Online Game (MMORPG) Addiction
My story of online game addiction.
Sooner or later, almost every person on the face of this earth will engage in a hobby or activity that they enjoy very much. This is natural, and should be appreciated when found. The problem begins when these activities overwhelm your mind and create a constant craving. This is known as addiction.
I’m here to share the story of my former video game addiction. My addiction first began when I was introduced by a friend to a free online game called Runescape, where you interact with massive amounts of people online, and compete to be the most powerful and rich player in the game.
I started out as a casual player, only getting online when my friends and I could all log on and hang out in the virtual world of Runescape. This casual playing soon started towards addiction as I began to play more and more each day, even when my friends weren’t on, so that I could surprise them and show them I had gained a few levels over them while they were offline. This trend continued as I began to explore new features of the game, including quests, leveling up, and most exciting of all the PvP system that was implemented in the game. I enjoyed playing Runescape very much, and before I knew it I was spending at least one hour a day to get from level thirty to thirty-one or thirty-two. Hardly did I know, this was just the beginning.
I began to explore the features of the wilderness in Runescape, and I realized I would need to be a lot stronger and a lot richer if I wanted to be one of the top dogs of Runescape. So of course, I began to invest A LOT more time into this game. I would have to get my magic level to sixty-five or my strength level to seventy if I wanted to be strong enough to beat the next opponent. I began spending hours and hours of time leveling up to get the experience points I needed to gain levels. I would come home right after school and log on to Runescape, get into the groove, and before I knew it, it was already 10:00 P.M. or later, and I hadn’t even done my homework yet! Unfortunately, this trend continued as I always told my parents I was doing homework or projects, so that I could spend more time on Runescape. I needed to be the best.
Every night I would play Runescape, until my parents forced me to get off of the computer. Yet after I had logged off, all I could think about was playing Runescape. I had become so involved in playing Runescape, that I had lost most of my friends, and despised when I had to go out with the family. The only thing I wanted to do was Runescape. I was addicted. Night after night, I would neglect to take care of my schoolwork, and ended up with lesser grades than I was entirely capable of.
Realizing that I had a serious problem, I set out on a mission to correct it. I figured I would quit Runescape, so I reluctantly and gnashingly dropped all of my wealth and logged off. That hadn’t helped much. Now I felt crappy and addicted, because I wanted to play AND all my items were gone. A few days later when I couldn’t resist the craving to play, I turned to another MMORPG, Guild Wars. I began as a ranger and moved quickly through the game. I created several characters and became heavily involved with other players in my guild through PvP. Every night we would set out to win fame in the Hall of Heroes, to earn the in-game title of Hero. Hours upon hours of every day would be spent playing in Heroes Ascent to earn this title. In short, a replacement game didn’t help. The process began all over again.
This addiction ended about two years ago, thanks to help from God, and the drive to totally abandon the path of video games. The most recent video game I’ve been involved in is Call of Duty 4, but when I realized I was spending too much time on it, I quickly withdrew and uninstalled it. The BEST advice I can give you is to steer clear from online MMORPG’s, if you want to be in control of your life. If you like video games, console games which don’t involve competing with other players to accomplish long term goals in a virtual world are your best bet.
Thanks to my loss of video games, I have gained many more friends, much more fun in life, as well as involvement in many more hobbies ranging from blogging, drawing, and acting, to parkour/freerunning, longboarding, and actually hanging out. Most important of all I can truly have a better relationship with God and Saviour.
This game, let’s just say I’m glad I never dabbled in this:
Image via Wikipedia
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Great story.
I play(ed) this game to for hours..
but I’m now start play it less. I wont think I would quit the game, cause nothing is bad if its not to much;)
But it surely was a nice article to read!
i’ve been addicted to runescape and guild wars too:P
Very nice article. Most of us have probably been there. It can be exteremyl difficult to give it up, but like you mentioned, you look back on yourself and see what you had, and what you have now. It is incredible what those MMORPG can do to people.
Well done. Keep it on.
Me Too! But now Runescape to me is a boring game. So i play it a lot less.
I used to be addicted, but now it’s all good
Great story.
Resource for those seeking addiction recovery – free search for local treatment centers and recovery professionals at http://www.addicted.com
Very nice story. I suffered from the same thing in runescape, then i was addicted to xbox. It’s horriblebut I don’t know what to do. But yeah, that was a nice article and congratulations on your strength to quit!
Thanks alot guys! and lots of support to those who are trying to quit. Just keep going. It may seem hard, but the best thing you can do is stay out of the house for as long as possible and find other things to get involved in, until you begin to lose the desire for the games altogether.
As a matter of fact, if you play online through a console and are highly addicted, just sell or trade in the game you are addicted to. If you are addicted to a MMOPRG for computer, I suggest deleting your account and walking away. If you are on runescape you can’t do that, so I got myself banned by running a macro and auto-talking.It was the best decision I’ve ever made. You’re going to crave to play no matter what you do, it’s just the state of recovery. The total BEST thing you can do like I posted above is to get out of the house, and if you can hang at your friend’s houses for a while or find a group activity that involves something highly enjoyable do that. Do something that will help you manage your spare time, until you can manage it yourself. For example take a tae kwan do or drawing class. Find a basketball pickup league. Find a friend and join the gym. If you’re not heavy into physical activity, try finding a group of people who enjoy watching UFC, or reading manga. Whatever you do explore your interests, and DON’T play no matter how hard the craving is.
