The Psychology of Playing MMOs

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

I'd just like to say that I don't get the people who say they played wow but didn't enjoy it and yet KEPT ON PLAYING IT.

You are all suckers, slaves to blizzard's bank account. This isn't gaming, you are doing it wrong.

Yes I played wow too, hated it and QUIT. If you don't play a game for fun then you are playing for the wrong reasons entirely. Please get up, take a step back and rethink the reasoning behind your gaming habits.

Sorry if I seemed a little mean, but seriously guys.... seriously.... Why would you make such zombies out of yourselves?

 

[geizr]

There comes a point when it's just time to put it all away for good. I just recently hit that point a couple of months ago, myself, not just with WoW but with the entire MMO scene. Now that I'm not a slave to the addiction, I feel so much more liberated to actually enjoy my life doing productive things.

To be honest, I've been sliding away from video games, in general. They've just become so stagnant and inbred. It's nothing but a constant recycling of the same stale themes, jokes, and tropes, over and over, and it feels like it's gotten worse these days. I've been getting more into board-gaming(I love games by Fantasy Flight Games, but be prepared to buy a few organizer cases from Home Depot to deal with all the parts) where I actually interact face-to-face with living, breathing human beings who are reasonably civil, as opposed to an avatar of some screaming, elitist ass-jerk who lives in NowhereInParticular, BFE.

 

[Zydrate]

Subscription games will and should go the way of the Dinosaur once the TOR craze wears off...and it will within a year.

It hasn't gone away in decades, why would subscriptions end in the next year?

As for the post; I get more out of an MMO than most do, it seems. I roleplay, which helps my writing ability and creativity.
I usually like to experience endgame content and it's much less satisfying when I hit an 85, join a raid with 85's... and kill the lich king who'se already become outdated so many months before.

But, this from a casual player and roleplayer. MMO's aren't a chore for me, generally.

 

[fierydemise]

Responding to a bunch of different points

Relevant, but slightly off-topic:
It's incredibly convenient that Youtube personality Totalbiscuit addressed a topic very similar to this one in his Mailbox video just yesterday. The question was about concern for a game's dying community when its progression ended (WH40k, in case you were wondering). He talked about people who play games, not because they're fun or even because they're activities that players want to do, but because there are prizes attached to them: achievements, perks, unlocks, etc. typical "Skinner Box" stuff.

...that's why I enjoy playing The Old Republic, because I don't feel like I'm grinding. I'm there for the story telling, and the combat's kind of fun as well. But I have a feeling that if it got to that point once I reached endgame, that I would certainly stop playing it because I can't be bothered. If your game dies at that stage it's indicative of one of two things: 1. The game isn't fun enough and it's reliant on its progression system because people want the shinies; or 2. There's a real problem with certain gamers today in that they are so obsessed with progression that they don't care about the actual experience.

He has interesting answers to several good questions as well (the first one specifically about SW:TOR and its space combat), but the bit I'm talking about starts around 7:00.

Bold Added. Why would you pay a subscription for something like Netflix or Hulu? Its because it offers you a compelling content that you want on a regular basis, you know that your unlikely to ever run out of content. Consider most single player games, you play them, you explore, you have a good time and then in general your done, maybe you come back for some DLC but in general once your done with a single player, once you've experienced as much as you want to experience your done. Without endgame compelling endgame content an MMO becomes just another single player game, fun to experiment with and explore for a while but then your done. Thats why most MMOs fall apart after launch, they have decent leveling content, a neat idea here and there but nothing to actually make them worth the subscription.

I'd also suggest that the bolded line above is a false dichotomy in raiding progression is part of the experience. That little race between you and another rival guild on the server, if you are on good terms with them the little needling, the trying to figure out how far they are on some fight is part of what makes raiding so much fun. The sitting around chatting trying to figure how to tackle a hard boss. The stories from shared experiences and most of all that feeling when a hard boss dies when you and 24 other people are screaming and cheering because you did it.

