It's no secret, certainly not in the game design industry that Game Developers use psychology when determining how to make video games. The question I've been thinking about lately is how they go about doing so.
If you pay attention to MMOs you see certain things that are consistent across the board. The some form of the Random Loot Drop, for example, is found in virtually every single MMO regardless of genre. Even when it would make absolutely no sense from a player perspective, this mechanic is pushed on us. This is why Klingons drop chocolate deserts.
Well, what is the random loot drop and why is it so prevalent? Here's how it's described in the article "Five Creepy Ways Video Games are trying to get you Addicted" from Cracked magazine:
"#3. Making You Press the Lever
So picture the rat in his box. Or, since I'm one of these gamers and don't like to think of myself as a rat, picture an adorable hamster. Maybe he can talk, and is voiced by Chris Rock.
If you want to make him press the lever as fast as possible, how would you do it? Not by giving him a pellet with every press--he'll soon relax, knowing the pellets are there when he needs them. No, the best way is to set up the machine so that it drops the pellets at random intervals of lever pressing. He'll soon start pumping that thing as fast as he can. Experiments prove it.
They call these "Variable Ratio Rewards" in Skinner land and this is the reason many enemies "drop" valuable items totally at random in WoW. This is addictive in exactly the same way a slot machine is addictive. You can't quit now because the very next one could be a winner. Or the next. Or the next."
The purpose of this "variable ratio reward" isn't to create "Fun" if that's what you're wondering. It is to create a "pattern of behavior". I'm not certain I would call it addiction, but it comes undeniably close. And it's intentional. I consider this unethical and it's something STO engages in.
Selling "imaginary" things for real money is nothing new. People have been selling what amounts to pipe dreams for ages. What's new is RENTING imaginary things for real money. There's a reason we use "Cryptic Points" or "Atari Points" instead of them saying "Buy an imaginary Star Ship for $24.00", a Star Ship that sells for roughly two times or more the cost of the entire rest of the game.
What is also rarely discussed is that you do not actually purchase the Ship. You rent it, for as long as Cryptic allows you to (which could be years and years, or 3:00pm tomorrow afternoon).
Taken out of the skinner box game developers have created this would seem insane. I can think of no other industry that engages in such a practice. Even movie companies, which license their products cannot show up at your door and demand you give back the DVDs you bought.
However, not only can video game companies do this, they can do so and not offer you a refund. They could sell your entire family lifetime subscriptions today, shut down the service tomorrow, and laugh all the way to the bank and according to their EULA, you could do nothing about it. You get nothing. You can say "Why would a Game Developer do such a thing?".
Well, that's obvious. Money.
This is not troubling in and of itself. "Microtrans" has been around for some time and isn't going away. What is new is the creation of intentionally unfun mechanics in an effort to bolster their bottom line. There is slim to nothing "fun" about emblem grind. In fact, it's rather tedious. Which is, I expect, intentional. Players in the know, if they grind every single day for several hours a day, can put together enough emblems to "purchase" a single ship, for a single account in a month.
It is as this stage that "players" will start to tell you you need to learn to "work" for things. However, if I am working for something, rather than playing for something... am I not now a Worker rather than a Player? We have now reached the point that I am paying Cryptic Studios (or any other MMO that engages in this practice) $15.00 a month to, as some ersatz players suggest, "work" for them.
I can understand achieving goals, and overcoming challenges. I believe that's a part of what many people would describe as "Fun". However, Emblem Grind is not "fun". It's not overcoming a challenge so much as ensuring that I will continue paying out funds as I "work" for my ship.
I've been following STO for a few months now, and I've noticed something. Honestly consider just how much actual content has been released to subscribing players in the past few months. Outside of a what amounts to a relatively small collection of missions (How long did it take you to redo the entire Breen Episode? Two or three hours? Keep in mind, if I remember right The Breen Repeatables alone were crafted by Dstahl when he had some extra time. After using the Mission Creator it's clear that it does not take especially long to create content in this game, given how simplistic this games mechanics are) Virtually nothing. With one exception. The Foundry.
Now, why is that? From what I understand the players have been clamoring for something like the Foundry for months. However, the Players have been clamoring for many things for months. Why release the foundry for free when virtually everything else requires you pony up on the C Store?
The beauty of it seems obvious. In the best tradition of Tom Sawyer Cryptic Studios is now charging its players to develop content for Cryptic Studios which Cryptic Studios then charges other players to play.
Though it may seem like I am "picking on" cryptic studios, I'm not. These behaviors are actually becoming increasingly common in game development.
A recent example is "Civilization V", a game that many of its players describe as a significant departure in quality for the series, now engages in selling to its player base what would otherwise be described as features such as new Civilizations and improved map scripts while it has yet to actually incorporate the multiplayer features that were promised at launch.
This isn't only something I've noticed, even members of the video game industry itself have decried these increasingly immoral practices. One independent game developer said:
"That kind of reward system is very easily turned into a Pavlovian or Skinnerian scheme," he says. "It's considered best practice: schedule rewards for your player so that they don't get bored and give up on your game. That's actually exploitation."
Developers should provide activities that interest players "rather than stringing them along with little pieces of candy so that they'll suffer through terrible game play, but keep playing because they gain levels or new items", he says.
"I think a lot of modern game design is actually unethical, especially massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, because they are predicated on player exploitation,"
Even the forums are based on this same "Skinner" scheme, the bits and pieces of data released while doing their utmost to never provide information on actual release dates (a common tactic is to blame this on player rage, because players will rage out if the date isn't met... but game developers routinely wreck things with nerfs, "rebalancing" etc etc... They aren't afraid of making the players angry. They want to keep the players baited and hooked, and not knowing WHEN the changes will come breeds the same sort of response that the random loot drop does).
All in all, I believe modern game design is becoming an increasingly and disturbingly unethical practice. I call on the developers of this game to remove the "pavlovian" aspects of their game and produce a game that is less exploitive in its function.
I admire Cracked.com as a humorous and satirical website.
However, there are a few holes in their logic (since the argument about the skinner's box has been posited before by the creator of Braid, there's a lot of response to it). The independent developer you mention is Jonathan Blow.
Unfortunately, my examples of other social organizations that operate like a Skinner's Box would violate community standards (or, at least, offend more delicate sensibilities). So, not sure if this is a discussion that'll go somewhere good.
One might argue, however, that STO's leveling is significantly faster than WoW or EQ2 and, therefore, more moral than those games. (The criticisms of STO's easy leveling might actually benefit it now).
The beauty of it seems obvious. In the best tradition of Tom Sawyer Cryptic Studios is now charging its players to develop content for Cryptic Studios which Cryptic Studios then charges other players to play.
