Hooked on Games Online

For the better part of nine months, Dan Gilbert of Red Lion, Pa., lost his wife, Lori, to an Internet game called “EverQuest.”

Each day Lori, 35, retreated to her computer in the basement and dove into the online sword-and-sorcery world, surfacing only to sleep and grab a quick bite to eat. Her computer log showed she played an average of 65 hours a week, eclipsing every activity in her life, including sleep.

“It was like we were in different worlds,” Dan Gilbert said. “She didn’t do much of anything except play that game.”

It was only after Gilbert threatened to leave the marriage, he said, that his wife agreed to end her Internet game life and return to the real world.

“I was so emotionally drained at that point, I broke into tears,” said Gilbert, a 35-year-old Web designer and an online game player himself.

Out on the horizon of the technological revolution, a new tug-of-war between the real and the virtual worlds has begun to emerge over the most precious commodity of modern life: time.

The source is a new generation of Internet games, known by the tongue-twisting name of “massively multi-player online role-playing games.” They have risen from relative obscurity to become the latest Net addiction, challenging even such consuming modern pastimes as television for some players.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world now play the games, even though the first of them appeared just three years ago. “EverQuest” alone has more than 215,000 subscribers in its one year of existence.

The games are computer-generated fantasy worlds where thousands of players can talk and adventure together in stunningly beautiful virtual landscapes.

In their short existence, the games have led to the creation of friendships, the formation of close social groups that meet in real life and even a booming industry in which players take virtual equipment they have gathered in the games and sell it to other players for real money.

The games have created an absorbing social realm that transcends the bland text world of Internet chat and makes older computer games played by individuals or small groups look lonely and juvenile.

But at the same time, the design of the games, which encourages players to spend months and even years striving to attain higher levels of play, has drawn some players into spending dozens of hours a week immersed in a virtual world while the real world rushes past.

As one anonymous married woman recently lamented on an Internet message board, “I’m an EverQuest widow.

“My hubby plays before he goes to work in the morning, comes home at lunch and logs on, and then comes home and immediately logs on again,” she wrote. “He spends most of the night online playing and frequently doesn’t come to bed at all. . . . We’ve been married 12 1/2 years and I love him and I don’t want to give up on us, but I’m at my wit’s end.”

Although much of the game industry is still aimed at entertaining children and teenagers, these new role-playing games, with their mix of complex social interactions and monthly credit card subscription fees, have been specifically designed for adults, opening a new realm of problems ranging from divorce to poor work performance and depression.

The Interactive Digital Software Assn., a computer game trade group, found in a survey published last month that 61% of computer game players are now older than 18, a development that has put game playing squarely in the most time-starved arena of modern life: the family.

Although parents once fretted about their children ignoring their homework because of Nintendo game playing, parents themselves are now sometimes the problem.

The developers of another Internet game, “Asheron’s Call,” with about 60,000 subscribers, recently polled some of its users and found that nearly half of them played the game more than 20 hours a week, comparable to time spent eating (about 21 hours a week) and within striking distance of work (average 34.5 hours a week) and watching TV (33.6 hours a week).

The time spent playing games online, however, only begins to describe how absorbing the games can be for the small percentage of players who have become deeply immersed in the virtual world.

“There are people who have accumulated 150 days of playing time in less than a year,” said Brad McQuaid, vice president of San Diego-based Verant Interactive, which created “EverQuest.”

“That’s like one-third of their lives,” he said. “It’s certainly flattering that they like the game, but at the same time, I would encourage people to enjoy our game and life as well.”

“There is more to life than EverQuest,” McQuaid said.

For a growing number of people, the problem is precisely that the idea of what “life” is has become a fuzzy mix of virtual and real--two realms that do not always mix well.

Many people have sought out these forms of virtual entertainment to find the kind of rewards they once found in everyday pursuits.

Drawn In by the Camaraderie

Rick Sawtell, a computer trainer in Phoenix, said he was drawn to online games because of the camaraderie--something he says was missing in his life because he spends half the year traveling around the world teaching computer programming. With his laptop computer, he can play “Asheron’s Call” no matter where he is and keep in touch with friends, he says.

