Amy Bruckman responds to Jimmy Wales

Excellent question, Jimmy!

I have been wrestling with this question since I was fortunate enough to work as Sherry's research assistant over the summer of 1992. And I'm sure Sherry will have more profound things to say than I, but I'll take a stab at it:

I have seen oh so many bright young college students struggling to not flunk out because of WoW. When we talk about it in class, people also say that WoW is putting stress on personal relationships, and this is causing them great stress. The value judgment that this is bad for them comes from them. Now does WoW (or Everquest before it, or whatever comes next after it) *cause* bad behavior? No, of course not. But there are a number of features of this kind of game that are seductive for vulnerable people. A few specific design features:

* It can take a long time to get a group together to go adventuring. Once you've spent an hour getting set up, you need to play for a few more hours to get return on your investment.

* You need to stay level with your guild mates. If you like to play with friends, you need to stay roughly level with them. If they play three nights a week but you want to play two, you will rapidly find that you are so far behind them that you can't really go on adventures with them any more. There's pressure to play as much as your friends. (City of Heroes has a nice design to get around this--a system where two people of quite different levels can play together.)

Etc. Some MMOs (like my favorite Puzzle Pirates) explicitly try to make a quicker and more casual experience possible.

Now why is writing "It was a dark and stormy night" level fiction desirable? The reason for me is all about process, not product. Practicing your writing has benefits. Expressing your feelings and thoughts have benefits. I believe in the creative process, and the benefits of that process to the creator--even if there are absolutely no benefits to others from the product.

There are of course also cognitive/social/emotional benefits to the individual from playing games. Jim Gee makes an eloquent case for many of them. But in the end, the cost/benefit analysis to me tallies up way to the cost side--especially for the subset of highly popular games that in their designed features encourage immoderation in quantity of participation.