Quote:
Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct
He grew out of the addiction phase and now sells items for forums gold on a D2 site, which he trades for real life items. So far he's gotten a PS2 for a friend and a pro pool cue used in a tournament by Johnny Archer. The real addicts are the ones trading their material possessions for game items.
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For most games RMT's (real money traders) are something of a curse but I'm not sure if its always a sign of a real addicts. The argument is some activities in game are boring and to 'enjoy' their game the most its easier to just buy the game currency or items. At one point, back when I was playing eve it would take me a week of somewhat boring play I could 'buy' with less than an hour's work of rl money. Now my opinion is that if your game has that much 'grind' you need a new game, but these RMT's are now a multi million dollar business. If anything you could argue that RMT's make it less of an addiction as you can spend less time grinding away in game.
I think the real addicts just REALLY like the game, and other activities are just less fun. Back in my mudding days which were when I gamed the most the game was down for some reason or another for a week and suddenly I'm making new friends, hanging out after work with people, and it was pretty obvious to me what the issue was. I was already dating my soon to be wife, was accepted into professional school etc, but my leisure time was pretty much gaming. Its not a far leap to go from that where academic, professional and even sexual 'goals' become less important than game goals.
Some day I'm sure they will have identified a gene that will be called the 'gaming gene' or more likely 'WoW gene' which creates the personalities that allow themselves to be completely taken in by these games.