I'm not sure how you can successfully argue the game is like a skinner's box when the players have access to the mechanisms to create non-grinding content.
Selling "imaginary" things for real money is nothing new. People have been selling what amounts to pipe dreams for ages. What's new is RENTING imaginary things for real money. There's a reason we use "Cryptic Points" or "Atari Points" instead of them saying "Buy an imaginary Star Ship for $24.00", a Star Ship that sells for roughly two times or more the cost of the entire rest of the game.
I could say a great deal about imaginary things being sold... I'll keep them to myself considering forum guidelines.
They call these "Variable Ratio Rewards" in Skinner land and this is the reason many enemies "drop" valuable items totally at random in WoW. This is addictive in exactly the same way a slot machine is addictive. You can't quit now because the very next one could be a winner. Or the next. Or the next."
Careful there, you 're overstating evidence. Addiction would mean that a chemical dependency has been created in the player (and I haven't seen any data supporting video games as a causal link to addiction, only positive correlation -- which is distinct from causality).
A recent example is "Civilization V", a game that many of its players describe as a significant departure in quality for the series, now engages in selling to its player base what would otherwise be described as features such as new Civilizations and improved map scripts while it has yet to actually incorporate the multiplayer features that were promised at launch.
A reasonably well-informed consumer would wait to see if features were included and vote with their pocketbook. Buying any software at launch (just like hardware) is a gamble.
It is as this stage that "players" will start to tell you you need to learn to "work" for things. However, if I am working for something, rather than playing for something... am I not now a Worker rather than a Player? We have now reached the point that I am paying Cryptic Studios (or any other MMO that engages in this practice) $15.00 a month to, as some ersatz players suggest, "work" for them.
Here's a big flaw in this argument: $15 pricing per month has remained steady, despite increased development times and needs for specialized labor. Not only that, the market is more competitive than when the $15/month model was established in the 1990s. Saying that this fee should remain the same, despite inflation, rising labor costs, and increased competition (and therefore, more marketing), one can only assume that there's quite a bit to lose by only having a $15/mo fee.
All in all, I believe modern game design is becoming an increasingly and disturbingly unethical practice. I call on the developers of this game to remove the "pavlovian" aspects of their game and produce a game that is less exploitive in its function.
I'm not quite following what's so disturbed.
I haven't seen any peer-reviewed research establishing a causal link between addiction and video games (at best, positive correlation -- at worst, no correlation).
One can very easily argue that extreme sports offer a more addictive component, adrenalin rushes cross the blood-brain barrier but I'm not about to tell you to stop skydiving...
Some would call that a business model. After all, you are only going to buy a car that looks good, or a smartphone that works well. Having a game that rewards player is par for the course. In the old days the reward was a score; today it is a relatively meaningless drop. I'd hardly call it something to get addicted to.
That being said, the special rewards of the feature series will bring people back to the game. But again, most would call that Cryptic doing what makes business sense. Cryptic only has one responsibility: make Atari money. If they fail to do that, then the rest is moot.
Way-way-waaaaayyyyy overhinking things dude .
Games had "drops/rewards" all the way back to Packman . It's something to strive for (same as a higher score or finishing the level) or else what do you play for ?
Pure bliss is not on a gamers roster , so you have to settle for achivments/score/rewards .
I've never been tricked into thinking the stripper really wanted to hang out with me. Sometimes people know the score when they opt into an arrangement. Are you really surprised that an industry of some type has found a formula that works.
Why call on Crypic to stop when you really should call upon the player base to stop rewarding them with their money. But that wont happen because most people are ok with their Pavlovian distractions.
is making a game addictive, immoral?? or does not allowing us to own the data on a sever that we cant physical own even if we wanted to, makes it unethical? again i would say no. id damn well hope that computer games are addictive. i need you people to keep funding this game that i love.
sure cryptic benefits from the foundry, you know who else benefits? the players. the players also get to make what ever mission they want, to what ever standard they want with no input from CBS. We have total freedom and the people who like the foundry, really like the foundry. we are having more fun than before for the same amount of money....hmmmm naughty cryptic for increasing our fun levels. :rolleyes:
cryptic have hit lucky in that people want ships and costumes. these ships and costume are a small part of the production schedule but they bring in a lot of revenue. its a big win for them, but the revenue seems to be going back into the game as they want to increase their dev size and make more free content for us. as long as the money benefits the game i say let them continue. it still remains to be seen how it will all play out but people probably wont be complaining as much if they start to pull off these 10 FE series a year plus seasonal updates.
should they stop what ever it is you think they are doing. in my opinion, no.
I've never been tricked into thinking the stripper really wanted to hang out with me. Sometimes people know the score when they opt into an arrangement. Are you really surprised that an industry of some type has found a formula that works.
Why call on Crypic to stop when you really should call upon the player base to stop rewarding them with their money. But that wont happen because most people are ok with their Pavlovian distractions.
A lot of the OP is riddled with strawman arguments. here's an argument similar to the skinner box presented above)
They've tried for years to pin school shootings on Doom (which actually has a better argument for Skinner Box dependency)
it rewards you for violence
you develop addiction to violence
????
you become violent
????
cable news has stories to fill their 24 hour schedules
The problem is that there isn't a causal link. Violence crime in the US has decreased during the same time period that violent videogames have increased. One might argue that there is inverse correlation (not causation) between violent video games and violent crime (i.e. crimes have dropped, games have risen during the past 20 years in the US).
From what i did read, do you have any understanding of the business world in general?
Forgot this, there has been NO conclussive evidence that links violence in video games with creating violenece in the real world, there might be some in-direct link but what people and idiots who spout that forget is they need to look at the Real Life Environment of the people
A MMO is a game that the developer/publisher puts out in order gain X amount of revenue from a target audience, that said...They will do what it takes to entice the consumer to play that game...for instance You have WoW and its easiest, you got Rift, you got Here with vet rewards etc....
Most people, I included enjoy those bonuses, that why i shelled out big bucks last month to become a lifer...If you dont and see it as a scheme then i am afraid you shouldnt even be playing....there is nothing wrong or immoral about how a MMO operates, or how even STO operates....
finally, to re-dress this, this is a business it has a certain model to work on, it is not a charity how they game functions is soley to bring in revenue so that X Y Z are happy....and if that means C-Store, Vet Rewards, etc so be it...there is nothing immoral about that, its called *hold your breath* competition which is good for the MMO market and allows a game to find its Niche
Another gaping hole in the logic is that C-store actually bypasses the grind element.