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Fair point but games in general will beat out most forms of modern day entertainment in terms of price/time. I paid $50 for Battlefield 3 and I've already sunk 180+ hours into it, in the long run an initial lump sum will always beat out the subscription.

Yes but the way many people play games gaming itself is a subscription in a sense. You finish up one game and when another big name games out you buy another game, I put a list of games I've bought and played this year on a previous page of the thread. If you play primarily shooters or similar, games which can do a lump sum investment and get a lot out of them, great but if you play primarily single player games then you'll be going through a decent number of games per year, its not a subscription to any one game but its a de facto subscription to gaming generally.

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I've heard a lot of stories about MMOs ruining lives.

I've yet to hear one about an MMO truly enriching someone's life.

Alright let me give you one. Before I joined WoW I wasn't that good with people, I was shy, I was the guy at the party who would find someone I knew and just follow them around, sometimes I'd interact with people I didn't know but always reluctantly and not in a particularly engaging manner. I couldn't much strike up a conversation with someone I didn't know and was terribly shy to even deal with peoples in a professional setting. Then I got into WoW, somewhere along the line I got into raid leading and it turned out I was pretty good at it. Raid leading and later guild leading has done a lot for my shyness and confidence around people. I'm a much more outgoing person now, I'm still not going to be the life of the party but I'm much better equipped to strike up a conversation with someone I don't or barely know and generally small talk. To cap it off I just got offered a research position (that I really wanted) that I'm pretty sure my old shy shelf never would have gotten. WoW has changed my life for the better.

 

[The Dutchess]

Can people stop dragging all other games down with the monster that is WOW? Whenever someone complains about an online addiction it's WOW. Maybe, just maybe, it's not the game's fault, it's YOU. Plug into an mmo and freaking ENJOY it, chat with your guildies, level up with a friend, and if you're playing SWTOR enjoy the great voice acting and interesting conversations.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Ha, a lot of WoW hate here. I liked WoW. I'm not about to blame it for all the time I wasted playing it. All it did was act as a sponge, soaking up time I was going to spill down the sink regardless. Granted, I never payed for my own account. My brother used to buy my WoW time for me because he wanted us to play together, and now that he's stopped so have I. It's no big deal.

WoW opened me up to the world of online gaming. I was initially too anxious to try online multiplayer games because I thought I'd be terrible, but it turns out I'm quite good and I'm now more willing to try new different games in more competetive settings. I find it far more entertaining than playing single player because, well, most games fucking suck. They have horrible writing and awful plots and I can therefore rarely find the motivation to finish a single player game. Online multiplayers kind of bypass that issue because they're about testing your skills against other players, and it doesn't really matter that the voice acting's horrible or that the story is a convoluted pile of bullshit.

 

[Sincendiary]

I've heard a lot of stories about MMOs ruining lives.

I've yet to hear one about an MMO truly enriching someone's life.

To sort of counter that, my wife and I play MMOs together. Enrichment...is kind of an odd way to put it, but we get time together, some stuff to talk about, and it can feel like we're hanging out if I have to travel for work. Basically, we're generally happier as a couple when we are sharing a game experience together and we hang out with some other couples online who do the same. We play other games cooperatively but being able to meet other coop players and having a "long term" experience with the game seems to be more fun. In general, people I meet in MMOs are my best game partners and I end up playing other games with them too.

That said, I've had my period of negative MMO effects.

I identify with the article more for Everquest, less for WoW, I played Everquest like a job, and when I was offline, I felt like someone else was getting ahead of me.

In WoW, the ability to catch back up if you didn't play for a while was too great for me to have this guilt trip about playing and feel like I was "wasting my game time" by playing something else. I generally played an expansion for the first set of raids then cancelled my account until the next expansion. I actually read the quest storylines, chuckled at the Blizzard puns and enjoyed crawling through dungeons with friends I already had. I made a deal with myself where if I started to find myself pushing too hard for progression and in job mode I would take a step back.

