Why the love for the hardcore player?

[Miscreant]

About the Jedi revamp from Terra Nova's description of SWG fan fest:

Players holding top positions are expected to be the hard core of the hard core - miss a few days of play you will most likely loose your position.

I know zero jedi.  I only know one guy who's been trying to become a jedi.  He's been trying for months, and he complains about it bitterly.   Why can't I just become a jedi if I want?  

The first argument is that jedi have to be unattainable for all but the hardest-core players so jedi will be rare.  If there were lots of jedi, it wouldn't be cool for the people who are jedi.  But by definition that's a tiny percent of your players.  Who cares what they think?  

The second argument is that if you had really lived in the Star Wars universe at that time, becoming a jedi would have been incredibly unlikely.  As we know, Star Wars never really happened; so this argument seems weak.

All MMOs do this. There has to be tons of special content for the hardcore player, and developers have to do whatever it takes to make them happy. It doesn't matter that the casual player will never get to enjoy it.

Why?   I'm not ranting--I really want to know.  What benefit do players and developers get from this model?  What am I missing?

[stray]

Well...I think they not only do it for the "hardcore gamer", but also to entice more people into becoming hardcore gamers (If you're not hardcore, then you will be nothing, and see nothing). The hardcore and the easily enticed: these are the only gamers they can guarantee longterm subscriptions from, and "longterm" is all that matters, really.

But by definition that's a tiny percent of your players.

I used to believe that. Now, I think that almost anyone who sticks with an MMO is a catass. I think it's a very large percentage. There's no room for a casual gamer in MMO's -- You're either hardcore, or you quit.

Players like me or you, who just want a little "fun" are not going to be catered to. Why? Because we can drop out on a dime the minute things become "unfun"..Even if slightly. Plus, we want our fun "right away", not at the end of the road.

Playing for a "sense of accomplishment" or for the "longterm" is out of the question. Yet, building an MMO around those concepts is probably where the real money is at.

*Gettin' sleepy here, but I hope what I wrote made sense.*

As for SWG, they might have been better off using a different timeline from the SW universe (Either the Clone Wars, or maybe the Mandalorian). It would have saved a lot of trouble. At least that way there'd be an excuse for a lot of Jedi (I'm sure this has been said a thousand times already).

On a sidenote: After getting an X-Box this week, I'm also starting to think that MMO's have very little in common with "gaming" even (Perhaps there might be more pros than cons if not looked at only from a "gaming" perspective?). At least this helps in not having very many expectations of "fun".

[Soukyan]

Why?   I'm not ranting--I really want to know.  What benefit do players and developers get from this model?  What am I missing?

To be honest, I think this is merely a byproduct of it being developed by SOE. Look at their most successful model product (EQ) where they reward the best of the best and the rest don't get to see everything. Since everyone is clamoring to play that, why not mimic it? Remember, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

[HRose]

To be honest, I think this is merely a byproduct of it being developed by SOE. Look at their most successful model product (EQ) where they reward the best of the best and the rest don't get to see everything. Since everyone is clamoring to play that, why not mimic it? Remember, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

Yes but they haven't understood why in EQ it "worked". And you cannot reproduce an effect without understanding it completely.

This is why cloning will always fail big time.

[Scorus]

This really gets me also. On one hand it seems that most devs verbally discourage power-gaming, they are always telling people to play less and not use up or even skip over all the content so quickly. And on the other hand they are constantly changing game design to encourage power-gaming.

It doesn't even make sense financially. I don't think that power gamers are any more likely to stay more months than casual gamers, power gamers seem to use up a game quickly and then move on to the next. And since someone playing 8 hours/day pays as much as someone playing 1 hour/day, the power gamer is consuming a whole lot more resources for the same money.

I guess it is just that power gamers are the ones most likely to make their voices heard and therefore get the games changed more and more into something that is made for their style.

Scorus

[daveNYC]

This really gets me also. On one hand it seems that most devs verbally discourage power-gaming, they are always telling people to play less and not use up or even skip over all the content so quickly. And on the other hand they are constantly changing game design to encourage power-gaming.

It all fits in with their goal of maximizing the time necessary to use up the content that's currently in the game.

