Since World of Warcraft brought the MMO genre to the forefront of gaming, many gamers have thrown insults and general bad feeling in the face of MMOG developers and players alike. Such comments as, “It’s just a glorified co-op,” and, “It’s just a single player game with loads of strangers running around,” have been voiced and frankly, I can’t see why people would make those observations and generalisations due to the massive amount of games out there and the massive variation.

One main criticism is that they aren’t truly persistent worlds. The players have no effect on how the story on an MMO unravels and that these games could easily be adapted to a single player environment. On one site, a comment from a poster called Mogs concerned me…

While his comment holds true to many MMOGs there are games out there that are directly affected by player alliances and interaction. One such element that holds true to all MMOGs is the in game economy and while this may not be the first thing to come to your mind it is a truly player-defined aspect of the game. As newer and better items are discovered that can be bought and sold, older items that were previously the best drop in price. At the start of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, one stack of Netherweave Cloth would set you back 7-10g on my server where as now, you can get hold of a stack for 3-4g if you buy at the right time.

That aside, you obviously haven’t thought through your comment. Eve Online is a grand example of where player actions DO directly affect that outcome of the gaming story. As player corporations and alliance secure areas of space and grow, political climates change and fluctuate depending on who sits at the top (not to mention the massive economical impacts such actions can have). You couldn’t reciprocate this type of impact in an SP environment, not even a co-op environment. It simply isn’t a logistic possibility. The only environment in which this would work is an MMOG.

Another criticism is aimed at the player interaction. Some gamers are concerned that the social impact MMOGs have isn’t subsidised by the quality of game play. Comments like, “MMOGs cause anti-social behaviour,” and, “MMOGs allow for morally ambiguous activities,” are not an uncommon thing to see from MMO-haters but what they fail to realise is that this is a common and incorrect assumption based on minorities.

Did you know statistics show that couples that meet through internet based activities are 40% more likely to have a long and meaningful relationship than couples that meet in a real world situation? This is based on the fact that they build an emotional attachment to each other prior to exploring any sexual relationship. Whilst sex is an important part to any relationship, it is not the most integral part when laying the building blocks. Granted, that is just one aspect to social interaction but there are other points I can make.

Previous to the Internet, there were very few forms of communication on a global scale. It was too expensive to ring foreign countries and letters took days to arrive. Thanks to the Internet, you can speak to someone half the world away instantly and this has allowed multi-national communication to take place on an unprecedented scale. Thanks to the Internet, Freedom of Information and speech have evolved to such a point where they no longer can be subdued and doctored (for the most part). In fact, recent studies show that people who actively play MMOGs have a tendency to have larger friendship groups and better social interaction skills than their non-MMO’ing peers. While there are those few people who find MMOGs to be massively addictive and potentially life ruining, this is an example of an inability to control ones actions and can’t be used as an example of how MMOGs destroy people.

Yes... The Internet and MMOs are truly evil.

You may have heard of the Chinese man who died after a 3 day gaming binge in a Cyber Café due to fatigue. You can die from fatigue in numerous ways and whilst MMO-haters and politicians would jump on this like it is some sort of get-MMOs-banned-for-free card, it isn’t and no court of law will take it as an example of this. You can die from driving your car too much… does that mean we should ban driving? You can die from drinking too much alcohol… does that mean we should ban alcohol? I’m sure that a lot of you would be angered if alcohol were removed from society even though the physical and psychological implications of alcohol addiction and even binge drinking are far more apparent than the minority of gamers who are addicted to or binge on MMOs.

As for the morally ambiguous behaviour, it is true that the anonymity provided by avatars and characters in these environments allow you to partake in behaviour and actions that you may not consider normal and right in a real world situation. Such problems as ERP guilds have caused quite a stir. Some of you may have heard of the guild, which under took role-play involving bestiality, incest, paedophilia and other illegal and morally unacceptable behaviour but this is just one guild out of the millions. Also, we cannot use morality to define what is wrong and right as morals differ from person to person; place to place. For example, I believe that the act of cheating on your partner is incorrect and absolutely outrageous but people I know believe that sexual relations with people other than your active partner are ok as long as no emotional bond is formed. That is just one example of how morals are subjective and can’t be used to define what is wrong and right. Blizzard for example, forcibly disbanded a homosexual-friendly guild. Whilst I find nothing wrong with a guild specifically for homosexuals, Blizzard and the employees who took this action obviously thought that it would have a bad effect in some way.

Other problems include such things as the anonymity that avatars and characters provide you but what you have to remember is that you are only anonymous to those around you and not to the company moderating your behaviour. If you do something illegal and Blizzard (for example) thinks that it is a criminal offence, they will report you to the relevant authorities. If you do something they find to be in breach of T’s and C’s, they will ban or suspend you account. It is as simple as that.

MMOGs like any gaming environment present problems. Single player games have been accused of duming down the population and also promoting violent and anti-social behaviour and I would argue that anti-social behaviour is promoted by SPs far more than it is promoted by MMOGs.

MMOGs will never be as bad as they are made out to be and if other genres and market areas are to go by, they will never suffer the restraints that some gamers and politicians would like to place on them. All I would ask is that these people play them and study what they are talking about before making random and nonsensical comments about stuff they obviously no and have thought very little about.