Ten Ton Hammer runs a very interesting article by Cody Bye which tries to predict the future of MMOs by comparing it to the history of Hollywood—very worth reading:

“If you consider that MMOs take 3-5 years to make we’re really only on the third or maybe fourth generation of MMOs and the risks are very high now. The other problem is that it is hard to respond to market changes. If I discover today that players want a certain type of game and I start making that, but it’s done 3-5 years from now, the whole market has shifted. We can see this happening now. There’s tons of WoW clones coming out now based on market demand set by WoW 4 years ago. So the question is, do players want something else now? If so, what? Do the players themselves even know? If you asked people in 1976 if they want an epic sci-fi movie I’m not convinced they would have said yes, and yet….“

Recently, Chang Ping, editor of Southern Metropolis Weekly, wrote an article about the debate of internet addiction in Mainland:

“Chinese media and the medical field quickly imported the word “internet addiction.” But, strangely, if you look at material on the topic in Chinese you won’t find the other side of the argument or that it is even being argued about. You’d think that “Internet addiction” is a new kind of disease, which is declaring war on the future of human kind, and the best doctors in the world are bravely fighting in the war and are up to their neck in it…
The Ministry of Health has stopped using electro-shock therapy to cure “Internet addiction” … What this really means is that they are announcing a different standard for treating Internet addiction, and the officials will still decide that “Internet addiction” is a kind of disease.”

I am sharing Chang’s opinion — as much as the media keeps repeating internet- and gaming-addiction as a matter of fact, we shouldn’t forget that this kind of compulsory behavior is not even recognized as a disease by experts yet. Isn’t the internet more of a channel to relieve one’s obsessions (like compulsory buying)?
Personally, I find the German means (just taken as an example) to prove obsessive computer-gaming an addiction pretty questionable; namely, showing screenshots of their favorite games to participants and recording if their brain-activity matches the brain-activity of alcohol-addicts when being shown pictures of alcohol.

A compulsory disorder is a terrible burden to its victim, but it’s not entirely helpful to prematurely demonize its origins, like Mainland is still doing it:

“In the Chinese medical organizations’ publicity material, “Internet addiction” has been described as a great beast, and the symptoms of all types of mental disorders, for example bad mood, slow mind, dizziness, shaky hands, low energy levels, tiredness, a lack of desire for food and drink, a suicidal desire or wanting to hurt others — all of these have been written out for Internet addiction. Yang Yongxin (杨永信), who has just been told by the Ministry of Health to stop his electro-shock treatments, also says adamantly that “Internet addiction” will cause the human aspect of the person to recede, and will turn a person into a beast.”

(via Danwei)