[geldonyetich]

Those who play the most will always have an advantage in any MMORPG which implements any kind of time investment return.   If you are not among this top 99.5% of the catasses, the best policy is not to treat a MMORPG as a race.

This Jedi thing is just an unfortunate combination of trying to keep Jedis relatively rare and the decision to frame them as the ultimate carrot at the end of the treadmill.   The time restaint likely has to do with just preventing people from leaving idle jedis lay around long enough that htey become ebay fodder like your average house in UO.

[Oestreich]

The best way understand the jedi "thingy" is to find someone who is playing RC2 beta. (beta server 2, jedi testing)

I know three players. So far they do not like the way the Jedi beta test is set up.

SOE is having a very hard time balancing JEDI.

Of course I have no real details because that would break the service agreement.

But to say the least SOE has one hell of a task at hand.

I hope they are up for it.

[HaemishM]

Why do companies focus on the hardcore? Those hardcore are more likely to read message boards and post on message boards than the rest of the players. They get real whiny and developers are still under the mistaken impression that the people on message boards represent a sizeable portion of the player base.

[Furiously]

How many members of the dev team for EQ were in FOH? I seem to recall a few. Perhaps they are just designing content for themselves. It doesn't really explain the horrid keying system in Planes of Power, but it does explain catering to the catass.

[HaemishM]

None of the FOH members were overtly on the dev team for EQ. There were always rumors that one of the reasons they were able to take down content so quickly was that they KNEW someone on the dev team who fed them information, but nothing was ever proven.

[Miscreant]

OK, suppose developers now spend 80% of their effort on highest end content and 20% on mid-to-low end content.  Just a guess.

What would happen if a developer reversed this to 20% highest end and 80% mid-to-low? The developer would have to say to hardcore players: "If you eat up all the high-end content, you'll have to start another character; most new content is below you now."  Then the devs could say to casual players: "there will be lots of new things for you to do and see with every update, even if you meander along at five to ten hours a week, and have no idea what 'powerleveling' even means."

Would that be the death of the game?

[HaemishM]

It would be if you listened to the official boards. It would be derided as "too easy" and "pandering to the losers" by all the ubers.

And if the game was decent, a year later when all the loudmouth whiny "ubah" bitches were pestering some other developer in a vain attempt at being somebody other than a hygeine-deficient retard, the game would probably still have pretty decent, steady subscriber numbers.

[Nebu]

I think that CoH has made a step in the right direction as far as the casual gamer is concerned.  They seemed to have focused on making a game that is fun at all levels.  Also, the hardcore catasses have already maxxed out and are looking stupid... a nice change from the way they seemed to be deified in EQ.  

I think that a good design team needs to focus on adequate content at all levels with a steady progression that makes gaining skills/experience an afterthought rather than a goal.  From a marketing standpoint, it's much easier to frontload a game (large amount of low end content) as a means to buy yourself a little more development time.  DAoC and AC2 both suffered from a lack of endgame development and lost some of their playerbase. Ultimately, I don't think it hurt either game in the end (let's face it, AC2 failed because the game sucked) but it did cost them a few hardcore subscriptions.

What I'm getting at here is that I think most of the older design houses do spend the majority of their time developing the low end content and add high end content in patches or expansions later.  Having enough content for the casual gamer hasn't really been the issue in my mind... it's the fact that the game that the casual gamer has the time to play isn't the "fun" part of most mmog's.  Like DAoC where you have to grind a mind-numbing treadmill from hell just to get to the "fun" (RvR).  

Where games are failing for the casual gamer is in the fact that they force players to do boring routine tasks using "teh fun" as a carrot.  Let's hope that CoH will be the dawn of a new era in mmogs where you can log on and have fun at any level for any amount of time and still feel like you are progressing.  If their formula for fun can be extrapolated to a larger, more diverse world, then things will be moving in the right direction.

[Drubear]

is that the 00b3rs (and their prancing inside and outside the game) provide "content" that is consumed by non-00b3rs.

Sony gets buzz (aka interest, which = $'s) from peeps reading 00b3r websites, either looking for strats directly or vicariously "experiencing" the content by reading about the fights and/or oohing (or sneering) over the drops/zone pics. Why are professional sports teams popular? >>You<< don't play football, but enjoy "pros" that do...