The c-store is actually loathed by the community since it allows you to bypass the alleged Skinner's Box. (i.e. You don't have to grind - you can unsubscribe for a month and then purchase the thing you would grind for but for less, presumably able to work more hours and spend time with your family instead of playing exploration missions).
A lot of the OP is riddled with strawman arguments:
They've tried for years to pin school shootings on Doom
it rewards you for violence
you develop addiction to violence
????
you become violent
????
cable news has stories to fill their 24 hour schedules
The problem is that there isn't a causal link. Violence crime in the US has decreased during the same time period that violent videogames has increased. One might argue that there is inverse correlation (not causation) between violent video games and violent crime (i.e. crimes have dropped, games have risen during the past 20 years in the US).
yeah its too easy to blame games for every bodies ills. the new one is now sports computer games are to blame, as the reaction in your brain from scoring a goal/try/touchdown is more intense than when you 'kill someone' in game.
our entire civilization is about to be destroyed by sports.
when they mayans said the world would end in the year 2012, they meant by Maddon 2012
So, does this mean your free 30-days are up and you are upset you have to pay to play now?
I think many in the community are upset that the C-store allows you to skip the grind.
Which, paradoxically, undermines the entire first argument in the OP that the game is too "grindy" and builds addiction (to which no proof is offered, aside from Cracked.com - yes, the comedy website with sharp, witty writers who don't actually endorse everything they write as true, not much to base a claim of ethos off of).
I think many in the community are upset that the C-store allows you to skip the grind.
Which, paradoxically, undermines the entire first argument in the OP that the game is too "grindy" and builds addiction (to which no proof is offered, aside from Cracked.com - yes, the comedy website with sharp, witty writers who don't actually endorse everything they write as true, not much to base a claim of ethos off of).
Meh, to each his own. If Cryptic wants to sell shortcuts, why remove a potential income source? Making the game shorter does the player no favors; so if the player wants to pay for the shortcut, they are only hurting themselves. But again, their choice. So I fail to see the problem.
I just took note of the OP's join date and put that together with what sounds like a complaint of Cryptic making a game that is "addictive" that requires you to cough up money to play. Which is odd when you consider the sub rate is equal to two-hour's work at minimum wage. This led me to my previous conclusion.
Meh, to each his own. If Cryptic wants to sell shortcuts, why remove a potential income source? Making the game shorter does the player no favors; so if the player wants to pay for the shortcut, they are only hurting themselves. But again, their choice. So I fail to see the problem.
I'm merely pointing out the flaw in the OP's reasoning (i.e. ways to bypass a grind can't support the conclusion that the game is a grind, it's a non-sequitur -- the logic doesn't follow).
MMO's have loot/leveling (or carrots on sticks) for simple reasons: without added flavour MMO's are just another FPS with a monthly subscription fee. No one is going to pay monthly for a game thats only cosmetically different from a game that doesn't require monthly sub.
But MMO require monthly subs to keep up the servers. Unlike a lot of fps where the player base has to host the servers. Player hosted servers are less secure opening more doors for hacks and exploits, which are well known to be a big issue for many fps.
The problem with the kind of hacks/exploits less secure private servers allow compared to provided servers for MMOs (rather then fps) is MMOs have a lot more room for these hacks/exploits to create long term damage. A hack/exploit in a fps affects a few scoreboards, then they are fixed/banned, and there are no long term side effects. Hacks/exploits in games with gear/currency/achievements can create long term consequences that require staff (requiring even more $$ from subscriptions) to resolve/monitor.
If you dont like the flavour differences between MMOs (carrots) and FPS then save yourself some money, and play something else.
The early stages of dating actually release chemicals into the blood stream (romantic attraction generally revolves around dopamine receptors). One might argue that love is a skinner's box with actual chemical withdrawal when the addiction to the individual is not met (due to break-up, being apart, etc.). However, love can later morph into endorphin responses (largely seen in older or established couples) - so that's be analogous to learning to stop worrying and just loving the skinner's box. This line of reasoning is fairly absurd to me and it can be better documented.
While not completely agreeing with the OP there are many fundamentally accurate critiques of game design as being only partially ethical that I do agree with. The random drop and the grind are two that I do have a problem with myself because only in the realm of the MMO do you see them and they really prey well on the obessive and the completist.
Think about your typical single player game. You find out that there's a really cool hard to get sword that will make the game more fun. You can:
a) Spend hours playing the game JUST right to get the sword.
b) Use a hack or cheat to get the sword.
However in an MMO there is no such hack or cheat, you MUST spend hours at it. What I also find intersting is that very very very few game designers will say "yes, grinding tradeskills is fun". Really is it fun to run from one side of the zone to the other for 4 hours? Fortunately most games have the social aspect to keep it from being too much of a chore as you can chat while you do that but in the end, it's not fun or exciting.
Leveling up isn't a new concept in gaming. But in a single player game you have to make the process fun or people either won't play game (save the completionsists) or they'll cheat their way up. In an MMO though, where you don't have the option to skip ahead, the level becomes the incentive and actual entertaining gameplay becomes less important.
I personally don't slight any game developers. However I think that the constraints of MMO's (ie trying to be balanced for all builds) limit how well they can focus on fun first to make the gameplay itself engaging in and of itself.
The true test of good ethical design, I think, is to ask how many people would continue to play if the reward system (ie leveling and getting gear) were stripped down and removed. If the answer leads to a substantial number of people quitting, then the game lacks.
I think many in the community are upset that the C-store allows you to skip the grind.
Which, paradoxically, undermines the entire first argument in the OP that the game is too "grindy" and builds addiction (to which no proof is offered, aside from Cracked.com - yes, the comedy website with sharp, witty writers who don't actually endorse everything they write as true, not much to base a claim of ethos off of).
I would like you to reconsider this argument from an alternative perspective. Instead of "The Cash let's you skip the grind", consider "The Grind causes you to want to spend cash". This raises the unkind question "Would the developers then create grind in an effort to increase the likelihood of the player spending cash?".
Or, put another way
"Are the game developers creating unfun mechanics in an effort increase their income".
This seems counter intuitive, but.. as an example from the same above article:
The Chinese MMO ZT Online has the most devious implementation of this I've ever seen. The game is full of these treasure chests that may or may not contain a random item and to open them, you need a key. How do you get the keys? Why, you buy them with real-world money, of course. Like coins in a slot machine.
Wait, that's not the best part. ZT Online does something even the casinos never dreamed up: They award a special item at the end of the day to the player who opens the most chests.
And that's hardly the most ridiculous aspect of the game.
Now, in addition to the gambling element, you have thousands of players in competition with each other, to see who can be the most obsessive about opening the chests. One woman tells of how she spent her entire evening opening chests--over a thousand--to try to win the daily prize.
