Virtual reality: A kid enjoys an online game at a game center in Rawa Belong, Central Jakarta. (JP/ J.Adiguna)
High school student Ade spends his days in class like any other kid, but after school he morphs into a sword-carrying warrior, fighting ogres, monsters and dragons in the fantasy world of online gaming.
Ade and other online gamers have become part of the furniture at Internet cafes throughout Jakarta, which are now sprouting up around university campuses and schools.
The youngsters sit alongside older, more experienced gamers, with their eyes glued to computer screens. Their right hands move swiftly clicking the mouse and their left hands type in commands and chat messages.
The gamers build communities or “clans”, as they like to call them. As time whizzes by, some of them manage to make money from the games, rather than just participating in a virtual world for fun.
But there is a darker side to gaming. Lives are tainted and relationships ruined, because of cyber-space addiction.
“Making money is very possible with online gaming,” Ade said.
“All you have to do is progress to higher levels with your character and then sell it to another gamer.”
All online games have the same, if not similar, concept: The player creates a character by choosing its appearance and capabilities, and develops it over time through battles. As the character progresses, it becomes stronger and harder to defeat.
“Top-level characters can be sold for as much as Rp 200,000 (US$20) to Rp 300,000 each,” Ade said.
Another online gamer, Willy, works as an accountant. He said that for popular online games, a character can be sold for millions of rupiah.
“The big money usually comes in from the sale of items, weapons or merchandise,” Willy said.
“A strong, rare weapon can be sold for about Rp 3 million.”
Both Ade and Willy said they were proud of having tough virtual characters and weapons despite the fact they were abstract items.
“There is a ‘player versus player’ mode for every online game, and you always feel good beating someone else’s character to a bloody pulp,” he said.
Willy said that with all his accounting work right now, he no longer had a lot of time for online-gaming. Therefore, he only plays on weekends.
“But when I was still a university student, I could spend 12 hours playing online games nonstop each day,” Willy said.
The matrix: Passersby pass an online game center in Central Jakarta. Many online game centers across the capital are open 24 hours thanks to high number of game lovers. (JP/J. Adiguna)
“Internet cafes charge Rp 5,000 per hour, not to mention the drinks and snacks.”
The long hours of nothing but online gaming often lead to destructive addiction for a lot of gamers.
“A lot of my friends have dropped out of university and some have even had relationships fall apart because of an addiction to gaming,” Willy said.
“I got my wake-up call when I heard somebody died because he played nonstop for four days, eating only snacks and drinking soda while playing.”
Although there are no chemical substances, such as drugs, consumed to cause an addiction to online gaming, the fantasizing can lead to the same behavior, said University of Indonesia psychologist Ratna Djuwita.
“The players hold it in their minds a delusion of being as powerful as the characters in the game. This separates them from reality, and it is very unhealthy for their minds,” she said.
“The feeling of being superior entices their emotions, which causes a chain reaction to their hormones and in the end causes addiction.”
Ratna said that no matter how advanced the game, the relationships established online would never be compatible with social relationships based on personal approach and contact.
“You can never replace face-to-face relationships,” she said.
“The Internet might help you meet a lot of people from around the world, but it won’t replace personal human touch that we all need in our social life.”
“The tragic death of an online gamer is an example of how relationships in the virtual world are artificial.
“In the real world, the victim might find comfort and solutions with his real world friends. But unfortunately, he lived in a virtual world where none cared about his well-being.”
Indonesia does not face a widespread problem of addition to online gaming because of the lack of Internet infrastructure and facilities.
According to the Information and Communications Ministry, only 12.5 percent of the total population, or around 30 million people, are involved in online gaming.
In South Korea, despite the fact that the number of online gamers is a lot smaller (around 2.4 million), the percentage is higher – 30 percent of that country’s under-25 residents are involved in online gaming.
In some cases, severely addicted gamers in South Korea tend to show antisocial behavior, taking fights from the gaming world into the real world and turning into violent sociopaths in the long run.
The problem with gaming addiction is so severe in South Korea that the government finances a program for addicted gamers to rehabilitate them through military boot camps.
“There is no need to panic yet. We need more research about online games and their impact in Indonesia before we decide whether we need a government rehab program for online addicts,” Ratna said.
However, she said Indonesia might fall to the same pit of violent youths who could not separate fantasy from reality.
“Learning from cases in Korea, parents need to monitor their children more closely,” Ratna said.
“Violent games may eventually lead to violent mentalities.” (hdt)