Whether or not this adds to the bottom line or not hasn't been proven, but it's generally accepted that FoH, TR, Afterlife, et. al provide as much meta-entertainment/content as Sony Live itself (if not more as they "leak" info on zones only the 00b3rs can get to.)

[Sky]

it's generally accepted that FoH, TR, Afterlife, et. al provide as much meta-entertainment/content as Sony Live itself

...

Nah, I don't even know how to respond to such a thing. I'll just turn and run at full speed in the opposite direction.

[WayAbvPar]

Whether or not this adds to the bottom line or not hasn't been proven, but it's generally accepted that FoH, TR, Afterlife, et. al provide as much meta-entertainment/content as Sony Live itself

Generally accepted by whom, exactly? It is asshats like those that make me avoid certain titles or game areas. Anything they really like is a giant flashing warning sign to me.

[Rasix]

is that the 00b3rs (and their prancing inside and outside the game) provide "content" that is consumed by non-00b3rs.

Sony gets buzz (aka interest, which = $'s) from peeps reading 00b3r websites, either looking for strats directly or vicariously "experiencing" the content by reading about the fights and/or oohing (or sneering) over the drops/zone pics. Why are professional sports teams popular? >>You<< don't play football, but enjoy "pros" that do...

Whether or not this adds to the bottom line or not hasn't been proven, but it's generally accepted that FoH, TR, Afterlife, et. al provide as much meta-entertainment/content as Sony Live itself (if not more as they "leak" info on zones only the 00b3rs can get to.)

I think my brain is now trying to eat itself. Thanks.

[Furiously]

As Corey Flood once said, "That'll never be me, that'll never be me. That'll never be, never be me. NO... NO, NEVER, NEVER, EVER. And don't you EVER THINK IT."

Ever sit down and watch someone do a planar raid? Hell - they are 6 hours of mostly sitting on your butt. There is little fun involved - except when you get loot, but that is more of a nice doggy here is your pavlovian biscuit.

I am sure there are some people who read the FOH board and imagine themselves doing the FOH deads. I think I visited them two times total, because Fuhor talking about his manhood in terms of a EQ victory just does nothing for me. I'm happy he is able to get that involved in a game, but I have better things to do with my time, like mocking him.

[Xilren's Twin]

Sony gets buzz (aka interest, which = $'s) from peeps reading 00b3r websites, either looking for strats directly or vicariously "experiencing" the content by reading about the fights and/or oohing (or sneering) over the drops/zone pics. Why are professional sports teams popular? >>You<< don't play football, but enjoy "pros" that do...

Whether or not this adds to the bottom line or not hasn't been proven, but it's generally accepted that FoH, TR, Afterlife, et. al provide as much meta-entertainment/content as Sony Live itself (if not more as they "leak" info on zones only the 00b3rs can get to.)

Even if you accept that premise, so long as you don't have to pay Sony to get that meta-entertainment I hardly think it justifies the skewed focus on pleasing that small segment that makes up the ubers.   Why not add more cool stuff that the bulk of the player base can use?  Then you can keep em subscribed.

Besides, about the only people who would view that as postive entertainment as it relates to the actual GAME are those who wish they could be there; people wish they too could be the most powerful in game doing the "cool" new stuff.  But, as long as the devs keep extending the end game for the uberest or the ubers, eventually those wanna-bes will realize they are chasing a pipe dream and get out.  Sorta like realizing you really arent good enough to make the pro's just b/c you can play high school ball :-p

Xilren

[Drubear]

Perhaps I wasn't doing a very good job of stating my point.

I'm not proposing that catering to 00b3rs is a Good Thing (I had hoped my subtle use of "prancing 00b3rs" would be a tip off, but apparently not) but that many people have posted on many sites (other than this one) that having them around and in game is helpful to SOE, the game and the playerbase's enjoyment of EQ.

I'm making no assumption about the >>truth<< of that proposition, but merely stating that many people accept it as fact. (It's a common post on server, guild and class boards, in addition to in-game chat.) As it happens, I think there's enough truth to the notion that it's no doubt a factor for a certain segment of the EQ population, but whether or not that effect justifies the money/time/effort SOE puts into them is very much in question. And certainly the recent defection of many such guilds from EQ, and the recent (resultant?) catering to that crowd by SOE at last weekend's "Guild Summit" has energized a large segment of the playerbase to debate their relevance to the game in general not to mention how catering to them in the first place may actually be >>harmful<< to EQ long term.