That step back could be a deep breath and refocusing on why I enjoy the game to begin with, could be logging for the day, could be cancelling my account until some new content came out.

Self-awareness about how much I was *not* having fun with some parts of an MMO allowed me to enjoy WoW in a way that was better for me.

I think this is totally doable and the probably more common way people play MMOs, it just doesn't get as much press as it's not as sensational.

 

[bjj hero]

I guess I'm going to be the first dissenter. WoW is only a job or a chore if you make it one and it isn't the money sucking pit that Greg makes it out to be.

Even a game as big as Skyrim generally only lasts for about 1 month at the outside. People who picked it up at launch are moving onto other games around now. Even a game that really sucks you in generally only has that kind of hold for a month on intense playing before you move on or are playing it for want of something else to do.

If you figure the average lifespan of a game is 1 month then WoW is a pretty decent deal for the money. Skyrim or Arkham City or whatever other big name game that chews up 1 month of your life is going to run you $40-60 so if one of those comes out more often then every 3-4 months WoW is cheaper on a per month basis. Just looking at all the games I've purchased and enjoyed this year and even with almost all of them coming through Steam sales of 50% off WoW comes out pretty even. Portal 2 (40), Witcher 2 (30), Deus Ex HR (25), Skyrim (40), Arkham City (35), Bastion (10), Space Chem (10), Frozen Synapse (15)=205 and this isn't a complete list. 12 months of WoW, also including the cost of Cataclysm spread over its 18 month lifespan (an additional $2 per month), is about 200.

I think you are picking the wrong games for comparison. WOW is a social experience so its a better idea to compare it to COD4 that I bought then played for 2 years straight with friends. I bought Battlefield 3 at launch and my enthusiasm hasnt slipped yet. Or Civ4/5 that I played for years because there is so much to do in content and mods. There are also millions of starcraft nuts currently not paying a subscription. You seemed to ignore all of these games and concentrate on shorter single to strengthen your argument. Thats why I never buy things like batman at launch and I don't feel a subscription is good value for money.

If you want to break it down into $/week then a subscription would not compete with the value I got from COD4, Civ 4 or even Endwar. I refuse to pay to play a game that I've already bought, I understand that Im in the minority with this view but its how I feel.

 

[Sincendiary]

If you want to break it down into $/week then a subscription would not compete with the value I got from COD4, Civ 4 or even Endwar. I refuse to pay to play a game that I've already bought, I understand that Im in the minority with this view but its how I feel.

This seems to be a fairer comparison. I also can respect not wanting to pay for something you feel you already paid for.

Modern social games will charge one way or another though. Shooters sell you map packs that you can play without but not really, RTS sell an expansion with new units you probably can't compete without.

The amount of player versus environment content in an MMO is going to be staggering in comparison to these as well. While they're both social, MMOs are more about teams working together against AI than against another team.

If it's a good MMO and it's not just gouging you for price, the 15 dollars is getting you a map pack every month...and if you take a break for a couple, you come back and you get them all at once for one month fee rather than having to buy all the map packs to catch back up.

 

[Seventh Actuality]

"The Psychology of a Neurotic Walking Stereotype".

What the fuck is wrong with you? You stop enjoying the game, you stop playing it. I cancel my WoW subscription when I stop enjoying it, I come back when I want to play it again.

Notice how the people who are agreeing with you are primarily people who have never played/liked an MMO but heard on the internet that they're awful (from reading crap like this).

 

[bjj hero]

This to be a fair comparison. I also can respect not wanting to pay for something you feel you already paid for.

Modern social games will charge one way or another though. Shooters sell you map packs that you can play without but not really, RTS sell an expansion with new units you probably can't compete without.

The amount of player versus environment content in an MMO is going to be staggering in comparison to these as well. While they're both social, MMOs are more about teams working together against AI than against another team.