“It was just to have company,” he said. “When I’m on the road, I’m eating alone, sleeping alone and working alone. It’s hard to take.”

But although he found solace in the game on the road, his playing became a sore point with his wife when he returned home and continued to play. His wife recently left him for a variety of reasons, including the game playing, he said.

“Playing has been both a curse and a blessing,” said Sawtell, who still plays for a few hours every night.

Kimberly Young, a Bradford, Pa., psychologist who wrote one of the earliest papers on Internet addiction, has heard hundreds of similar laments since she opened her Center for On-Line Addiction several years ago.

Chatting online, she said, is still the biggest Internet addiction, but online games have quickly become a noticeable phenomenon, joining the ranks of other Net obsessions such as e-mail, online pornography, electronic day trading and even EBay auctions.

What has made the Internet so alluring is that unlike the passive nature of television, the Net is interactive. It has given people the ability to not just watch, but to do--and usually to do so with other people.

“We’re all social animals,” Young said. “It’s probably very healthy for a lot of people to expand their social networks as long as they have a balanced life. But what is balance?”

Still, while online games encourage players to interact with other users, the computer is also a socially isolating device, Young said. “That’s why it’s called a personal computer,” she said.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University call it the “Internet paradox,” describing the Net in a study published in American Psychologist last month as a social technology that ultimately reduces social involvement in the real world.

In “EverQuest,” players roam online worlds as virtual characters, able to explore the landscape and hunt monsters alone or with other players. These worlds never sleep, but continue changing whether a player is there or not, just like in the real world. The games cost from $20 to $40 to buy and $10 a month to play.

The addictive quality of the games has not gone unnoticed by some of the biggest names in technology. Microsoft was a partner in “Asheron’s Call,” and a Sony subsidiary developed “EverQuest.” At least 20 more massively multi-player, role-playing games are now in development.

Players Find a Stable World

Part of what makes the games so addictive is the stability of these online worlds. Unlike more traditional computer games, players can log on and find their friends in the same world at the same time, day after day. Players who don’t like the company they find in one world can move on to another.

The visual beauty of the worlds has been made possible only with technological advances in recent years. And it has made the games far more mesmerizing than the clunky, text-only role-playing games, known as MUDs, from which all massively multi-player games spring.

Many players end up staying in the same world for months and even years as they explore every nook and cranny of the landscape and work to improve their characters’ skills and amass riches collected from virtual monsters.

It is no surprise that many players of “EverQuest” refer to the game both affectionately and derisively as “EverCrack,” referring to the addictive crack cocaine.

But for all the monster fighting, spell casting and exploration, the virtual worlds of “EverQuest,” “Asheron’s Call” and similar games are essentially glorified chat rooms. The heart of the games is the fact that so many others are on the same journey, living the same virtual experiences.

The games are designed to draw players into “guilds,” loose confederations of players who adventure together and find instant friendship and camaraderie. Even casual players tell of online friendships that become as meaningful as those in the real world.

Lori Gilbert began playing “EverQuest” in earnest after quitting her job at a nuclear power plant, a move the couple had decided upon as part of their plans to have children, her husband said.

At first, Dan Gilbert saw nothing unusual, but after a few months he began to notice bowls and plates beside her computer when he came home, a sign that she had been playing all day. When he went to bed, she would still be playing and sometimes she’d still be at it when he awoke. Friends began to worry about her health.

“That was her life,” Dan said. “I didn’t say anything because, at that point, I was just so disgusted.”

All the things they had done together in the past--working on the house, gardening, watching television and just talking--had stopped.

Dan eventually issued his ultimatum, and Lori closed her “EverQuest” account.

Lori Gilbert concurred with her husband’s story and said she has now been off “EverQuest” for three weeks. She believes it was a good decision to leave but added that she still misses the other players, whom she considered her friends. “They were real people behindthose computers,” she said.

The line between hobby and obsession can be a fine one, often defined not by hours spent, butby the good or harm to a life created by an activity.

Renee Cole, a 40-year-old truck dispatcher from Detroit, began playing online games four years ago and has jumped from one to another ever since.