Better?

[Phred]

The question of balancing levels of content added is interesting. I think the loud "casual" games on the boards are probably just about as representitive of the general population as the loud "ubers" are myself, in other words, neither are. In a game like Everquest, there's already a ton of midlevel content, more than can be seen by any one character before they outlevel it. So really, I think the only casual gamers complaining about lack of new midlevel content are the ones that constantly quit and roll up new characters, or ones who think they want new content but still go where everyone else is dispite the amount of content available.

A good example is the zones from the LoY expansion. They are slagged off by both ubers and the casuals on the message boards, yet I spent from 40-55 there with my last character and they are really well designed zones. The only gripe you could possibly have is that they are hard to get to, yet the same board warriors who slag them seem to be the people claiming the pok books have ruined EQ.

Another complaint that I see a lot from casual players on boards is how the price of LDoN armor is so high, it takes too long to get. Yet, as someone earlier in the thread said, think how long it takes an uber guild member to get a piece of gear when raids typically take 2-6 hours and mobs drop 2-3 items each for your 40-60 man raid force. At L65 you could get a full set of LDoN armor with augments in less time than the average uber guild member puts in to get full elemental armor.

So in short, while I have no clue which kind of content it would be best to focus on to keep the maximum number of users happy, I don't think the vocal board warriors particularly do either.

[Sky]

Ever sit down and watch someone do a planar raid? Hell - they are 6 hours of mostly sitting on your butt. There is little fun involved - except when you get loot, but that is more of a nice doggy here is your pavlovian biscuit.

When I was playing EQ and my guild would do plane raids, the eqholic would come over to my house for the 'event'. We'd break the plane and then fire up the xbox and play football and whatnot, occasionally reaching over to hit a spell key when required.

EQ almost singlehandedly spawned my dislike of games you don't play while you are playing them. I just don't get it, hopefully I never will.

[Soukyan]

but it's generally accepted that FoH, TR, Afterlife, et. al provide as much meta-entertainment/content as Sony Live itself

Yes, but the value is better because visiting those web sites is free. I pop on them every now and then to see the next new batch of ridiculously unpronouncable names from the latest expansion and see what vitriolic hate is spewd at SOE and see what the new max numbers are for uber equipment. Then I leave the site laughing at the folks who have dedicated years of their lives to doing this and haven't realized that the next uber sword will just have higher numbers on it and the next uber mob will just have higher numbers on it and the next strategy has already been done before in hundreds of games throughout history so it really isn't challenging as it is tedium. But yes, I will give you that. The uber sites give them exposure and I suppose there are people who think, "I want to do that, too!" and go buy the game in the hopes of experiencing that same content. Personally, I and several of my friends don't. We just get a kick out of poking fun at the addicts. ;)

[hirebrand]

I will chime in here and say that I never read forums or websites of the "uber" guilds.

[geldonyetich]

I know the topic of the discussion is "Why all the love for Hardcore players" but I have to ask why all the hate?

Hardcore players often are the ones that play the game more because they're the ones that have some real love for the game.   Though several do, they aren't neccessarily cutting corners (cheating), or using dodgy tactics/loopholes they've found to get the highest level quickest.   Instead, many you would call hardcore are just utilizing pure catassery to be on the game 20/7, because of all the things they'd rather do in life, it's play that game.

Just as several hardcore catassery is something you can pity, it's something you may want to respect.   This goes double for the developers who, in adjusting their game against the hardcore, are not only screwing over the casual players but doing it in the spirit of attacking what could be their most devoted fans.

So I say go ahead, go visit those "uber" guild's websites.   Along with their elitist attitude you might just notice, deep down, that what really sets them apart is that they really, really like the game.

Now, in addition to all the great things they achieved in SWG, I've have to say that there's a lot wrong with SWG.   This Jedi treadmill length is one small but important example.   With this in mind, did it occur to you that it might be overlooking these obvious faults by simply saying they were doing this in the name of the hardcore?    

