[MUD-Dev] Retention without Addiction?

[Ted L. Chen]

Sasha Hart wrote:

> If (as I speculate) it is the case that only a few people have
> trouble regulating this, and that only a few people are harmed at
> all severely even if they aren't entirely in control, and that
> some of the measures under discussion are really annoying and
> might be bad for people's lives (you have to take responsibility
> for the good you are doing if you take responsibility for the bad
> - if the game contains your community, logging on an hour a day is
> a fairly seroius social privation) ...  then perhaps most of the
> work should go into helping the few people who can't control
> themselves or are harmed.

> Which, if I recall, is something small game operators, and friends
> of players, and families and so on, often do already.

> I don't think that game designs are a good way of attacking this
> problem. Some things are just not within a designer's scope,
> although we would often like them to be (e.g., "how do I get PvP
> without the negative stuff about PvP, or attracting PvP
> audiences", other problems that are really the design of people
> and the communities they form and can only be lightly and
> obliquely shaped by design, if at all).  The company is
> responsible, but the design is probably not.  If it is, I want to
> see more earnest evidence than "my chum dropped out because of
> MUD" (as actually interesting as it is to hear these stories).

This reminds me of a pamphlet I picked up at a casino in Montreal
recently.  It was titled "Do you have a gambling problem?"  On it,
it outlines the three stages/symptoms that suggest you might have an
addiction to gambling.  It also lists the obligatory phone-in help
line.

Then what struck me as odd at the time and admittedly amusing (not
the addiction, but the presentation), was that the pamphlet also
included a little self-exclusion form.  Fill it out and out and drop
it off at the information counter at the casino.  The form states:

  "I request that I be refused entrance to the casinos operated by
   *** for a period of:
   [ ] 6 month  [ ] 12 months  [ ] more than 12 months, specify ___"

Maybe this is all that is needed for most people who play MMOGs but
lack the self-control to limit their own play time.  Have the game
system lock out people voluntarily for whatever duration they want,
or have it limit them to xx hours a day.  Who am I to judge that 10
hours is too much for you, or that 1 hr is just right.  Or that the
pure accumulation of wealth corrupts your moral compass.  My
philosophy is that your vices and virtues are yours.  I'll help you
anyway I can, but the first step is to ask for it.

TLC


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