She didn't. There was always someone else more obsessed.
Are you picturing her sitting there, watching her little character in front of the chest, clicking dialogue boxes over and over, watching the same animation over and over, for hour after hour?
If you didn't know any better, you'd think she had a crippling mental illness. How could she possibly get from her rational self to that Rain Man-esque compulsion?
BF Skinner knew. He called that training process "shaping." Little rewards, step by step, like links in a chain. In WoW you decide you want the super cool Tier 10 armor. You need five separate pieces. To get the full set, you need more than 400 Frost Emblems, which are earned a couple at a time, from certain enemies. Then you need to upgrade each piece of armor with Marks of Sanctification. Then again with Heroic Marks of Sanctification. To get all that you must re-run repetitive missions and sit, clicking your mouse, for days and days and days.
Once it gets to that point, can you even call that activity a "game" anymore? It's more like scratching a rash. And it gets worse...
...........
What about the above described mechanic seems "fun"? It seems more the manipulation of a compulsion, and comes uncomfortably close to outright gambling.
STO does not have a duplicate mechanic for the Chinese MMO, but it does have a variety of mechanics that are unnervingly close to the WoW mechanic. What the above example does show is that game companies are wholly willing to create "unfun mechanics" because it's not the "fun" keeping players around. It's the compulsion.
Consider "Accolades": Accolades have been springing up in virtually every MMO out there. Accolades are rarely about actual skill and only sometimes about genuinely "achieving" something (such as being the first to conquer a certain boss, or the first time you yourself conquer that boss.
Instead, Accolades are about "How much time you have spent engage in this activity". How much time have you spent healing, how much time have you spent shooting with this or that weapon. How much damage you have taken. Why is the player being rewarded for getting shot?
What they are rewarding, and encouraging is players to spend time in game as a means to satisfy our natural hording instinct.
I came across one player who had spent the entire day completely the over world enemy encounters because he'd get an accolade for it. He'd just sit there, wait for the enemies to show up, kill them. Rinse and repeat. The overwhelming majority of time was just spent sitting there. Why? For a single accolade.
There is a case here. My other half is obsessed with collectable pets and achievements in WoW. She would log in day after day and do the most mind numbing things knowing that they were boring JUST so she could have the achievement or the special semi rare mount.
The challenge of the ethics is that it's hard to call it unethical as we are consenting partners, to a degree. No one is MAKING us buy or play the games. How do you mandate that a game company make a "fun" product when the market ~should~ determine how sales go; a fun product will sell, an unfun won't.
Good design is built to keep us playing as long as possible, well past the "end" of the game, thus the introduction of marks and the like. Anything to keep us grinding, to keep us coming back and to keep us feeling like we're moving forward.
I think humans are drawn to the idea of "Progress" more than hording and those little markers are the key.
I won't say it's unethical but I will say that I"ve walked away from games taht weren't fun for me anymore and come back to see if they were again. Sometimes they are, sometimes not.
However I think that there ~IS~ absolutely a fair critique in the nature of the treadmill that MMO's create strictly to keep us coming back. Is it unethical? I say that's a matter for debate, but I don't think the debate is closed on either side.
It seems to me as long as we have free will to play or not, to see a service, in this case a game, that we may use our funds upon, or to go elsehwere, that most strategies used to encourage (NOT FORCE) people to utilize and pay for said services seems reasonable and ethical.
If people lack free will, then there is no ethical dilema then either, free will is a prerequist for being a person.
The game would be immoral, and Cryptic unethical, if they tied you down and forced you to play it (and pay for it).
No one makes you buy crack. No one makes you put coins into a slot machine. No one makes you sign tricky contracts in blood.
Although there's no MMO on earth as addictive as crack, they bear a striking resemblance to slot machines, and with as soul sucking as some MMOs are... well the notion of the tricky contract signed in blood isn't quite as comical as it otherwise should be.
It's not a question if anyone makes us do anything. However, people can be psychologically manipulated and sometimes that manipulation can be unethical.
There's a difference between putting an advertisement in a parents magazine touting the health benefits of your food for their children, and putting an advertisement in the middle of a youngster's tv show telling that little boy or girl that if they don't eat your food the other children will ridicule them.
Using psychological manipulation to exploit players to play a game even when it's not especially fun by tapping into natural hoarding instincts, for example, is something I would consider unethical.
Using "Shaping" to program a human being into repetitively performing a "trick" (that's really all these behaviors amount to, tricks, complete with treat at the end) is something I consider unethical.
No one makes you buy crack. No one makes you put coins into a slot machine. No one makes you sign tricky contracts in blood.
Although there's no MMO on earth as addictive as crack, they bear a striking resemblance to slot machines, and with as soul sucking as some MMOs are... well the notion of the tricky contract signed in blood isn't quite as comical as it otherwise should be.
It's not a question if anyone makes us do anything. However, people can be psychologically manipulated and sometimes that manipulation can be unethical.
There's a difference between putting an advertisement in a parents magazine touting the health benefits of your food for their children, and putting an advertisement in the middle of a youngster's tv show telling that little boy or girl that if they don't eat your food the other children will ridicule them.
Using psychological manipulation to exploit players to play a game even when it's not especially fun by tapping into natural hoarding instincts, for example, is something I would consider unethical.
Using "Shaping" to program a human being into repetitively performing a "trick" (that's really all these behaviors amount to, tricks, complete with treat at the end) is something I consider unethical.
If you can be manipulated so easily, you deserve it.
First you need to understand that gaming at it's essence has an unethical bend to it. I mean lets go back to the roots, DnD where a brave Paladin, the paragon of Good walks into the slums of the fictional world to hunt down a family just because they are of a different race, beat the TRIBBLE out of them and steal their stuff.
Game design by it's essence in the video gaming world rewards violence and even outright theft.
As for the game mechanics and the companies lets look at that for a moment.
The concept of gaming addiction is something that has been around for a while and tends to be less about the game and more about the physiological effect it has on the person. In the case of the MMOs the specifics are not even the game. Oh don't get me wrong MMOs are fun and the chance to see what is over the next level or expansion pact is a driving force however it is not the primary force.
You see there is a dirty little secret that no one wants to mention, in the grand scheme of gaming MMOs suck. Now I am not talk about the play style of anything I mean the actual games. They are tones down so that they run on more systems and overly simplified to keep the lowest common denomintor happy, in the purest of game aspects they are lame and dull.
The factor that plays into the additiction and the thing that keeps most of us coming back is the social interaction aspect. You doubt the power of the social interaction, Farmville has over 5 million players A DAY! This slaps the MMO giant WoW around in the volume of game turn out. The game litterally sucks and yet 5 million plus people every day get on the play with close to 5 times that many signed up and active. All for one thing, the pure social aspect.