Consider this: Maybe SOE is being just plain greedy, and are trying to string out their existing players as much as possible by making jedis that hard to obtain?    After all, the hardcore *already have* jedis - so it would seem that it's the Casual customers who were (and continue to be) the real target all along.   The Jedi is a powerful carrot, they want the mule to follow it as long as possible.   This "rarity" thing is just an excuse.

Since this is the Game Development forum, I have to say that this stance is just plain wrong.   Yes, I know it works for you.   Yes, I know it helps get a certain margin of the players paying their $15/mo subscription because they want to be OMG a jedi.   However, good god, this is supposed to be an entertaining pasttime.   Do you have any idea how many people you cheesed off with this pointless gouging?   If you want to make Jedi rare, there's far better ways to do it than requiring obscene amount of time investment.

If it were me, I'd just make Jedis really difficult to play.   Perhaps getting attacked at random by anti-Jedi death squads every 15 minutes.    Jedi never did seem to have a hard time attracting trouble, after all, and if you're going to give them phenominal cosmic powers you should be throwing constant challenges at them for these powers to be justified.   Food for thought.

[AOFanboi]

Hardcore players create three problems for a MMOG company:
[list=1][*]They play more hours/day on average, and hence consume more bandwidth and server resources. Someone on the CoH boards asked what was the difference between one person playing for 6 hours and three persons playing for two hours each, and I answered roughly "$30 a month". Not that I advocate time-based fees or anything, but it can be an issue.
[*]Playing more, they "burn" content faster than the devs are likely to churn it out. This leads to complaints that there is too little to do. One option could be to state on the box/online store their target "burn rate", or assumed game time. Someting like "Optimal enjoyment assumes two hours on weekdays and ten hours in weekends".
[*]Being hardcore gamers - not necessarily fans of that particular game - they are more likely to quit as a consequence of the above point, leading to a lower revenue stream than a casual player who takes longer (more months = more monthly fees) to go through the content.
[/list:o]The biggest issue I see is the level-based nature the MMOG developers see as the only viable option. How this happened, with the success of Hero/Champions, GURPS and other point-based pen and paper RPGs I don't know; there ought to be room for at least one point-based game. For instance, I find it weird that a level 16 Outcast steals purses the same way a level 1 Hellion does, in CoH. But that's what level systems get you.

What I would love was a Champions MMORPG. Not as a replacement, but as a complement to the simple and level-based CoH.

(Sits down to watch the Champions versus GURPS zombies rise from the graves, preparing his 9+ RKA for 2D damage.)

[Soukyan]

So I say go ahead, go visit those "uber" guild's websites.   Along with their elitist attitude you might just notice, deep down, that what really sets them apart is that they really, really like the game.

Alcoholics really, really like alcohol, too. Just because a person likes a game that much does not mean that they aren't treating it like an addictive substance. It's not that they are playing "20/7", it's that they can't help but play. It's the lack of desire to do anything else with their lives. And mind you, I'm not speaking of all hardcore gamers. I know many hardcore gamers who only play games a couple hours a day because they have their priorities straight. I think the "addicts" (for lack of a better term) are still a rather small minority overall. I think...

[geldonyetich]

Meh.  Addict : Devoted Fan.  What's the difference, really?   Little enough that officially the word Addict shares both "compulsive addiction" and "devoted adherant" definitions.

I don't blame the developers when people become addicted to their games, really.    When developing a very enjoyable game with long term play, it's neigh indistinguishable towards the approach of trying to develop a very addictive game.   They push the exact same buttons.   Wether or not the player decides to devote their lives to a virtual pursuit is entirely out of the developer's hands.

The psychological way to looking at if something is addictive or not is usually defined as uncontrollably repeating a behavior despite negative consiquences.    Compared to things like drugs, gambling, sex, or even food, computer games are very low on the list of genuinely addictive pasttimes for most psychologists.      Why?  Because the negative consiquences (besides lack of exercise) are generally quite low.   (Unless perhaps they spend the entire time sitting on their legs developing blood clots or neglecting physical needs to keep themselves alive.   That's a level of addiction rarely met enough to become international news, apparently.)

