In my personal opinion these games are so successful and "addictive" for a few reasons. First off, they are fun, is something is fun logic would dictate that people would be inclined to do it often. Secondly, for the most part MMO's usually have some sort of ranking or leveling system for players. Everyone wants to reach the top, and getting better and ranking/leveling up is the only way to do it, this more time put into the is needed by the player. Thirdly, there is the online community. Events, communication over long distances, and even buying and selling are common in most MMO's. This community is somewhat a literal and an abstract theme. One the one hand, a popular MMO like WoW has millions of players, all connected by the same game. On the other hand, its safe to assume that most of the players have never actually met the people there interacting with in person. Clearly, these don't count as hidden mental addictive gimmicks, they are just things that make games fun and enjoyable.
So why is it that so many people belive that games are the digital equivalent of drugs? In my own opinion, there are two reasons. First off, I'm going to go out on a limb an say that most, if not all mainstream media outlets, and the people who report the news, have never even played a game above Pong or Wii Sports on there life. They might also consider behavior that was not present in there generation (such as playing a game on a t.v for long periods of time) bizarre, and worthy of concern. I believe that in there eyes, if you focus on a certain thing for too long, and if more then one person does it, then it must be an epidemic. Just look at how news outlets portrayed the swine flu in Canada, they made it out like this was the new black plague and we had to be on constant guard from this invisible killer. But in reality, compared to our intire population, few people were infected, and the mortality rate was small at worst. These people seem to give off the same message to the public that video games are some kind of virus that is spreading to our children, turning them into mindless delinquents, with no moral bearings, and who are trained to steal cars and murder hookers for fun.
Secondly, there's the mismanagement of information and bias in the media that makes making an informed decision about MMO's and games in general difficult. As an example right off the bat, lets consider the BBC's recent Panorama documentary on video game addiction . One of the participants claims that the footage and information found in the video was purposely misleading, as he had volunteered to show how his gaming was not an addiction. Its things like this that give video game fear monger's the ground that they need to claim that MMO's are stealing the souls of the kids that play them. In contrast, its hard to believe that looking at the websites of these MMO's will be any less biased.
Keep in mind that these are just my own opinions, and should be treated as such. However, as an avid gamer with considerable knowledge on the subject, I would advise you to at least consider my opinions. Internet games are not a soul destroying evil, as the media portrays it to be. The Media is uneducated, and are more concerned with creating an interesting story based around fear and danger then a boring truth. These come together to form a semi self sustaining cycle that creates a bad reputation for MMO's and video games in general. I say semi because to spite the media trying its best to harm video games for whatever reason, they are still an extremely successful genre of entertainment. And it is my firm belife that it will continue to be until a more popular until something new replaces it.
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