I cannot tell you how many MMO players I know, or that we all know that will continue to play a lame and old MMO because of the their guild members. THIS is the adictive part of MMOing.
Are game companies immoral for using this fact to generate revenue? Not any more that soda companies for playing off the thrist driving factors of using cola, or McDonalds making a profit from the desire for quick easy food. We as consumers have choices and we make them with our wallets.
In fact I would go farther and say that in the grand scheme of gaming the MMO model is the least immoral method of charging for a game. Basically you pay for a basic game and then your subscription fees pay for a steady supply of expansions to the game. Game store items allow us to customize the game in small ways to fit our specific gaming desires.
Now I invite you to compare this to a single game franchise, that won numerous awards over the years and had amazing sales, Madden Football. Every year we where forced to buy the entire game again with MINOR changes that amounted to next to nothing in order to get the new years roster. We could not choose which of the many useless additions to the games we would want to pay for, we paid for all of them if we wanted them or not and in essence repurchased the same game every year for just the rosters. Talk about a rip off.
Now I know the argument that is bound to follow crying foul on this because we are only talking about $50 per year compared to the around $100 per year of an MMO fro the savy consumer. However think about something, in the course of a year the MMO grew more than double in it's material and often made real changes to the game, improving it. Madden in the mean time was half the cost but less than 10% in real change.
In fact all solo games have begun to go down hill. With only a few exception these types of games usually only have about 20 hours of good play time in them . (As I said there are exceptions) Yet show me an MMO player that has stuck with an MMO and not put in hundreds of hours. Usually that time is within the first year. So we have 5 times the play time at only 2x the cost, again a bargain using common sense math.
At the end of the day I would think calling game makers unethical is just bunk. Game makers just make a product, be it an MMO, a stand alone of a social game. We the player make the choice to play or not to play and how much we choose to spend is entriely up to us.
If I believed the fundamentals of the Skinner's Box argument in the OP, then I would have to also consider that western notions of romantic love actually have a stronger correlation to chemical receptors within the body and dependency.
So, if the OP is correct, then love is immoral... and it works on dopamine receptors much more than gaming.
I can link to medical studies and peer reviewed research, which isn't something done when Cracked.com is the only informal citation and everything thing in direct quotes (read: Jonathan Blow's comments concerning gaming) isn't cited at all... but, hey, it's a big uncaring universe that could sneeze and wipe us all out but we choose to live despite of it all as an act of rebellion, ala Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus.
However, let's look at the logical flow:
A1. Game uses grinds to reward players
A2. Gamers develop liking to unlikable gameplay to get rewards
[*]C1. Game is a skinner's box
A3. ???????
[*]C2. Skinner's Boxes are immoral
A4. STO uses grinds
[*]C3. STO is a immoral for grinds in A4
A5. STO allows you to skip grinds.
SA1. These use less money than would be spent trying to grind for them
SC2. Less money means a reasonable player could unsubscribe for a month
[*]C4. STO is immoral since it allows players due to A5
C4 and C3 are indirect opposition to each other. Both statements are mutually exclusive: either a game forces a grind on the player or it doesn't. You can't bypass that element through using less money than it would take to grind (and thereby be freed to spend time with your family, work at an equally grinding job, etc.) and still contend that STO forces a grind.
Furthermore, the entirety of the argument (rather condescendingly) says that a player can't intrinsically like repetitive gameplay: yet there are gamers across the world who conduct "speedruns" in games to try and hammer out the same, repetitive commands to beat the game in the fastest time. By completely ignoring this, the OP slights anyone who might enjoy repetitive (i.e. familiar parts of play).
Actually, take a good hard look at some of the more "negative" aspects of Farmville. If you DON'T log into Farmville everyday (someone correct me if I'm wrong about htis) the work you've managed to accomplish thus far will begin to fade away. The crops you worked hard to bring to life will wither and die, for example.
So no longer is the player simply being rewarded for logging into the game... they are now being PUNISHED for NOT logging into the game. (See: Veteran Rewards. You didn't keep your subscription current? Then you lose, friend. You lose. Seriously, think about it for what it is. It's an advertising shill, nothing more. It's like buy six cappacinos, get one free. Only difference is they never tell you that. They never come right out and say "We're doing this expressly so you'll give us more of your money, not because it improves the quality of the game)".
But... the real crux of your post was "Social Aspects of MMOs". This is another unusual thing when you get right down to it. Now, I'm going to hold back on saying MMOs actually foster cult like behavior, I'd like to think it's not that extreme. However, I would not be surprised.
People need to be social. They need human interaction. Follow the path on this one. At first the player simply gets hooked on the game. If they get seriously hooked it stands to reason that their other personal relationships will suffer. Sure, you might be part of a "group of gamers" in real life but it's more likely you're just a guy who bought a video game and thought it was neat.
However, as your outside relationships begin to suffer (And this has been documented over and over) your "in game" relationships begin to blossom. Now, in order to maintain what amounts to the majority of your social life you must spend money on games. You might move games, but you'll probably wait until a critical mass of your friends wants to move games. Or, you'll stick around because your friends are there.
Your only friends are there.
There are some other aspects of MMO socials that are downright creepy. I've noticed some forums have extremely strict rules concerning discussing moderation. In fact, simply saying you think that the rules are strict might be in violation of their "rules". Really let that sink in. You will be punished for discussing your punishment. This is one of the few things about MMOs that strike me as genuinely cult like and makes me uncomfortable.
In either case they are a terrible side effect, or worse yet... acted on intentionally by game developers in order to increase sales.
If I believed the fundamentals of the Skinner's Box argument in the OP, then I would have to also consider that western notions of romantic love actually have a stronger correlation to chemical receptors within the body and dependency.
So, if the OP is correct, then love is immoral... and it works on dopamine receptors much more than gaming.
I can link to medical studies and peer reviewed research, which isn't something done when Cracked.com is the only informal citation and everything thing in direct quotes (read: Jonathan Blow's comments concerning gaming) isn't cited at all... but, hey, it's a big uncaring universe that could sneeze and wipe us all out but we choose to live despite of it all as an act of rebellion, ala Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus.
Love most certain is immoral when it is used in an abusive fashion. If the Chemical Receptors in jane's Brain make her stupid into Dave and Dave uses that to fleece Jane for everything she's worth... yes. That's immoral.
Comments
However, there are a few holes in their logic (since the argument about the skinner's box has been posited before by the creator of Braid, there's a lot of response to it). The independent developer you mention is Jonathan Blow.
