Everquest, The College Course

I emailed the following letter to the course instructor:=======
Quote:Greetings,
I recently came upon your curriculum webpage for your "Ethnology of on-line roleplaying games" class and was both, intrigued and concerned.

For a brief background, I am a 39 year old male who has played Everquest for approximately 3.5 years and who, during that time, became involved in just about every social and economic process afforded by the game, from playing as a solo player, to becoming an officer and guildleader of a large guild,. My responsibilities both online and offline, relating to this guild, were numerous. And during the height of my playing, I was spending approximately six to eight hours per day researching game information, posting on guild message boards and other related activities. Well, herein lies the reason for my concern with your program.

In spring of last year, which was almost my three year mark of playing Everquest, my life had become all-consumed with this admittedly, fascinating realm of Norrath. The very nature of the game which makes it such an intriguing subject to build a college class around, is inherently alluring to those whose lives and priorities are lacking in meaning and substance. And so, despite being a self-employed computer consultant who was a responsible spouse and homeowner, my life had deteriorated slowly to the point where Everquest was playing a more and more prominent role, when it should have remained a casual pastime only. Now I don't blame Everquest for the ways in which my life had turned to shambles at the time, but it did become clear that the very dynamic nature of Everquest can fill many psychological and sociological needs to the point where the most responsible of individuals can let his excessive and compulsive playing slowly deteriorate his life and relationships to the point where there are serious consequences.

When I quit Everquest in spring of last year, I became involved with On-line Gamers Anonymous, an organization started by a woman whose son shot himself while playing Everquest, and which was conceived to help other family members understand how excessive and compulsive online gameplaying can impact relationships and the health and mental state of those who play too much.. While admittedly, I am still involved and not totally in agreement with the ways in which she has taken the organization, I do still take part regularly there in conversations with countless individuals whose lives and whose family members' lives have been traumatized from excessive and compulsive online gameplaying.

After a year of deep introspection, counseling and reprioritizing, I have returned to Everquest with a healthy perspective and understanding of how Everquest can falsely fill one's emotional and psychological needs and how to prevent falling into the same trap I did the first time.

So in essence, the point of this verbose email is for you and whomever else may be involved in leading this class to really look at the potential impact that some of the students who take this class will undoubtedly experience. Our message boards are replete with stories of students who were A-B students and who, after months or years of playing Everquest, ended up failing out or dropping out, and or losing their jobs because of how their excessive and compulsive gameplaying impacted their studies. We have countless stories of how real-life relationships have been impacted and how the sedentary nature of playing online games for hours has contributed to severe health problems in some people.

I'll admit though, Everquest is a wonderful environment to partake of a study such as the one you are offering. The social and economic lessons, while small-scale and not completely realistic, can afford somewhat of an understanding of how the world works. However changes in the game over the past few years to attract and retain more subscribers, have unfortunately caused many of the more 'realistic' aspects of Everquest to fall by the wayside.

I've no doubt that the class will be a huge hit and that most students will play Everquest responsibly and within the context set forth by the program. But I seriously would ask that you consider the impact that the introduction of the game will have on some of those students as they suddenly find that this utopian realm fulfills their psychological needs to the point where Everquest becames a pervasive activity in their lives to the detriment of both their classwork and their real life relationships.

For the record, I have no desire to censor or limit access to online gaming. I am not involved with any organizations who wish to ban games or activities of any kind. And lastly, I have no religious or fundamental motivations for writing this email. But I am an intellectual, college-educated individual who has experienced the detriments of excessive and compulsive online gameplaying first-hand and who has been working to help others who have been there for about 18 months.

Thank you for your time and best of luck with your program. If you would like to visit our discussion board to read some of these stories yourself, you may click the link below.

Cordially,

Ron Jaffe

Online Gamer's Anonymous
pub136.ezboard.com/bolga

Ron Jaffe AKA Diggo McDiggity
Discussion Board Administrator
On-Line Gamers Anonymous

Maybe he is trying to recruit more people to play the game?

Could be - I think EQ is an awesome subject for a study, but I think it would be much more productive as a study relating to abnormal psychology than anything else.
Ron

Ron Jaffe AKA Diggo McDiggity
Discussion Board Administrator
On-Line Gamers Anonymous

I'm sorry to say that the course is OVER, finished in June, and some people admitted to becoming addicted, and from the web journals, looked to me to be the equivalent of "Rocks for Jocks 101".

I doubt very much that the instructor will write back, it is clear that his students did not make any attempt to contact former players, nor did he wish them to.

(sigh)...

I would guess that courses like that will become more and more popular, if not visible, in coming years. Only in the very recent past has electronic game-playing evolved and morphed into the online experience. And relative to the total population, hard-core gamers make up a small percentage. With the advent of dedicated console platforms, more of the general public is becoming familiar with games that used to be played only on computers. So there's still very little awareness of and very little research done in this field. I work as a Producer for a game developer, and the topic of addiction definitely does come up in roundtable discussions at game developer conferences, along with things like how to control antisocial behaviors in online communities. It's still very much a matter of "making it up as we go along" because even 10 years ago, these things were not issues to worry about.

I just happened across this web site today, after following a link from another article I read. I think what you're doing is great.