQuest Widows support group, an online community "for partners, family, and friends of people who play EverQuest compulsively". These are among the concerns shared by members in recent days.
From Viv: "I'm a paralegal, and one of the last cases I worked on involved three small children who were grossly neglected and living in horrible conditions due to the mother's addiction to EQ . The children are now in the sole custody of their grandparents and are doing very well in a world that doesn't include EQ. The mother gave up all parental rights and is still playing EQ.
"On a more personal note, my husband isn't the only EQA (EverQuest addict) I have to deal with. Here is my EQA list: mother-in-law, who still works and pays the bills but has little else outside of EQ; sister-in-law, who three years ago lost her job, home, and fiancé because of her EQ addiction. She has used the money she gets for child support to pay for the four EQ accounts she has; son-in-law, who had to take an extra year of college to get his degree because he neglected his studies to play EQ; cousin, who lost custody of her one-year-old because she moves every two or three months to be with someone she met online playing EQ."
From Martin: "I abandoned my wife, the woman I loved so dearly. She felt lonely, no intimacy, no talking, no one there for her to support her emotionally. So by chance, without her looking for it, she meets someone who was there for her ... And do I blame EQ? Absolutely, no question in my mind.
"Before EQ I may have had an addictive personality, but we didn't have any of these problems. EQ comes into my life? Now my life is crap.
"I had played as much as 20 hours a day. I would get up in the morning, not even go to the bathroom, light a cigarette, and log on. I wasn't showering, eating or taking care of myself . . . EQ was all I needed."
From Katira: "My husband and I have been married two years, and for one of them my husband has been playing that game almost 24 hours a day.
"We use to do things together. Now all I hear is, ‘I've had a bad day at work, let me relax and play my game'.
"I just can't take it any more. I found out three and a half months ago that I am going to have a baby. I can see myself taking care of the child and him still playing that game. I am so depressed I don't know how to get though to him."
From Patrick: "I can hardly breathe at the moment as I am losing the best person in my life over games. Please help me . . . I can't stop, even now after the final battle with my lovely wife; she left the house, and guess what, I went straight for the game.
"I am truly sick and need help. I don't want to lose her, I don't want to play games at 40 years of age. Why do I need the adrenalin? Give me some direction to make a difference, please."
(The Times, February 1 2003)
posted by David Rowan at Saturday, February 01, 2003
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