The Psychology of Gaming

A little known fact about me is that I am a Gamer. I've been playing computer and console games since they first came out, I can't remember when that was, I think I was around 17 years old. These days I only have time to play one online game. This game is World of Warcraft. This is the largest Multiplayer online games in the world to date, it has been around for 11 years. There have been numerous studies done on the psychological impact of gaming generally and many focusing on just World of Warcraft. There is now a condition which has been added to the DSM- 5 which addresses the addictive nature of gaming. This condition is called "Internet Gaming Disorder"(IGD). It shares similar characteristics as other problem behaviours such as gambling, drug addiction and alcoholism. Players suffer withdrawal when giving up their games. This week's blog is about the psychology of gaming. A long time ago when I first started to play WoW and I was in a very intense raiding guild. A fellow gamer gave me the greatest advice in relation to gaming he said, "Krinsta (that's my warcraft character name), always remember to play the game don't let the game play you".

A lot has been written about the negative aspects of gaming. Just to be different I'd like to write about some of the less well known benefits of gaming. These too have been researched, perhaps these researchers have not been on the popular media news stories as much as the negative aspect such as the very real problem of IGD. I feel as if these positive attributes that occur when players do learn to moderate their gaming are really unheard of in general media. Great things like developing a "Hero Mentality", Teamwork and Money Management, are little heard of in the wider non-gamer community. The gamer community are supporters of a variety of charities such as "Make a Wish Foundation". They are definately solution focused and team oriented group of people. As with any large community there are a few ratbags unfortunately these are the ones that the general public hear about.

The mysterious world of gamers is a complex one. Let me break it down for you. There is the very large community of gamers who play all the games that have ever been made. There's the game community of particular games for example, the World of Warcraft Community of which I am a member.  This is made up of everyone who plays WoW, these include youtubers, some of them are shown in the links below if you are interested to take a glimpse. Then there is the slightly smaller community of players that play in your region, known as "Servers" and then the smaller still community of "Guilds". These are the people that are part of your direct team. I am the leader of a Guild of such a community. The members of the guild play specifically together doing a variety of team based activities. In my guild this includes, getting together twice a week for two hours to raid. Some members going to each others houses and playing the game together. We have a facebook page and we talk together almost every day on programs such a ventrilo and teamspeak. We have a leadership team. We have game objectives that we work on together on to achieve. You can see my guild in action in the links below. The more important role of the guild has more to do with providing a social support network. It's not unusual in my guild for people to get together In Real Life (IRL). People in my guild "Riftwarriors" stay at each others houses when traveling interstate, help each other move house, talk on phone, discuss IRL problems and come up with solutions, write references and a host of other activities. Proofreading essays is one of the ones I particularly like. We are yet to have a guild get together, this happens frequently with other guilds. In short it is a shared activity that we all enjoy. It's a community of good mates who meet online and offline.


The research supports this role of social support with studies linking relationships built in guilds reducing social phobias and isolation offline as well as online. The gaming community providing all the benefits of other social groups which are more traditional. The benefits of working as a team to resolve ingame problems provides real life skills in doing the same outside of the game. Problem solving activities can be found in a number of games. These skills are transferable to real life. Gamers have been solving difficult scientific problems that have baffled the scientific world by doing just that transferring these problem solving skills to solving real scientific mysteries

The negatives to excessive gaming are real. Undergraduates fail the first year of studies at alarming rates. As a guild leader I have seen this first hand. As a guild we do try to encourage our members to be sensible about their play time. Some of our guildies in the past have played WoW to the exclusion of everything else and have learned the hard way not to let the game play them. There are some personality types that can be prone to this kind of behaviour. The makers of the game do warn players about this phenomenon. We still have a lot to learn about how to manage this. I am not advocating this type of game play. However, I am hopefully pointing out the good elements of the game.

For many years I kept my gaming hobby a secret. I felt a certain amount of shame and embarrassment that I played these games. I certainly don't fit the media image of a gamer. I'm a woman in my 50's who runs a World of Warcraft guild. Today, I am owning this part of who I am. I am proud of my guildies for how they are in the game and how they conduct themselves in their real lives. I'm also proud of myself for running this guild and being able to play this game with my sons over the years. I am so glad that I got this "second skin" of Krinsta, to take me away to a different place every now and then.

There is nothing like the experience of being with a group of people of all different social backgrounds ages and stages of life joining together and working on a common goal and succeeding. I see my gaming as a release, a place to go in which for a short time I can be part of the Riftwarriors family and achieve goals, socialise and forget about RL for a little while. I play around about the same amount as what other people may watch Television. I do play the game the game doesn't play me. I think that gaming is a great thing with some bad sides to it. Like all things Gaming should be taken in Moderation.  Thank you to all the people who I have played Warcraft with over the past 11 years and a special thank you to the Riftwarriors for having such faith in my ability to lead you and helping me to create such a great place to be. You guys are awesome :)

Links to Youtubers

https://www.youtube.com/user/FatbossTV

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk3bbpoBpVTRYvjpNOfoMxA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKUc5yO0jnEWEJnk-rdVVug

Riftwarriors In Action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAwpaijwwrI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJPD9t5jOgc

Ted Talk

https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world?language=en

References

Dickey, M. D. (2011). World of Warcraft and the impact of game culture and play in an undergraduate game design course. Computers and Education, 200-209.

Griffiths, M. D., Kuss, D. J., & Pontes, H. M. (2016). The evolution of Internet addiction: A global perspective. Addictive Beviours, 193-195.

Lehenbaurer-Baum, M., & Fohringer, M. (2015). Towards classification criteria for internet gaming disorder: Debunking differences between addiction and high engagement in a German sample of World of Warcraft players. Computers in Human Behaviour, 345-351.

Martoncik, M., & Loksa, J. (2016). Do World of Warcaft (MMORPG) players experience less loneliness and social anxiiety in online world (virtual environment) than in real world (offline). Computers in Human Behaviour, 127-134.

Odrowska, A. M., & Massar, K. (2014). Predicting guild commitment in World of Warcreaft with the investment model of Commitment. Computers in Human Behaviour, 235-240.

Silva, L., & Mousavidin, E. (2015). Strategic thinking in virtual worlds: Studying World of Warcraft. Computers in Human Behaviour, 168-180.

Young, K. S. (2004). Internet Addiction A new Clinical Phenomenon and Its Consequences. American Behavioral Scientist, 402-415.

Second skin. (2010). American Salon, 133(12), 60. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.elibrary.acap.edu.au/docview/818547361?accountid=137399