Runescape never had an effect on me, I started it, played for 30 minutes, and the graphics itself set me free.
The only games I were ever really really addicted to was Counter Strike and Mu Online.
Good story though, but Im pretty sure you wont get to addicted to COD4, you can only reach level 50 which is easy, and then there is no fun left in it.
Runescape wasn’t even fun after a while. I was playing solely on addiction. I wasn’t having fun, but the hope that I would have fun once I gained levels of 99 was what somehow held me in. It’s quite ridiculous really.
I was addicted to MapleStory for a while. I would get up at around 2:00 in the morning before school to start up the game and play a few more hours than the night before before I woke up my dad up at around 7:30. I eventually just got bored, with the help of my computer crapping itself and aborting the game too many times. I still play it on and off.
I did the same thing with RuneScape before I found MapleStory. I’m more addicted to creating art and filmmaking now. I still find myself on the computer for hours a day, but usually just to finish editing my movies.
Yes, I do spend a good bit of time on the computer each day also, but that includes reading ebooks and articles, posting blogs, conversing on forums, watching videos, taking care of college work, getting on facebook, so on and so on. There’s a ton of things that can be done on the computer outside of video games.
MMORPGs don’t get you addicted. It’s your personal lack of self control that get you addicted to video games. Notice how no matter what game you played you got hooked? That doesn’t mean they’re evil. That means you have to suck it up and learn when to stop.
This is very true MassterGee, and the only way for me to suck it up was to completely stop altogether. For many other people it is the same way. Whenever I made a deal with myself to play for a limited amount of time, I’d go along with it for a while but shortly after, I’d find myself spending just a little bit more time each day than I had originally planned, until it once again became excessive play. These things are very difficult to control, and if you can control yourself, I congratulate you for having the strength, but as for others such as myself, it required stopping altogether.
awesome job dude…i know for a while my lifestyle pushed me to get addicted to runescape just to escape life and feel stronger because of the game….life is way better without it tho
so true i got into runescape and other stuff, but i never got addicted… i had all A’s i was about in the 4 th grade and through 6th then i stopped. well in about 8th grade my friend introduced me to oblivian and mods..MODS killed me. even after i beat the game Mods added something new to keep me interested. I began to be a modder, i would mod anything i could CSS, Halo, COD, and anything i could. i would spend hours a day to make a perfect looking weapon. fallout 3 came out and i was spending too much time on it , i would stay up all night after sneaking on the PC ON A SCHOOL NIGHT i would skip most of my homework or do a really crappy job, i didnt study and my grades dropped from a average 3.5 GPA to a 2.5 GPA, i was gwetting C’s and B’s instead of A’s …… well i had to go to summer school and thats when i decided i was done with video games..
havent played video games in a while……BUT the good thing i got out of this was that i learned how to model , texture, etc… after i showed my dad one of my weapon models and textures he asked my to make a logo for his boss because of their new website… i made it and he paid me $200 !@! i was amazed on how well it turned out, so i began searching for companies that needed a online graphic designer for websites… i now do a part time graphic art job.. making anywher from $100 – $500 a month at age 16
ok i’ve tryed to quit many, many times and for the most part you can quit, and i now can quit when i want to, and for at least runescape the best way is to just stop, and after a while you just stop wanting to play for one reason or another.
Precisely Alex.
Yeah, I was addicted to runescape. Thank god I’m smart (not trying to brag) and I could finish my schoolwork very quickly if I neglected it. In the end after a few years of playing rs, it was rs that quit me. not me that quit rs. i just got tired f it. There was no fun anymore.
I’ve been also addicted on various games but I realized that my life was almost ruined. Now, even though I still playing games, I make sure that I still have time for other life concerns. I’ve been very thankful that I’ve read this article http://www.sooperarticles.com/gaming-articles/kicking-habit-6253.html which helped me to kick off my gaming habit. Hope you’ll understand that too much is very unhealthy.
i was addicted to world of warcraft and i just final got myself off it i havent played in over a month now and i hope to keep it that way all the things you say are true my life is turning down a better path now
http://ab.sin.mybrute.com
Glad to hear that Zaza! Stay strong in the battle of addiction-free living!!!!
so in reality
you left a virtual world with real people
to get back to a relationship with an imaginary person
Those are foolish words. It’s easy to believe things that you can perceive through the natural senses that God has created for you. The real challenge comes in having faith. We have never ventured out into another galaxy, yet we know that they go on forever. How can we prove that they exist if we don’t go there? We can’t so we have faith that the universe goes on infinitely. I suggest you do the same for God. He offers eternal life and freedom to those who are addicted to things they don’t want to be addicted to and a hope and purpose in life. He also loves you very much, and wishes for you to live with Him for eternity in Heaven!
http://christianity.about.com/od/newchristians/p/becomechristian.htm