If it's a good MMO and it's not just gouging you for price, the 15 dollars is getting you a map pack every month...and if you take a break for a couple, you come back and you get them all at once for one month fee rather than having to buy all the map packs to catch back up.

I see your point about map packs. There was 1 map pack for COD4 but they seem to be becoming more frequent now. That doesnt change how I feel about paying to play a game Ive already paid for. I would not buy a pack each month the same way Ive opted out of the whole MW3 elite thing. Im yet to buy the battlefield map pack and there are still plenty of servers I can play on so its not a case of must play like subscription.

Also shooters are becoming more PvE with a hoard mode in each new game after gears 2. I dont see the appeal of hoard but I have friends who are hooked. Why shoot the AI who doesnt care when I could shoot a player? Horses for courses I guess. The same with MMOs.

A few people (not many thankfully) posted really defensive posts like this one.

I think they should do a psychology on nosey people who can't let people do what they feel like with their own money. Seriously will you people ever just shut up and mind your own business for once?

No one is saying you cannot play your loved MMO, we all like different things. That doesn't make the reason someone else chooses not to play less valid or mean they are telling you what to, or what not to, play. If you are enjoying it all power to you, its just not for me.

 

[Sincendiary]

I see your point about map packs. There was 1 map pack for COD4 but they seem to be becoming more frequent now. That doesnt change how I feel about paying to play a game Ive already paid for. I would not buy a pack each month the same way Ive opted out of the whole MW3 elite thing. Im yet to buy the battlefield map pack and there are still plenty of servers I can play on so its not a case of must play like subscription.

Also shooters are becoming more PvE with a hoard mode in each new game after gears 2. I dont see the appeal of hoard but I have friends who are hooked. Why shoot the AI who doesnt care when I could shoot a player? Horses for courses I guess. The same with MMOs.

Different strokes for sure. I would say that the average MMO encounter is more puzzle and less kill and therefore require more planning on the dev side.

There are people who opt out of MMO expansions/monthlies by playing on private servers with no content updates too. Of course, they're totally on the hook for breaking EULAs and having to break the "law" to play a gamebox you own seems a bit silly.

Guild Wars had a good system going where they release a new chunk of content and you buy that in another box but can still play everything else if you hear it sucks, don't care about it, or are too broke. I would kind of like to see more of that.

 

[tharglet]

I've yet to hear one about an MMO truly enriching someone's life.

OK... here's one... WoW allowed me to chat to people in an environment which I was comfortable with, and learn how to converse better, without the threat of messing up relationships I care about. If you're thinking of stuff to say it's nowhere near as noticeable online, and if you accidentally irritate someone, often there's a lot less consequences.
Also helped me get through some of the difficult times at uni, as I had somewhere to go, with people who understand wtf I was on about. There weren't so many "weird folk" on my course, despite it being computer science ><. Was OK in the first year, but second year was hard as most of my friends were doing cybernetics (or something completely different) so it made it hard to meet up and things.

 

[tharglet]

With WoW, I effectively quit twice - both ended in the same way. Decided the game was no longer interested, cancelled my sub and didn't log in again. Fortunately both times I was in the last month of my subscription. Played in the Cata beta, and it didn't make me want to resub.

With MMOs, I seem to quit them in the same way - one day I just decide the game is boring and don't log in. Happens for a week or two, then I decide not to go back.

Forsaken world I was kinda sad to quit - loved playing my character, but it was such a pain in the backside to find groups for instances at the level I was, and the instances I liked seemed to be the least popular lol. Tried joining another guild that I thought looked good from the outside, but socially it was a bit of a wreck. With most content being a daily thing, it also didn't fit in well with my time schedule - evenings I didn't have enough time to play and playing on a Saturday, sometimes I'd run out of stuff to do.

