Amateur Documentary ‘IRL’ Tackles Online Game Addiction

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

Count­less doc­u­men­taries have inves­ti­gated gam­ing addic­tion and the sup­posed dan­gers lurk­ing in mas­sively mul­ti­player titles, but it’s not often that some­one who’s expe­ri­enced an addic­tion talks about it him­self. Third year film stu­dent and ex World of War­craft junkie Anthony Ros­ner looks back on his six years in the game in a new short doc­u­men­tary on the effects of MMO addic­tion. With help from friends Dave Novis and Arron Amo, Anthony pro­duced, directed, wrote, and edited the film him­self, ensur­ing that he had the oppor­tu­nity to tell his whole story and tell it from his own per­spec­tive.
Via massively.joystiq.com

I think I have Gamer ADD…

Ever hear this famil­iar warn­ing as a kid?  “You’ve been play­ing too many video games!” I’m begin­ning to think my Mom had a point (although in her case, she was prob­a­bly refer­ring to my reg­u­lar habit of neglect­ing chores in favor of more qual­ity time with my Sega Gen­e­sis, but I digress).  Anyway—lately I’ve been buzzing back and forth between video games like a fly in a field full of cow shit, with no real pur­pose or agenda.  The result is an over­whelm­ing amount of men­tal clut­ter in the form of half-finished games.

Just for shig­gles, here’s the abridged list of what I’m play­ing right now:

• Alan Wake (360)
• Dragon Age: Ori­gins (360)
• Red Dead Redemp­tion (PS3)
• Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
• Black Mir­ror II (PC)
• Dark­fall 3:  Lost Souls (PC)
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attor­ney (DS)
• Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS)

I was won­der­ing if any­one else has ever put a name to this afflic­tion, and sure enough a quick Google search turned up this blog post which sums it up quite nicely: “Gamer Atten­tion Deficit Dis­or­der, or Gamer ADD, is a term used by many gamers to describe the behav­ior of flit­ting from one [game] to another, never stick­ing with one [game] for any appre­cia­ble amount of time; also, being eas­ily dis­tracted by new games and sys­tems at the expense of your wal­let, focus, or both.”

The last time I can remem­ber play­ing a game from start to fin­ish with­out any dis­trac­tions what­so­ever was when I played through Uncharted , which, begs the ques­tion: Is Gamer ADD per­haps just a symp­tom of mediocre games?  Uncharted is a phe­nom­e­nal game, and one I sim­ply couldn’t put down.   So what does that say about these other titles I’m play­ing?  Why can’t any of them hold my atten­tion for more than an hour or two in one session?

Maybe some of us play games like we watch TV: aim­lessly flip­ping the chan­nels, seek­ing a vari­ety of choices in our enter­tain­ment.  Or does it have more to do with a game’s design & playa­bil­ity?  I know with some games, the stress level is much higher than oth­ers: frus­trat­ing sequences where I keep dying, puz­zles I can’t solve, or tedious amounts of read­ing, grind­ing, or back­track­ing.  These are prob­a­bly the times when I’m most likely to power down one game and go fire up another.

What­ever the answer, it’s at least com­fort­ing to know I’m not the only one with this prob­lem.  How about you—do you ever get Gamer ADD?

Geeky Gamer Jewelry on Etsy

As the site says on its home­page, Etsy is the place to buy and sell all things hand­made.  Here is a show­case of some of the coolest geeky gamer jew­elry I’ve found there, and the awe­some sell­ers who make it:

Pix­e­lated good­ness from an aptly-named seller,  Pixel Party offers charm bracelets, cuf­flinks, ear­rings, and more in the clas­sic 8-bit style of your favorite video games.

The Gamer Gear Store sells unique-looking hand-sculpted pieces from “all school” video games, as well as other great geeky gear inspired by vin­tage comics and movies.

The Clay Col­lec­tion sells super cute minia­ture poly­mer clay ver­sions of your favorite video game acces­sories, hard­ware, and characters.

For those who want to wear their D20s instead of just rolling ‘em, Candy Corn Stu­dios sells beau­ti­ful, wear­able art made with the real thing.

I really heart the jew­elry that Omega­zoid sells.  Sim­ple plas­tic beads emu­late that 8-bit pixel look perfectly.

The two ladies behind Char­lie Carter Cre­ations sell awe­some clay jew­elry based on video games, and other geeky stuff like Futu­rama, Mup­pets, and child­hood toys.

Know of any other great Etsy sell­ers, or do you make and sell geeky/gamer jew­el­ery too?  Leave me a link to your store in the com­ments and I’ll add it to my list!

My Gamer’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2009

In 2009, I resolve to:

Quit buy­ing into the indus­try hype lead­ing up to huge game launches.  So far it has con­tin­u­ally lead to disappointment.

Give more love to my old game sys­tems. I have a closet full of old con­soles and games that prob­a­bly miss me.  I hope to find some time in 2009 to fall in love with them all over again.

Fin­ish games before start­ing new ones. I am prob­a­bly least likely to suc­ceed at this one, but it’s a noble aspi­ra­tion all the same.

Mas­ter the Hard mode on gui­tar in Rock Band .  I do all right on Hard, but some of the more wicked solos make my fin­gers hurt and my fans dis­ap­pear.  Of course, then I watch things like this and it makes me weep.

Level my war­lock to 80. I have less and less time these days to play WoW, but I’m hop­ing I can carve out a few days in 2009 to level my oft-neglected alt .

Play more adven­ture games. Even though it’s get­ting harder and harder to find decent titles within this unpop­u­lar genre, I’ll con­tinue try­ing to seek out and dis­cover great new point and click style games I love so much, and feel good about sup­port­ing the mostly indie devel­op­ers who still make them .

Embrace the game industry’s desire to make games that appeal to girls, even though they’re get­ting it all wrong .  At least they’re try­ing, right?

Stop spend­ing so much money on Wii & Xbox Live points. It’s just too easy and con­ve­nient to get in trou­ble going shop­ping on these next gen con­soles!  Actu­ally, I think I’m just addicted to watch­ing Mario run across my screen…

And finally…

Break down and buy a widescreen HDTV this year. Because right now I look too much like the guy in the above pic.

It’s a tall order, but my mind is open and my thumbs are ready.  Here’s to a fun and pro­duc­tive 2009!