Battling Addiction

China wants to stop the growing game addiction, which according to Chinese sources has caused at least one death and one real life killing. Dagbladet had an article on this, but you can also read about the Chinese plan to stop game addiction for instance in Financial Times.

The suggestion to start giving penalties to the character after 5 hours is interesting, but how realistic is it that this will work? I'd like to know what the experience is from for instance World of Warcraft where there is already a mild reward/penalty system in. When you log out, preferably at an in, there is a little sign at the experience point bar that starts moving to the right, and the colour of the bar changes from purple to blue. As long as you have a blue bar, you make double hitpoints from slaying beasts. The longer you are offline, the further to the right will the little sign move, and you will make double hitpoints for a longer time - and so boost your levelling speed by not playing.

You can however get the same effect from staying in a city and for instance trading. There is a auction house in Orgrimmar, and it is always packed. Horde players all have to go there in order to buy or sell items. And if you are clever you can buy ingredients, make them into objects and sell these with a profit, while your purple bar turns blue. Then you can go out and kill something again.

I guess the Chinese version of this will be a lot more drastic. I can't say I disagree either: while I don't think playing in itself is dangerous, I definitely think taking good breaks between sessions is healthy.

Unless you're a sane person who can control what she is doing, like me. Now excuse me, I have research to do.