Taking gaming seriously

S obzirom na jednostavnost testova, nevjerojatno je što sve ne znaju ljudi nakon 16-20 godina sjedenja u školsko-fakultetskim klupama. Uzorak možda nije velik, ali je indikativan i potvrđuje moje zaključke donesene ranije dok sam u Ernst&Youngu kao direktor i partner odgovoran za ljudske resurse intervjuirala i zapošljavala stotine mladih ljudi - rekla je Vlasta Sakar koja stanje smatra alrmantnim pa je s dobivenim rezultatima nedavno upoznala i Vijeće za konkurentnost.

I will kill myself!

The young man was chatting with a Blizzard rep and made the statement that he was "suicidal and that the game was the only thing that he had to live for." Whether or not this was World of Warcraft or a Battle.net account was not disclosed, but even still, it has raised the question in a few circles if Blizzard was beyond the bounds in bringing the police into this situation - or why the police might arrest someone for it.

Personally, based on my previous experience in technical support for a large multinational Internet company, these types of threats are sadly more commonplace than the average person may realize. When someone's primary method of connecting socially with others is removed - via internet, basic telephony, or networked gaming - you will see a scattered handful who claim that their life is no longer worth living, and then threaten suicide if they aren't helped. Admittedly, the grand majority are falsehoods intended to sway the representative into feeling bad and perhaps caving into the user's unreasonable expectations of service. The problem is that if if the representative doesn't treat every single threat as credible, they open their employer up to liability. Between liability and frequency, most large companies have strict policies on the books to deal with just such situations.

Source

The original story (with disclaimer, so check it out)



I met with a recruiter recently (online media industry) and in conversation I happened to mention I'd spent way too much time in the early 2000s playing online games, which I described as "the ones before World of Warcraft" (I went nuts for EQ1, SWG and the start of WoW, but since 2006 I have only put a handful of days into MMOG playing - as opposed to discussing them - I've obsessed over bicycles and cycling instead).

He replied that employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc. I mentioned that some people have written about MMOG leadership experience as a career positive or a way to learn project management skills, and he shook his head. He has been specifically asked to avoid WoW players.

We had two people who were basically 'let go' because of the 'results' of their gaming habits. Both just so happened to be WoW players. They got fired because they were either always late or calling in sick all the time. They did that because they either didn't get any sleep or they didn't want to come to work because they were in the middle of a raid. Although there is no 'official' link to their game playing habits (WoW players), everyone knew the real reason for the cause of their dismissal. These were government employees too, so not your stereotypical 'gamer who works in a fast food restaurant'.

....if you can't find a way to avoid mentioning that you play World of Warcraft (or any other time-consuming activity correlated with lateness, absence, or social misfithood) when interviewing for a job, then you're a ******* idiot.

FCC commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate blamed World of Warcraft as a leading cause of college dropouts:

You might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction - such as World of Warcraft - which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide.

The problem is not whether candidate is gamer or not. Question is whether he has a discipline and able to make an effort to accomplish something he doesn't like. Yes: games we choose ourselves, but often our jobs is something we just ended up being with to earn money for living. Most people simply can't make proper judgment on priorities. Few people can quickly switch between problem in game to problem in real life

Combined with my agoraphobia and anxiety problems, quite often I do nothing but stay at home on my computer playing WoW or the Sims. I know myself well enough to avoid the more damaging addictions, and majority of my friends play WoW as well, so I get my socialising done in-game.

Rewards are incredibly powerful motivators for player behavior. All you have to do is look at Achievements in WoW or other games to see how far people will go even when the rewards are little more a check on a checklist.

Players will optimize their behavior to get rewards most efficiently.

The optimum path to a reward isn’t necessarily the same as the “fun” path or the expected gameplay path. In fact, it can easily be a completely negative experience for the player, or for other players, or involve activities that break the expected gameplay.

The more the reward is tied to a “meta” game mechanic — especially one that is accumulated over time — instead of direct gameplay, the more likely you’ll see these kinds of negative experiences.

Are you a night owl WoW player?
Yes 5640 (54.9%)
No 1039 (10.1%)
Sometimes 3598 (35.0%)

I like playing morning and late nights because the "kids" IN WoW are not on then.. I'm 50 years old and /trade chat and the antics of the younger set don't quite mesh with my playing style - zones are nice and empty, tons of herbs just BEGGING to be herbed.

Panasonic hope to have a 64GB card available soon, and rumors are saying sometime around March. Of course the cards will be a couple hundred dollars most likely, but nonetheless when this happens I will be easily able to transfer my entire WoW directory onto the card and play it from there.

Having trouble hiding your WOW addiction from your employer? Use this old school boss key with modern styling to save face at work.

Set the key binding to ` and switch to a UNIX logfile screen much faster than alt-tabbing. Open up the config panel with a /bk and change the alpha value to allow you to continue fishing while the boss looks on and wonders how you've managed to kick the WoW habit that's taken over the office. You can also have a variety of chat channels displayed so you can continue to fish or finish off a mob.

downloads today: 169

Funcom has revealed that its ailing MMO Age of Conan will reduce its server count from 49 to 18. The cuts are most dramatic in the US, where 25 servers have been hacked to six. GI.biz speculates that AoC won't be shut down because it's Funcom's only source of income until it releases The Secret World, allegedly releasing in the next couple years.

Source