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Survey Question: How many hours a day do you spend accessing the Internet? I didn't even have to think before reaching for the pull-down list and choosing the maximum answer (40+). It's a simple question. I live on the Internet. I write on the Internet, I chat on the Internet, I read news on the Internet, I WORK on Internet projects, I research on the Internet, and worst of all, I play games on the Internet.
That's right, I play games on the Internet. At the moment, three different on-line games. My foremost addiction is EverQuest. If you don't know what EverQuest (EQ) is by now, you haven't been paying attention for the past 7 years. EQ is the game that brought Massively Multiplayer On-line Games to the masses with a graphical adaptation of a long-time addiction of college IT students. This addiction, being an on-line networked version of Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy games, kept many a college student from the honor roll with its late night allure. In fact, even before EQ, Multi User Domains(or Dungeons, depending who you ask) (MUDs) had been referred to as on-line crack, in reference to the addictive nature of crack cocaine. As a player of a MUD (FoxMud.Com), EQ was like super-crack cocaine for me. At one point in 1999, I was spending vacation days off from work just playing the game. Thankfully, I'm no longer as obsessed with the game.
The worst part about MUDs was that they were free. It was much easier to start, and harder to stop playing a MUD because you weren't paying for it. There was no shock downside, and the game could be played from any Internet-connected computer. You could be homeless and play it from the library (and I'm sure somewhere, someone is shaking their head in recognition). With EQ, at least you have to have a credit card, or come up with $15 a month in extra cash. You'd also have to have your own computer to play it from. Both of these financial requirements ensure that there is a minimum level of humanity to the playerbase. It pretty much ensured you had to have a computer and live somewhere you could hook up to the Internet. With that said, I think the current estimates are that there are 250,000 active EQ accounts today. That's a lot of addicts that pass the minimum requirements.
Two other games that I play are 'Dead Awaken' (an on-line web-based game - game name: Urgggh - I play a zombie) and Chess. I play a lot of chess on the Internet. I play at GameKnot.com (rgautier) and I play at Free Internet Chess Server (FICS - rgautier).
When I look at how much time I spend playing games, I am almost disgusted with myself. Here I am a grown man, investing half as much time as I invest in my full time job in useless pursuits. How productive could I be if I could just put childish things behind? To answer this question, in late 2004 I stopped playing games for a while to go back to school. I took a full load of credit hours at an online University, and did homework instead of quests. I did this for almost 2 years, and Finished my college education, a full 20 years after graduating High School.
Then I went right back to playing games. Pushing buttons that accomplish practically nothing in the real world, I watch my characters grow in power, and I get endorphin rushes from bit changes identifying the completion of the next stage in an imaginary life cycle. Then I chide myself for not using my time more productively. What could I be doing instead?
Productivity - What does that mean exactly? What could I possibly be producing in my down-time? When I look at others around me, I see what they are doing with their spare time. My wife is usually watching television while I am playing. Others are out playing Texas Hold-Em at a bar downtown. Am I really wasting my time? Thinking about it, I'd have to say that if I wasn't playing on-line games, I'd probably be reading a book, a magazine or a tech manual. Either that, or falling asleep in front of the television with my wife. As long as I take care of the things that need to be taken care of, such as cooking dinner, walking the dog, checking my son's homework, then perhaps the time that I am wasting is time that is meant to be wasted. After all, isn't the industrialization of society intentioned for us to have more spare time on our hands? Who says that we have to spend that spare time actually accomplishing something?
