The urge to be a part of...

A few interesting stories and events came to my attention recently. And one of them i find interesting is yet another death of a child that is supposedly cause by a computer game. This time it was a suicide because he couldn't reach the heroic status:

"Zhang Xiaoyi died on Dec. 27, 2004, leaving behind a suicide note saying he wanted "'to join the heroes of the game he worshipped...'" More here.

The problem with online multiplayer games is that they are made in such a way that you have to constantly play if you want to be one step ahead of opponents. And people (especially children) without any parental guidance could get addicted in a way. and lately these games are not liek before when you bought them once and played them. you have to pay for it every month to play. And you have to play to build up your character's level. Not to meniton that it is often better to be in a team when chasing the monsters through the new unknown world. If you stay alone you (i.e. your character) die. So you have to be accepted in a team. And usually they only accept those that are of any use to them. This is somewhat similar to the gangs issue. People want to be a part of certain group (especially teenagers) and if they dont' succeed it can be a big burden for them.

One my fellow forum visitors posted a very vivid description of his experience with these games.

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"I think parents like this think "Oh how nice. Billy is playing. He is silent, he doesn't asks for money, he is not causing trouble, he wont hurt himself there, he it not out on the street(it's dangerous). Yes maybe he is playing a little too much, but hey, in the meantime he is not using drugs, he is not having unsafe sex and don't drink. And I can relax a bit while he is sitting there. Pure asset."

And this is the bad thing. While Billy is busy mutilating orcs in Azeroth, he get more and more drawn away from the real world and becomes addicted. Believe me, I've been there unsure.gif I was playing Anarchy Online for months. College internet is free, the pizza comes when I need it, sleeping... bah, who needs sleeping when I need to reach level 50. It's just 4000 more XP... just a little bit more... oh YES, I'm lvl 50... hmm... but to use this pistol I need level 55... damn... okay, level 55 here I come!!!
I think you get the picture....

When I realized what I was doing, my grades took a fall to the gutter, I gained much weight, I lost friends, I lost money, I lost my social skills("I'M playing here damit! Leave me alone!"), my health was so bad I catched every single sickness came my way...

Okay, to put it another way: DON'T F*CKIN PLAY MMORPGS!!!! EVER!!!
Oh, sure there are some people that can keep a distance and don't become addicted, but don't find out if you are one...

All in all, MMO games are dangerous. Literally. To your health, to your bank balace, to your social connections...etc. And this is not on the box for a reason"

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New guerilla marketing

In the recent month or so i came acrooss a couple of posts in internet forums that were about certain product. Often the poster was a frequent member, talking about new things to come up. So i did a bit of search and it seems that the companies are actually using children to advertise their products. So how does it all work? Well the forum has a specific group of people. And if when you "serve" the information to them you basically target the very core of the market segment. The opinion leaders. If you succeed with them, the chances are that others will follow. The companies pay children to post about their new games. The children might even do it for free in exchange for a working, playable preview demo.

"Bots" that post are being hunted down and eliminated. So a human's touch is necessary. The worst thing is that the users can not clearly distinguish the information (as reliable data and facts) and propaganda material (one sided, distorted facts).

Guerilla marketing seems to be becomming very devious, trying to invade the communities. So Administrators and moderator already took precautions by being aware of this and in better forums they are trying to eliminate this. But a lot of forums doesn't have such awareness. This makes the users quite vulnerable.

So if you see a post that is saying how comething is "cool", "fantastic" etc, think about all this before taking the posst seriously.