The Dangers of MMORPGs: Presently and in the Future

     A friend from work recently let me borrow a game called .hack//G.U. Vol. 1 ("Dot Hack G.U."), and also told me about the several anime adaptations, spin-offs, and side-stories all set in the same world from various points of view. Each takes place in "The World", a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), in which problems have arisen because of glitches and/or viruses. It's very similar to Sword Art Online, which I am a huge fan of as well. But I'll stop my explanation of the story there. This is not about the game or the anime, it's about the technology the characters utilize to play the game presented in the show... and why it's potentially dangerous when coupled with the issues we face today.

Lemme just don my 'helmet of death'...

     Instead of using a controller like we do now, players in these futuristic games wear a helmet of sorts that transports them into the game. Not literally of course; it translates their brainwaves into their characters movements and actions while their physical body just sort of lounges around. This technology makes you feel like you're actually in the game, and that the game is the real world. You're not pressing buttons to move a character on-screen, you are that character, and your body is moving because your brain is telling it to. It feels... real. And that is only going to exacerbate an already existing problem...

THE PRESENT
    Before we look into how future tech will make things worse, we need to understand what the problem is now. Among video games, MMORPGs stand out as a dangerous genre in gaming, most notably in the case of addiction. Why do we become addicted to these games? For one, that may be where our friends are. Playing online with friends in a game that you love is one of the best experiences a gamer can have. Some of the most fun I've had in Guild Wars 2 was when I was able to hang out with my guildmates and just... go.

     But there is a deeper, more concerning reason why some people play these games. In some cases, we may feel that the world we're playing in is far better and more exciting than the world we're living in. I want so badly to live in Tyria, where there are magnificent sights to see and adventures to embark on. Sure, there's the danger of death around just about every corner, but that only adds to the thrill of the experience. The world is so vast and breathtaking... and suddenly I've spent hundreds of hours in a fictional world because it's far more beautiful and exciting than the world I have to live in.

See? Far more interesting... and maybe a little terrifying.

      However, with current technology, one can only get so immersed. I still have to eat and go to the bathroom. At some point my body will shut down because it needs sleep. An out of place visual or audible stimuli will suck me straight out of the experience. I can't completely immerse myself into the fictional world... yet.

THE FUTURE
     The future is most certainly upon us. Technologies like the Oculus Rift and the Virtuix Omni will allow us to be immersed in a game like never before. We'll see exactly what our character sees, and we'll physically walk and run in order to move our character around (not too keen on that part, but I suppose it'll be good for me). However, both of these still require external, physical input. The future shown in Sword Art Online requires no physical inputs. It directly translates your brainwaves into movements and places you straight into the action.

It will also translate your clumsiness with remarkable accuracy...

     However, the issue of addiction aside, both anime present a similar, and far more frightening, problem. Because the game is directly tied into your brain, glitches, accidental or otherwise, could be problematic at best... and catastrophic at worst. Sword Art Online seems to be the worst case scenario here, so we'll focus on that for now. In S.A.O. the developer set up the game code in such a way that players are trapped inside of the game once they've connected. If they die, they die for real. If the get killed in game or anyone from the outside tries to pull them out forcefully, the Nerve Gear (the helmet tech) sends out a burst of microwaves and fries their brain. Out of the 10,000 that logged in, 3,853 people died over the two years the game was in operation. That is a far worse problem than addiction... or is it?

      Because these people were stuck in the game for such a long time, something happened that is directly related to the issue of addiction. They began to feel that the world of Aincrad was real, and many decided to make a life for themselves instead of actively trying to beat the game. Of course, they didn't have a choice... but what if you did?

My point exactly...

     For someone like me, I don't know if I would want to come out. Two years is a long time, and your view of what is real and what is not would be skewed beyond belief by the time you got out. Some might just want to stay in that world, even if they might die because of it. Take away the permadeath and it makes the choice far more difficult. If we had technology like that where we could insert ourselves almost entirely into the world, I would have a hard time rationalizing returning to my boring life outside of it. As I slowly slip into a more introverted lifestyle with each passing year, an existence in a medieval fantasy world becomes exceedingly more enticing.

Just look at how amazing this place is...

     I read in the news all the time that people die from their addiction to video games; they play for days without rest and die from exhaustion. If we had such technology as the Nervegear, how much worse would the addiction be? With reality skewed, those games might become our reality. Couple that with psychopaths who might trap you in a game with permadeath and you have yourself a very dangerous concoction.

On Addiction: While I haven't fallen victim to the forces of addiction when it comes to MMORPGs, I have come close. Guild Wars 2 and Minecraft sucked away hours upon hours of my time. But then I realized that nothing I do in those games will amount to anything outside of them. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love video games and have loads of fun while playing them. But most of the time MMORPGs don't progress my intelligence or my abilities in any substantial way. It's important to remember this. While they may be fun to play, they don't necessarily teach any skills we can use in the world.