Session 4, Day 2
Session 4, Day 2
Motivation & Addiction
Biological Mechanisms of Online Gaming Addiction_— Jack Kuo, Jeffrey Wilkins & William Huang
Motivation & Seduction in MMORPGs_— Nicholas Yee
David Simkins, Chair
What does addiction mean in the gaming field.
(suggested by the audience)
You love a game (you say you’re addicted, meaning that you love it)
When you get “withdrawl”
When you choose it above anything else
When it satisfies needs you can’t get satisfied in any other way
It’s fun!
It’s profitable
It’s rewarding, when i play something I get stimulated in a positive way
Feel like you want to stop and realize that you can’t
There may be two different ways we use the term addiction, the slang we use and the technical definition, we throw it around in a loose manner
The key criteria of addiction is when it’s causing major problems, and even though you recognize it, you keep on doing what ever it is you’re doing
Biological Model for Substance Dependence
- Dopamine mediates the pleasure and reward pathway
o Habaniero peppers are one of the things that sets the bar of heat
- Large and fast increases in dopamine are associated with the reinforcing effects of drugs
o When you have lots, it’s overpowering
- After chronic drug abuse and during withdrawl, brain dopamine function is markedly decreased
o But after a while, you get used to it
- Decreased brain dopamine function likely results in decreased sensitivity to natural reinforcers (sex, exercise, more “normal” things that make you happy, pale in comparison)
o When you try to eat more subtle food, you can’t taste it anymore, it’s not very interesting
Dopamine mediates the pleasure and reward pathway
- pre-frontal cortex is most heavily affected.
- Neurons (the axon allows communication between cells)
- Dopamine is released by one cell and is hooked on to the receptors on the next
Large and fast increases in dopamine are associated with the reinforcing effects of drugs
- things like cocaine keep the dopamine in the transerfer system, rather than it getting absorbed by the cells, so you get both a huge surge, and that surge lasts longer
After chronic drug abuse and during withdrawl, brain dopamine function is markedly decreased
- drugs have long-term consequences
- meth slowly shuts down parts of the brain that process dopamine, mostly the pre-frontal cortex
Decreased brain dopamine function likely results in decreased sensitivity to natural reinforcers (sex, exercise, more “normal” things that make you happy, pale in comparison)
- in drug users, normal pleasures don’t light up the brain anymore
- but drug immagry does…
The current theoretical model
- in drug addiction the value of drug and the stimuli is enhanced at the espense of other erinforcers
- the memory of the drug relate reward results in overactivation of the reward, membory and motivation
- it creates an unstable feedback loop, cutting out an element of control
Biological basis of addiction: Salience Model
Salience list model: pre exposure
- what’s important to you normally
o food, games, hainging out
o family, social network
o avoid danger
Post- exposure
- drug exposer becomes way WAY bigger than all the other ones, especially avoiding danger
- the others still exist, but they are in vastly smaller proportion to the drug cues
To help cure it, you want to extinguish drug cue and or block stress, as well as r-introduce normal importances
Proposed criteria for onoline gaming dependance
- preoccupation with online gamin
- needs to play for longer and longer time to achive excitement
- repeated unsuccessful efforts to control you play
- Lies to family, etc
- A sense of tension or arousal preceding online game playing followed by a sense of pleasure and satisfaction (and often relief) after playing
BY NO MEANS are the bulk of people experiencing addiction.
Is it just online gaming?
- the two types that people have the biggest problems with are MMOS and FPS
So, in gaming addiction, replace the drug cues with videogame cues (fueled by stress), in the salience model, and then similar modalities for treatment might follow.
Translational Studies
- comparable studies of most “addictive” games to evaluate biological mechanisms of behavioral change
- historical background of cognitive-behavioral therapy studies
- commercial, therapeutic, educational uses
Is there a co-morbidity between online gaming problems and substance abuse?
And, can you use the enjoyment that people get from games, can you actually use it in terms of a therapy? Get some fo the same brain changes that anti-depressants provide? Not really interested in vilifying it.
Nicholas Yee
Motivation & Seduction in MMORPGs
Survey study
- online surveys
- both open and close ended questions
- 6 years
- 400,000 participents
average agy = 26
median age 25
only 25% are teenagers
8-16% girls
50% full time workers
36% married
22% with children
80% play with someone they know
70% have spent more than 10 hourse straight in game
Average numbers / week = 20
8% , 40 or more hours / week
Age is not correlated with useage
Why do people play?
- there’s a set of statements he used to asses why people play
o power,
o friends
o leveling,
o etc
- if someone likes one of the things, what else are they likely to like? Those larger categories
o achievement
ß different forms of power
ß power, best gear, domination, status, optimization, mastery of the rules/ system
o Social
ß Socialization: chatting, helping others, friends
ß Relationship:
ß Teamwork
o Immersion
ß Discovery
ß RPing
ß Customization
ß Escapism
The bigger picture
- age difference
o younger players are more likely to be competitive than older players
o male players are more likely to be achievers, female relationship
o HOWEVER, there’s an 87% overlap in gender motivation. Only the extreme 7 % of either set of genders don’t overlap
So, people are playing very different games side-by-side
And they go in for one reason, but they may shift their motivations after initial play.
How does a game satisfy those desires?
Behavioral Conditioning
- BF Skinnner : skinner box
- Things are made satisfying through rewards
- In the beginning, it’s all instant gratification, until you get up to lvl 40 it takes days, those random arbitrary acts become satisfying
But it’s not interesting because it’s common to all games
In RL, people feel unsatisfied, they are unknown, online they get to be, they get to be respected, have prestige and status.
K-12 we are given specific rules for success. We know exactly where we are, and what the next step is, but RL doesn’t work that way. Its far more nebulous
In WoW, you have a neumerical value for success, you are always advancing and you don’t loose your progress. This is deeply comforting.
But this is why games are seductive, are they addictive?
What kinds of players are most likely to have problems with online games?
Gender and age:
- male players are more likely than females over all ages
- younger players of both genders are more likely overall
Predictors, which motivators?
- Escapism .31
- Hours / week .30
- Advancement .17
But the data is even more dire when we look at TV, so do we talk about video games in a very different way than we talk about TV or other media useage?
So, why do we only put certain kinds of behaviors in to surveys and not others?
Misleading comparisions
- liquor to gambling to WoW
- is asking “are you addicted to WoW” much like asking “are you addicted to the US?”
How did depression get branded as a technological problem?
The issues with Jobs. Lots of people have shitty jobs. They don’t have a lot of choice, and virtually than can be exciting people leading exciting lives, so is it pathological to prefer being where you have social status and respect?
The Problem:
- for a long time we’ve known that people are depressed, and they develop and express that problem in a lot of ways.
- The media likes to tell us that online gaming addicion is a new problem
- What’s new is the paranoia