Hakera
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Posted - 2005.11.05 20:41:00 -
[1]
Been having a long debate with gf about addiction, but this is addiction to online games. Bare in mind she is a psychologist so Im not really winning this argument (she thinks I never win any  ) but anyway, I thought I would see what everyone else thinks.
You have probably heard of recent tragic cases of people dying as a result of playing online games for days non-stop with little sleep. What you dont always hear is about the lesser effects of addiction to online games, such as letting real life slip away, seeing your family less, losing your job, your health for example. Not to mention spending large sums of real cash to fund your 'habit' or even paying ridiculous sums of real money for online property in the case of certain other games.
The whole crux of the debate is on responsibility basically. Who is responsible for harming your real life or perhaps your death. You may of heard of cases where providers (of food, beverages, gambling for eg) are increasingly being sued for following business ethics at the cost of their customers health and allowing them to become addicted. The issue is, who is responsible for that addiction, who is responsible for the effects of someone becoming addicted where their reasoning and thought processes are altered as a result of their addiction and they lose 'balance'.
In some cases, the law as it is takes steps to protect you from yourself but most of you will say its our choice and we deal with the consequences. However the flip side is an increasing responsibility on businesses and providers to protect their customers health either legally (in the cases of certain companies now being sued for addiction)or a moral obligation. IE should CCP be forced to limit your playtime such as is now being enforced to a degree in china to protect you?
Addiction has varying effects, most of them negative, the crux is who is resonsible for that, the provider or the customer. Even if not legally obligated to, should companies or governments be morally obligated in the face of a capitilist society (profits first) to limit customer addiction as weird as it sounds? If someone dies as a result of playing Eve for 4 days straight, who would be responsible, CCP or the person?
Bare in mind, Im both ways for the blame here. Like the majority of us, we regulate our own play time and real life keeps that in check. But addiction is addiction we lose the power to regulate our lives. In our hypothetical situation which thankfully as far as I am aware has not happened yet in Eve (but with the China shard may well do soon) where someone dies as a result of playing eve too much, would CCP be responsible?
Dumbledore - Eve-I.com |