Take a look at your average young student's schedule: School 8 hrs, game 8 hours, sleep 8 hours.    During summer vacation, roll that 8 hrs of school into 8 hours more of gaming.    Even with only 8 hours, you don't need a 20 hour time investment to get really far ahead of a more "casual" gamer who may spend maybe 2 hours a day at most.

Considering this, the real issue isn't that there's "hardcore" and "casual" players so much as the ludicris idea of creating an even playing field when you're building a persistant massively multiplayer environment with accumulating rewards.    It can't be done.    Even UO's old "power hour" system barely scratched the surface of the hardcore advantage.   If there's a power-accumulating reason to be logged in at all, then the hardcore will, exponentually, be that far ahead of the casual players in that fascet of the game.

So ultimately you can go ahead and call them addicts, or catasses, or l33t d00dz, or any other degrating statement you can come up with.    I can understand the need to vent your envy.    Ultimately, power gamers are people who can afford to devote more time than you to play a game.   What's more, they'll have a vastly reduced cost of patience because somehow they enjoy the game that much more than you by virtue of their own tastes alone.     If you try to compete with them, they will kick your ass at that game every time because of the sheer physical laws of time expendicture accumulating power in the game.   Becoming resentful over someone else's success is petty envy, really.    A better direction to vent is perhaps at the developers for creating such a travesty or yourself for bothering to get involved with it in the first place.

(And so, Geldonyetich dooms the entire MMORPG industry.)

[Drubear]

beyond their own enjoyment of the Game?

Taking Eve Online as an example of a game lacking time-based levels. It's a skills based game where skill point accumulation occurs even while the player is offline, therefore negating (in game-skill terms) the differences between catasses and casuals. (I believe UO is a skill based game as well, but there's a limit to the total possible skill points, effectively allowing casuals to "catch up" eventually in the skill department.)

However, it is the case that the longer you >>are<< online in Eve, the more wealth/stuff you will accumulate (ok, only "can" accumulate if you're more the explorer type.) There is still a gulf between hard core and "other." Is it possible for an effective (oops, enjoyable) game to >>not<< have differentiators (ooh, is that a word?) like this? Or is it a requirement for enjoyment?

If there is such a requirement, doesn't it basically mean that the "hard core" are playing the game "right" and therefore "winning" as they accumulate phat l00t? (Given an otherwise level playing field receiving "fun" for casuals and hard core.)

[Soukyan]

Take a look at your average young student's schedule: School 8 hrs, game 8 hours, sleep 8 hours.    During summer vacation, roll that 8 hrs of school into 8 hours more of gaming.    Even with only 8 hours, you don't need a 20 hour time investment to get really far ahead of a more "casual" gamer who may spend maybe 2 hours a day at most.

Considering this, the real issue isn't that there's "hardcore" and "casual" players so much as the ludicris idea of creating an even playing field when you're building a persistant massively multiplayer environment with accumulating rewards.    It can't be done.    Even UO's old "power hour" system barely scratched the surface of the hardcore advantage.   If there's a power-accumulating reason to be logged in at all, then the hardcore will, exponentually, be that far ahead of the casual players in that fascet of the game.

So ultimately you can go ahead and call them addicts, or catasses, or l33t d00dz, or any other degrating statement you can come up with.    I can understand the need to vent your envy.    Ultimately, power gamers are people who can afford to devote more time than you to play a game.   What's more, they'll have a vastly reduced cost of patience because somehow they enjoy the game that much more than you by virtue of their own tastes alone.     If you try to compete with them, they will kick your ass at that game every time because of the sheer physical laws of time expendicture accumulating power in the game.   Becoming resentful over someone else's success is petty envy, really.    A better direction to vent is perhaps at the developers for creating such a travesty or yourself for bothering to get involved with it in the first place.

(And so, Geldonyetich dooms the entire MMORPG industry.)

Heh. I agree that leveling the playing field is not an option and at this point in time, I really don't expect that it will ever happen. They don't "level the playing field" in any other game or sport, so why should MMOGs?

As to the students who use that extra 8 school hours in the summer playing games, don't you think that could be spent doing other constructive activities as well? Do you know what the long-term effects on these players will be? How are mind and body affected in the long-term? We don't know... yet. But I'm afraid we will in the next few years or so.