Didn't sub to TOR for a couple of reasons - it didn't feel "new" enough to consider playing it over the f2p offerings out there (and there's more coming soon) and the conversation both made and broke it. I loved the conversation system, but see it getting very annoying if I alt, and for the fact I was choosing options not because I wanted to, but because the game dictated I should. If I played as I wanted to, I'd end up gimping my lightside/darkside level and my minion's liking of me. If the game wants to dictate my path, I'd rather just watch the damn cutscene.

 

[VulakAerr]

Well, thankfully I'm enjoying TOR for the game it is, not the stuff I can do in the background. I must admit I have started spacebarring through the "alien" conversations because there's only so much "wanga wanga" I can handle, but other than that, the fully-voiced scenes actually do draw me in.

 

[Darth_Dude]

I installed WoW when they went free to play for the first 20 levels, and well, I was hooked, for a bit.

But then it hit me. I had grinded a fair bit to get to level 14, and realized it was going I was going to do hell of a lot more grinding for me to get even remotely good.

Screw that I thought, there are more important things in life than wasting time in an MMO

 

[Spud of Doom]

This is actually the exact reason why I have vowed to forever avoid subscription games. It's that fear of a sunk cost which is so powerful in the mind. I'd happily spend more than a subscription fee costs on a F2P game rather than sub to a game for this reason. I do not want that weight of compulsion on me.

It's honestly one of the biggest parts of a P2P MMO that makes a publisher choose it. It's not just that they get a steady, relatively predictable revenue stream, it's also the knowledge that they are entrenching their customers into their product because they *know* you'll be scared to "waste" all your past hours playing by cutting off your subscription.

 

[Giftmacher]

Even a game as big as Skyrim generally only lasts for about 1 month at the outside.

I hear what you're saying, however... I'm still playing Terraria months after I bought it, and I reinstalled X3 the other day after a long hiatus (before that I played X3 for months). This isn't atypical for me by any means; some games may well be throw-away (most FPSs), but by by no means all. The difference is I don't return to the aforementioned games because I view them as a financial commitment, or because of their Skinner box mechanics, so I'm less likely to come to resent them cf. an MMO.

In addition, I'd like to add that becoming a parent rather radically alters what's value for money when gaming. These days I can grab a few hours of play a week at most, which means games like Skyrim are likely to last me quite a few months. In the case of subscription based MMOs I'll keep paying whether I log on or not which means most games I buy only have to last for ~3 months to reach price parity with an MMO (or less), and I'm easily managing that in the RPG/sandbox games I usually play.

Final thought. Personally, I'm very disappointed with the lack of game-play innovation in the MMO sector; subscription or free to pay it all feels very stagnant to me. Sure Bioware have added great stories to the genre, and I do think that's a step in the right direction, but the underlying mechanics are woefully conservative. There's no getting past it: MMOs are plain dull. Without the community aspect I doubt anybody would tolerate the mediocre game-play experience MMOs offer, much less pay a subscription.

Gift.

 

[TalQuizar]

Or you can do the right thing save the $ and wait for GW2 since you know its FREE after you buy the disk you can enjoy MMO without feeling tethered to it. ^_^

 

[Sincendiary]

This is actually the exact reason why I have vowed to forever avoid subscription games. It's that fear of a sunk cost which is so powerful in the mind. I'd happily spend more than a subscription fee costs on a F2P game rather than sub to a game for this reason. I do not want that weight of compulsion on me.

It's honestly one of the biggest parts of a P2P MMO that makes a publisher choose it. It's not just that they get a steady, relatively predictable revenue stream, it's also the knowledge that they are entrenching their customers into their product because they *know* you'll be scared to "waste" all your past hours playing by cutting off your subscription.

The opposite problem is that F2P games tend to become "pay to win" games where whoever is willing to have the highest credit card bill is the most elite. I think the best compromise is the "buy zones/play areas/content" MMO system. Anything where either a timesink is removed by money or useful gear/items is bought with real money breaks my immersion entirely and I can't take seriously.

I can compete with my credit card in reality for higher satisfaction. It's a losing game there too.