Games of Social Control: A Sociological Study of Addiction to Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

This extended abstract, presented at DiGRA 2018, outlines a PhD project by Cindy Krassen and Stef Aupers at KU Leuven that challenges the dominant social-psychological explanations of game addiction. Where most prior research attributes compulsive gaming to low self-esteem and weak social relations, the project argues that the social networks formed within and around massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) exert social pressure on players, leading them to neglect offline friends, family, school, and work. The authors frame this through the sociological concept of social control, positing that shared in-game norms and obligations can restrict individual agency much as offline groups do.

The abstract cites industry and academic figures to establish context: a reported 53 percent of frequent gamers play multiplayer titles, and MMORPG players are said to average around 23 hours of play per week, with some sessions lasting ten hours or more. The authors note that such statistics have fueled "media panics" around excessive gaming, and they position their work as a corrective to psychological framings that have dominated the literature.

The research is qualitative and inductive, with a three-part research question addressing how players are socialized into a "gamer" identity, which game-related networks and secondary institutions they belong to, and how these compete with non-gaming social ties. The design proceeds in two phases: an initial stage combining surveys of high school and university students in Flanders and the Netherlands, in-depth interviews, social network analysis of "ego networks," and possible participant observation within guilds, followed by a second stage interviewing non-gaming parents and friends, alone and in mini-focus groups with the gamers in their lives. Adolescent players from Dutch treatment clinics for game addiction are also to be included, and the project is funded by an FWO grant.