Unfortunately, my examples of other social organizations that operate like a Skinner's Box would violate community standards (or, at least, offend more delicate sensibilities). So, not sure if this is a discussion that'll go somewhere good.
One might argue, however, that STO's leveling is significantly faster than WoW or EQ2 and, therefore, more moral than those games. (The criticisms of STO's easy leveling might actually benefit it now).
I'm not sure how you can successfully argue the game is like a skinner's box when the players have access to the mechanisms to create non-grinding content.
I could say a great deal about imaginary things being sold... I'll keep them to myself considering forum guidelines.
Careful there, you 're overstating evidence. Addiction would mean that a chemical dependency has been created in the player (and I haven't seen any data supporting video games as a causal link to addiction, only positive correlation -- which is distinct from causality).
A reasonably well-informed consumer would wait to see if features were included and vote with their pocketbook. Buying any software at launch (just like hardware) is a gamble.
Here's a big flaw in this argument: $15 pricing per month has remained steady, despite increased development times and needs for specialized labor. Not only that, the market is more competitive than when the $15/month model was established in the 1990s. Saying that this fee should remain the same, despite inflation, rising labor costs, and increased competition (and therefore, more marketing), one can only assume that there's quite a bit to lose by only having a $15/mo fee.
I'm not quite following what's so disturbed.
I haven't seen any peer-reviewed research establishing a causal link between addiction and video games (at best, positive correlation -- at worst, no correlation).
One can very easily argue that extreme sports offer a more addictive component, adrenalin rushes cross the blood-brain barrier but I'm not about to tell you to stop skydiving...
That being said, the special rewards of the feature series will bring people back to the game. But again, most would call that Cryptic doing what makes business sense. Cryptic only has one responsibility: make Atari money. If they fail to do that, then the rest is moot.
Games had "drops/rewards" all the way back to Packman . It's something to strive for (same as a higher score or finishing the level) or else what do you play for ?
Pure bliss is not on a gamers roster , so you have to settle for achivments/score/rewards .
Why call on Crypic to stop when you really should call upon the player base to stop rewarding them with their money. But that wont happen because most people are ok with their Pavlovian distractions.
is making a game addictive, immoral?? or does not allowing us to own the data on a sever that we cant physical own even if we wanted to, makes it unethical? again i would say no. id damn well hope that computer games are addictive. i need you people to keep funding this game that i love.
sure cryptic benefits from the foundry, you know who else benefits? the players. the players also get to make what ever mission they want, to what ever standard they want with no input from CBS. We have total freedom and the people who like the foundry, really like the foundry. we are having more fun than before for the same amount of money....hmmmm naughty cryptic for increasing our fun levels. :rolleyes:
cryptic have hit lucky in that people want ships and costumes. these ships and costume are a small part of the production schedule but they bring in a lot of revenue. its a big win for them, but the revenue seems to be going back into the game as they want to increase their dev size and make more free content for us. as long as the money benefits the game i say let them continue. it still remains to be seen how it will all play out but people probably wont be complaining as much if they start to pull off these 10 FE series a year plus seasonal updates.
should they stop what ever it is you think they are doing. in my opinion, no.
A lot of the OP is riddled with strawman arguments. here's an argument similar to the skinner box presented above)
The problem is that there isn't a causal link. Violence crime in the US has decreased during the same time period that violent videogames have increased. One might argue that there is inverse correlation (not causation) between violent video games and violent crime (i.e. crimes have dropped, games have risen during the past 20 years in the US).
The same could be said of heavy metal music (i.e. studies have shown that appreciation of heavy metal music positively correlates to easier-going personality traits and creativity).
From what i did read, do you have any understanding of the business world in general?
Forgot this, there has been NO conclussive evidence that links violence in video games with creating violenece in the real world, there might be some in-direct link but what people and idiots who spout that forget is they need to look at the Real Life Environment of the people
A MMO is a game that the developer/publisher puts out in order gain X amount of revenue from a target audience, that said...They will do what it takes to entice the consumer to play that game...for instance You have WoW and its easiest, you got Rift, you got Here with vet rewards etc....
Most people, I included enjoy those bonuses, that why i shelled out big bucks last month to become a lifer...If you dont and see it as a scheme then i am afraid you shouldnt even be playing....there is nothing wrong or immoral about how a MMO operates, or how even STO operates....
finally, to re-dress this, this is a business it has a certain model to work on, it is not a charity how they game functions is soley to bring in revenue so that X Y Z are happy....and if that means C-Store, Vet Rewards, etc so be it...there is nothing immoral about that, its called *hold your breath* competition which is good for the MMO market and allows a game to find its Niche
The c-store is actually loathed by the community since it allows you to bypass the alleged Skinner's Box. (i.e. You don't have to grind - you can unsubscribe for a month and then purchase the thing you would grind for but for less, presumably able to work more hours and spend time with your family instead of playing exploration missions).
yeah its too easy to blame games for every bodies ills. the new one is now sports computer games are to blame, as the reaction in your brain from scoring a goal/try/touchdown is more intense than when you 'kill someone' in game.
our entire civilization is about to be destroyed by sports.
when they mayans said the world would end in the year 2012, they meant by Maddon 2012
I think many in the community are upset that the C-store allows you to skip the grind.
Which, paradoxically, undermines the entire first argument in the OP that the game is too "grindy" and builds addiction (to which no proof is offered, aside from Cracked.com - yes, the comedy website with sharp, witty writers who don't actually endorse everything they write as true, not much to base a claim of ethos off of).
Meh, to each his own. If Cryptic wants to sell shortcuts, why remove a potential income source? Making the game shorter does the player no favors; so if the player wants to pay for the shortcut, they are only hurting themselves. But again, their choice. So I fail to see the problem.
I just took note of the OP's join date and put that together with what sounds like a complaint of Cryptic making a game that is "addictive" that requires you to cough up money to play. Which is odd when you consider the sub rate is equal to two-hour's work at minimum wage. This led me to my previous conclusion.
To be fair, he (?) is bored at cap - having reached Vice Admiral.
MMO's have loot/leveling (or carrots on sticks) for simple reasons: without added flavour MMO's are just another FPS with a monthly subscription fee. No one is going to pay monthly for a game thats only cosmetically different from a game that doesn't require monthly sub.
But MMO require monthly subs to keep up the servers. Unlike a lot of fps where the player base has to host the servers. Player hosted servers are less secure opening more doors for hacks and exploits, which are well known to be a big issue for many fps.