As to my envy, or rather lack of... Call it what you like, but how many of these "hardcore" players are obese? I am not envious of that. I am very well in shape at 6'2", 175 lbs. because I exercise regularly. Unfortunately, that cuts into time that I could otherwise use gaming. Then again, there are age factors too. A college student with no need to do laundry, mow the lawn, work to pay bills, etc. will obviously not be shirking any responsibility by playing a game for excessive amounts of time. If they can do it, great. I am not envious of that. I am disgusted at the waste of space these people are. Kinda like prisoners. Heh. Perhaps that's a bit extreme. The problem is that the games can be a detriment to someone's life, health, etc. and that is when they become an addiction. I am not saying that every powergamer is an addict. Once again, I point out that a small percentage display addictive behaviors. Even though it's a small percentage, it's still a problem.

For example:

"On March 6, 2004, a 31-year-old Legend of Mir II addict literally dropped dead after playing the game non-stop for 20 hours in a Chengdu internet café. Soon after this tragedy, a Shanghai online game player suffered serious burns in an attempted self-immolation after the Shanda Customer Service Department expropriated his virtual equipment for The Legend of Mir II that he had bought from other players for 10,000 RMB [ed. approx. $1,200]. On April 11 the first case of online virtual currency fraud, to the tune of 15,000 RMB [ed. approx. $1,800], was exposed by Dalian police."
-- ChinaDaily News


And even the American Psychiatric Association has started to take a look at MMOGs and their possible addictive nature. Terra Nova recently had a piece on the APA's annual conference, and one of the issues workshops was entitled 'OnlineVideogames: Psychopathological or Psychotherapeutic'. You can read the article here.

The general gist is that addiction to games, or possible therapeutic applications of games, is being looked at by those in the medical profession now. Why? Because they have started to infringe upon daily acitivities. They are becoming an integral daily activity for a lot of people, for good or for bad, and there's no ignoring the impact that it will have on society.

[schild]

Soukyan - isn't it just a fine line between 'fun' and 'not fun?' We can talk about how these crazy assholes are addicted and whatnot (god knows I've had my 20 hour runs of gaming), but when it stops being fun, you should stop paying for the game.

I've yet to figure out how people get so obligated to a game that it precedes necessity on the list of 'things to do today.'

Of course, the people who become so obligated to a game that their willing to light themselves aflame or god forbid, play Lineage 2 until the endgame, probably had deep psychological problems before they even began gaming. The game was just the final nail in the escapist coffin.

[Soukyan]

I've yet to figure out how people get so obligated to a game that it precedes necessity on the list of 'things to do today.'

And that's one reason the APA has taken notice. What you just described is a symptomatic behavior of any addiction. Perhaps addiction is the wrong word. Dependence perhaps? I don't know.

In regards to the fine line between fun and not fun, you're right. Once it ceases to be fun, one would presumably stop playing, but the question is, why do some people not? Why do those people continue to feel obligated to "play"?

[ClumsyOaf]

Uhm... It really is obvious - money. Admittedly this can, and probably will, change - but not for a while.

While there are problems, as AOFanboi pint out, there are also multiple reasons to cater to the hardcore segment:
1. They comprise your core customers. Having one customer for six months is healthier for the game than two that play three months each (assuming everything else is similar).
2. They generate more income pr user than casual players (stay longer, multiple accts, etc.)
3. They are needed for certain ingame functions. E.g. guild masters. Once a guild grows over a certain size - being a gm is a full time job.

Thus, it is currently impossible for a MMOG to survive without a certain amount of hardcore players. Additionally, while it might seem like it is the ubercatasses that are catered to - it is currently close to impossible to cater to those who'll go through the content within a year of it being added without catering to those who'll burn through it in 2 months.

To be even more obvious; it makes more financial sense to use resources on players that will stay for six months, than players that will stay for only one. While there has been no research done afaik, there is currently nothing that suggests that there is a correlation between the amount of "newbie" content and how long casual players stay - except at each extreme of the scale (scarce/abundant). While, on the other hand, the amount of "endgame" content seems to correlate with how long the hardcore gamers stay.

[Daeven]

bla. Nevermind.