With four children and a full-time job, she manages to play only about three hours a night, but it is precious time for her.

“At work, I have to have a certain persona,” she said. “But online, I can be comfortable and be myself. This is my time.”

Online, she said, no one cares about what she does in the real world or who she is or how old she is. They know her only as “Moondancer” or “Talie,” two game characters who are always willing to lend a helping hand or crush an enemy.

The friends she has made online have ended up being as close as her real-world friends, she says. When Cole’s grown daughter moved to Kentucky recently, it was an online friend of “Talie’s” who helped her get settled.

Cole said that once, when she was unemployed, she played online games for up to 10 hours a day. Her playing time has been cut back recently to just a few hours because of her job. “It’s a good thing,” she said. “No matter how attractive online life may be, it doesn’t compare to real life.”

David Turner, a 31-year-old fireman in Austin, Texas, found the world of “Ultima Online,” another of the role-playing games, a relaxing and predictable change of pace from his hectic real life.

“It was an escape,” he said. “It was just a place to forget about paying bills and all those other things in life.”

In many ways, he says, the virtual world became more compelling to him than the real. Online, he was known as “Sir Turbohawk,” a powerful warrior that he liked to think of as an extension of his own personality. He made friends online and was admired for all the virtual riches he had collected online through his game-playing skill.

But after two years of playing, Turner, a father of three who was often online for up to eight hours a day, grew bored with the game and began to realize how little time he was spending with his family.

“That whole time seems like kind of a blur to me,” he said.

Turner sold his computer, unplugged himself from the Internet, sold his “Ultima” characters and poured the money into a $50,000 sailboat.

“It’s pathetic I wasted that much time,” he said. “If I had spent that much effort on something else, I could have had a PhD by now.”

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The Internet Addiction Test

1. How often do you find that you stay online longer than you intended?

2. How often do you neglect household chores to spend more time online?

3. How often do you prefer the excitement of the Internet to intimacy with your partner?

4. How often do you form new relationships with fellow online users?

5. How often do others in your life complain to you about the amount of time you spend online?

6. How often do your grades or schoolwork suffer because of the amount of time you spend online?

7. How often do you check your e-mail before doing something else that you need to do?

8. How often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of the Internet?

9. How often do you become defensive or secretive when anyone asks you what you do online?

10. How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the Internet?

11. How often do you find yourself anticipating when you will go online again?

12. How often do you fear that life without the Internet would be boring, empty and joyless?

13. How often do you snap, yell or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are online?

14. How often do you lose sleep due to late-night log-ins?

15. How often do you feel preoccupied with the Internet when offline or fantasize about being online?

16. How often do you find yourself saying “just a few more minutes” when online?

17. How often do you try to cut down the amount of time you spend online and fail?

18. How often do you try to hide how long you’ve been online?

19. How often do you choose to spend more time online over socializing with others?

20. How often do you feel depressed, moody or nervous when you are offline, which goes away once you are back online?

Point values

0 = Does not apply

1 = Rarely

2 = Occasionally

3 = Frequently

4 = Often

5 = Always

Scoring

20 to 49 points = You are an average online user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage.

50 to 79 points = You are experiencing occasional or frequent problems because of the Internet. You should consider their full impact on your life.

80 to 100 points = Your Internet usage is causing significant problems in your life. You should evaluate the impact of the Internet on your life and address the problems directly caused by your Internet usage. Source: Center for On-Line Addiction (https://www.netaddiction.com)

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Time Bandits

Sleep, work and television remain the dominant activities of modern life, but the Internet is creating greater demand for our time. And for online game players, the Net is becoming a center of social activity.

Hours in a week: 168

How people spend those hours, on average:

Sleep: 48.3

Work: 34.5

TV: 33.6

Meals: 21.0

Internet at home: 3.1

Movies: 0.2

Online gamers devote many hours each week to playing:

EverQuest players: 19.9 hours

Ultima Online players: 14.7 hours

*

Sources: National Sleep Foundation, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nielsen Media Research, NetRatings, National Assn. of Theatre Owners, Verant Interactive, Origin Systems.