The problem with the kind of hacks/exploits less secure private servers allow compared to provided servers for MMOs (rather then fps) is MMOs have a lot more room for these hacks/exploits to create long term damage. A hack/exploit in a fps affects a few scoreboards, then they are fixed/banned, and there are no long term side effects. Hacks/exploits in games with gear/currency/achievements can create long term consequences that require staff (requiring even more $$ from subscriptions) to resolve/monitor.
If you dont like the flavour differences between MMOs (carrots) and FPS then save yourself some money, and play something else.
Think about your typical single player game. You find out that there's a really cool hard to get sword that will make the game more fun. You can:
a) Spend hours playing the game JUST right to get the sword.
b) Use a hack or cheat to get the sword.
However in an MMO there is no such hack or cheat, you MUST spend hours at it. What I also find intersting is that very very very few game designers will say "yes, grinding tradeskills is fun". Really is it fun to run from one side of the zone to the other for 4 hours? Fortunately most games have the social aspect to keep it from being too much of a chore as you can chat while you do that but in the end, it's not fun or exciting.
Leveling up isn't a new concept in gaming. But in a single player game you have to make the process fun or people either won't play game (save the completionsists) or they'll cheat their way up. In an MMO though, where you don't have the option to skip ahead, the level becomes the incentive and actual entertaining gameplay becomes less important.
I personally don't slight any game developers. However I think that the constraints of MMO's (ie trying to be balanced for all builds) limit how well they can focus on fun first to make the gameplay itself engaging in and of itself.
The true test of good ethical design, I think, is to ask how many people would continue to play if the reward system (ie leveling and getting gear) were stripped down and removed. If the answer leads to a substantial number of people quitting, then the game lacks.
I am reading the responses. Considering their arguments.
I would like you to reconsider this argument from an alternative perspective. Instead of "The Cash let's you skip the grind", consider "The Grind causes you to want to spend cash". This raises the unkind question "Would the developers then create grind in an effort to increase the likelihood of the player spending cash?".
Or, put another way
"Are the game developers creating unfun mechanics in an effort increase their income".
This seems counter intuitive, but.. as an example from the same above article:
The Chinese MMO ZT Online has the most devious implementation of this I've ever seen. The game is full of these treasure chests that may or may not contain a random item and to open them, you need a key. How do you get the keys? Why, you buy them with real-world money, of course. Like coins in a slot machine.
Wait, that's not the best part. ZT Online does something even the casinos never dreamed up: They award a special item at the end of the day to the player who opens the most chests.
And that's hardly the most ridiculous aspect of the game.
Now, in addition to the gambling element, you have thousands of players in competition with each other, to see who can be the most obsessive about opening the chests. One woman tells of how she spent her entire evening opening chests--over a thousand--to try to win the daily prize.
She didn't. There was always someone else more obsessed.
Are you picturing her sitting there, watching her little character in front of the chest, clicking dialogue boxes over and over, watching the same animation over and over, for hour after hour?
If you didn't know any better, you'd think she had a crippling mental illness. How could she possibly get from her rational self to that Rain Man-esque compulsion?
BF Skinner knew. He called that training process "shaping." Little rewards, step by step, like links in a chain. In WoW you decide you want the super cool Tier 10 armor. You need five separate pieces. To get the full set, you need more than 400 Frost Emblems, which are earned a couple at a time, from certain enemies. Then you need to upgrade each piece of armor with Marks of Sanctification. Then again with Heroic Marks of Sanctification. To get all that you must re-run repetitive missions and sit, clicking your mouse, for days and days and days.
Once it gets to that point, can you even call that activity a "game" anymore? It's more like scratching a rash. And it gets worse...
...........
What about the above described mechanic seems "fun"? It seems more the manipulation of a compulsion, and comes uncomfortably close to outright gambling.
STO does not have a duplicate mechanic for the Chinese MMO, but it does have a variety of mechanics that are unnervingly close to the WoW mechanic. What the above example does show is that game companies are wholly willing to create "unfun mechanics" because it's not the "fun" keeping players around. It's the compulsion.
Consider "Accolades": Accolades have been springing up in virtually every MMO out there. Accolades are rarely about actual skill and only sometimes about genuinely "achieving" something (such as being the first to conquer a certain boss, or the first time you yourself conquer that boss.
Instead, Accolades are about "How much time you have spent engage in this activity". How much time have you spent healing, how much time have you spent shooting with this or that weapon. How much damage you have taken. Why is the player being rewarded for getting shot?
What they are rewarding, and encouraging is players to spend time in game as a means to satisfy our natural hording instinct.
I came across one player who had spent the entire day completely the over world enemy encounters because he'd get an accolade for it. He'd just sit there, wait for the enemies to show up, kill them. Rinse and repeat. The overwhelming majority of time was just spent sitting there. Why? For a single accolade.
That is intentional and, I believe, immoral.
The challenge of the ethics is that it's hard to call it unethical as we are consenting partners, to a degree. No one is MAKING us buy or play the games. How do you mandate that a game company make a "fun" product when the market ~should~ determine how sales go; a fun product will sell, an unfun won't.
Good design is built to keep us playing as long as possible, well past the "end" of the game, thus the introduction of marks and the like. Anything to keep us grinding, to keep us coming back and to keep us feeling like we're moving forward.
I think humans are drawn to the idea of "Progress" more than hording and those little markers are the key.
I won't say it's unethical but I will say that I"ve walked away from games taht weren't fun for me anymore and come back to see if they were again. Sometimes they are, sometimes not.
However I think that there ~IS~ absolutely a fair critique in the nature of the treadmill that MMO's create strictly to keep us coming back. Is it unethical? I say that's a matter for debate, but I don't think the debate is closed on either side.
If people lack free will, then there is no ethical dilema then either, free will is a prerequist for being a person.
No one makes you buy crack. No one makes you put coins into a slot machine. No one makes you sign tricky contracts in blood.
Although there's no MMO on earth as addictive as crack, they bear a striking resemblance to slot machines, and with as soul sucking as some MMOs are... well the notion of the tricky contract signed in blood isn't quite as comical as it otherwise should be.
It's not a question if anyone makes us do anything. However, people can be psychologically manipulated and sometimes that manipulation can be unethical.
There's a difference between putting an advertisement in a parents magazine touting the health benefits of your food for their children, and putting an advertisement in the middle of a youngster's tv show telling that little boy or girl that if they don't eat your food the other children will ridicule them.
Using psychological manipulation to exploit players to play a game even when it's not especially fun by tapping into natural hoarding instincts, for example, is something I would consider unethical.
Using "Shaping" to program a human being into repetitively performing a "trick" (that's really all these behaviors amount to, tricks, complete with treat at the end) is something I consider unethical.
If you can be manipulated so easily, you deserve it.
Game design by it's essence in the video gaming world rewards violence and even outright theft.
As for the game mechanics and the companies lets look at that for a moment.
The concept of gaming addiction is something that has been around for a while and tends to be less about the game and more about the physiological effect it has on the person. In the case of the MMOs the specifics are not even the game. Oh don't get me wrong MMOs are fun and the chance to see what is over the next level or expansion pact is a driving force however it is not the primary force.
You see there is a dirty little secret that no one wants to mention, in the grand scheme of gaming MMOs suck. Now I am not talk about the play style of anything I mean the actual games. They are tones down so that they run on more systems and overly simplified to keep the lowest common denomintor happy, in the purest of game aspects they are lame and dull.
The factor that plays into the additiction and the thing that keeps most of us coming back is the social interaction aspect. You doubt the power of the social interaction, Farmville has over 5 million players A DAY! This slaps the MMO giant WoW around in the volume of game turn out. The game litterally sucks and yet 5 million plus people every day get on the play with close to 5 times that many signed up and active. All for one thing, the pure social aspect.
I cannot tell you how many MMO players I know, or that we all know that will continue to play a lame and old MMO because of the their guild members. THIS is the adictive part of MMOing.
Are game companies immoral for using this fact to generate revenue? Not any more that soda companies for playing off the thrist driving factors of using cola, or McDonalds making a profit from the desire for quick easy food. We as consumers have choices and we make them with our wallets.
In fact I would go farther and say that in the grand scheme of gaming the MMO model is the least immoral method of charging for a game. Basically you pay for a basic game and then your subscription fees pay for a steady supply of expansions to the game. Game store items allow us to customize the game in small ways to fit our specific gaming desires.
Now I invite you to compare this to a single game franchise, that won numerous awards over the years and had amazing sales, Madden Football. Every year we where forced to buy the entire game again with MINOR changes that amounted to next to nothing in order to get the new years roster. We could not choose which of the many useless additions to the games we would want to pay for, we paid for all of them if we wanted them or not and in essence repurchased the same game every year for just the rosters. Talk about a rip off.
Now I know the argument that is bound to follow crying foul on this because we are only talking about $50 per year compared to the around $100 per year of an MMO fro the savy consumer. However think about something, in the course of a year the MMO grew more than double in it's material and often made real changes to the game, improving it. Madden in the mean time was half the cost but less than 10% in real change.
In fact all solo games have begun to go down hill. With only a few exception these types of games usually only have about 20 hours of good play time in them . (As I said there are exceptions) Yet show me an MMO player that has stuck with an MMO and not put in hundreds of hours. Usually that time is within the first year. So we have 5 times the play time at only 2x the cost, again a bargain using common sense math.
At the end of the day I would think calling game makers unethical is just bunk. Game makers just make a product, be it an MMO, a stand alone of a social game. We the player make the choice to play or not to play and how much we choose to spend is entriely up to us.
So, if the OP is correct, then love is immoral... and it works on dopamine receptors much more than gaming.
I can link to medical studies and peer reviewed research, which isn't something done when Cracked.com is the only informal citation and everything thing in direct quotes (read: Jonathan Blow's comments concerning gaming) isn't cited at all... but, hey, it's a big uncaring universe that could sneeze and wipe us all out but we choose to live despite of it all as an act of rebellion, ala Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus.
However, let's look at the logical flow:
- A1. Game uses grinds to reward players
- A2. Gamers develop liking to unlikable gameplay to get rewards
[*]C1. Game is a skinner's box- A3. ???????
[*]C2. Skinner's Boxes are immoral- A4. STO uses grinds
[*]C3. STO is a immoral for grinds in A4- A5. STO allows you to skip grinds.
- SA1. These use less money than would be spent trying to grind for them
- SC2. Less money means a reasonable player could unsubscribe for a month
[*]C4. STO is immoral since it allows players due to A5C4 and C3 are indirect opposition to each other. Both statements are mutually exclusive: either a game forces a grind on the player or it doesn't. You can't bypass that element through using less money than it would take to grind (and thereby be freed to spend time with your family, work at an equally grinding job, etc.) and still contend that STO forces a grind.
Furthermore, the entirety of the argument (rather condescendingly) says that a player can't intrinsically like repetitive gameplay: yet there are gamers across the world who conduct "speedruns" in games to try and hammer out the same, repetitive commands to beat the game in the fastest time. By completely ignoring this, the OP slights anyone who might enjoy repetitive (i.e. familiar parts of play).
Actually, take a good hard look at some of the more "negative" aspects of Farmville. If you DON'T log into Farmville everyday (someone correct me if I'm wrong about htis) the work you've managed to accomplish thus far will begin to fade away. The crops you worked hard to bring to life will wither and die, for example.
So no longer is the player simply being rewarded for logging into the game... they are now being PUNISHED for NOT logging into the game. (See: Veteran Rewards. You didn't keep your subscription current? Then you lose, friend. You lose. Seriously, think about it for what it is. It's an advertising shill, nothing more. It's like buy six cappacinos, get one free. Only difference is they never tell you that. They never come right out and say "We're doing this expressly so you'll give us more of your money, not because it improves the quality of the game)".
But... the real crux of your post was "Social Aspects of MMOs". This is another unusual thing when you get right down to it. Now, I'm going to hold back on saying MMOs actually foster cult like behavior, I'd like to think it's not that extreme. However, I would not be surprised.
People need to be social. They need human interaction. Follow the path on this one. At first the player simply gets hooked on the game. If they get seriously hooked it stands to reason that their other personal relationships will suffer. Sure, you might be part of a "group of gamers" in real life but it's more likely you're just a guy who bought a video game and thought it was neat.
However, as your outside relationships begin to suffer (And this has been documented over and over) your "in game" relationships begin to blossom. Now, in order to maintain what amounts to the majority of your social life you must spend money on games. You might move games, but you'll probably wait until a critical mass of your friends wants to move games. Or, you'll stick around because your friends are there.
Your only friends are there.
There are some other aspects of MMO socials that are downright creepy. I've noticed some forums have extremely strict rules concerning discussing moderation. In fact, simply saying you think that the rules are strict might be in violation of their "rules". Really let that sink in. You will be punished for discussing your punishment. This is one of the few things about MMOs that strike me as genuinely cult like and makes me uncomfortable.
In either case they are a terrible side effect, or worse yet... acted on intentionally by game developers in order to increase sales.
Love most certain is immoral when it is used in an abusive fashion. If the Chemical Receptors in jane's Brain make her stupid into Dave and Dave uses that to fleece Jane for everything she's worth... yes. That's immoral.
Thank you.