Social Gaming and Its Issues – Term Paper

Introduction

Social gaming is not new in the world today. In general, the propagation of social gaming is facilitated by technology and its psychological impacts. As with any other trends, social gaming deserves a deep look and analysis to identify any possible afflictions as well as benefits upon the modern world.

Now social gaming, whose propagation is enabled by information technologies, is still in a growing phase; hence it needs regulations on various aspects. Although there are lots of controversial issues over social gaming and its impacts, we still predict the future of social gaming to be promising and beneficial to society. Our conclusion is based on various factors we shall later discuss in this paper. Definition of Social Gaming Social gaming commonly refers to playing games as a means to social interactions, or a form of gaming that requires social interactions.

This is, as opposed to playing solo games (single player games like some card games and single-player video games). By this definition, social gaming includes under it a broad spectrum of games such as: Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), social casual games, games from social networking websites (e. g. Facebook) and even multiplayer video games. Whilst social games seem to have only come around due to technological interventions, social games are in fact, not new to our society.

They were present in society even before the Industrial Revolution. One such example would be the “Leaf Games” which were present in China in the 9th century according to the chart from Disruptor Beam, a social game publisher focused on the world of roleplaying, depicting a brief history of social games. (Jon, 2010)[1] 3|P ag e [Term Paper – Team 6] Figure 1: A brief history of Social Games (Jon, 2010) [1] 4|P ag e [Term Paper – Team 6] Reasons for Growth in Social Gaming As the chart shows, social gaming propagated rapidly since the early 1990’s.

There are several reasons for the fast-growth, while the dominant one is the advent of the Internet as well as rapid development in other information technology. Firstly, the Internet lowered the barrier to social games, and eventually becoming the primary platform for games, through the ubiquity and development of the Internet. Increased mobile adoption, improved mobile technology and increased network coverage also enables people to easily access social games regardless of their location. Essentially, anyone can now access games through any devices with an Internet connection.

Based on this point, we can infer that social gaming can influence a wider range of people including both “internet natives” and “internet immigrants” because IT is becoming more and more influential. Furthermore, the cost of designing and publishing a social game is less than traditional video games because social games are basically for casual play and they have simpler interfaces and design. Therefore, social games are faster, easier and less expensive to design than the traditional video games. And also the distribution of games via Internet has a relative lower marginal cost than video games.

This translates to lower risks for game developers, hence is a motivation for the continual development and publishing of social games. Additionally, social games generally have various psychological impacts (both positive and negative, which we shall discuss later) on people and these kinds sometimes are the factors that make people embrace social gaming into their daily lives. 5|P ag e [Term Paper – Team 6] Impacts of Social Gaming on Society Introduction It is not news to any one of us that social networking is beginning to etch itself deeper and deeper into our personal lives.

In fact, according to Nielson Netview, the average American spends 22. 7% of his time on social networking sites, up by 43% since June 2009. Top 10 Sectors by Share of U. S. Internet Time RANK 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Category Social Networks Online Games E-mail Portals Instant Messaging Videos/Movies** Search Software Manufacturers Multi-category Entertainment Classifieds/Auctions Other* Share of June 2010 22. 7% 10. 2% 8. 3% 4. 4% 4. 0% 3. 9% 3. 5% 3. 3% 2. 8% 2. 7% 34. 3% Time Share of June 2009 15. 8% 9. 3% 11. 5% 5. 5% 4. 7% 3. 5% 3. 4% 3. 3% 3. 0% 2. % 37. 3% Time % Change Share of Time 43% 10% -28% -19% -15% 12% 1% 0% -7% -2% -8% in Source: Nielsen NetView – June 2009-June 2010 *Other refers to 74 remaining online categories visited from PC/laptops **NetView’s Videos/Movies category refers to time spent on video-specific (e. g. , YouTube, Bing Videos, Hulu) and movie-related websites (e. g. , IMDB, MSN Movies and Netflix) only. It is not a measure of video streaming or inclusive of video streaming on non-video-specific or movie-specific websites (e. g. , streamed video on sports or news sites).

Figure 2: Top 10 Sectors by Share of US. Internet Time (“What Americans Do Online: Social Media and Games Dominate [2] Activity”, 2010) This marked increase in the time spent on social networking sites and online games over the course of a mere year has demonstrated how much they have penetrated our society. The penetration is almost viral of nature, with a global increase of approximately 45 million users between the years 2008 and 2009 in the leading social networking site, Facebook, which provides various online social games to its users.

Ranking second is online games such as StarCraft or MMORPGs such as World of WarCraft, which are also categorized under social gaming by definition. 6|P ag e [Term Paper – Team 6] According to the latest research by the NDP Group, 20% of the US population has played a game on a social network site. And of this 20%, 35% of these social game players are first-time gamers who have never played any other kinds of video games. Furthermore, in a study by PopCap, the average social gamer is a 43-year-old woman.

This means that social gaming as an activity is no longer confined to just the so-called “gamers” and are increasingly becoming an activity loved by the masses (Inagram, 2010) [3]. If we link these observations back to the Internet analysis conducted by Nielson Netview, we can infer one reason for the popularity of social gaming to be the continual expansion of the user base of popular social networking sites. Consequently, we can expect the number of people playing social games to increase in the future. Now, let us first discuss the motivations for social gaming: Motivations for Social Gaming Transformative Experience

Firstly, online games can provide a transformative experience for players (Hussain & Griffiths, 2009)[4]. Transformative experience refers to a kind of feeling that cannot be experienced in the real world. In the real world, people are constrained by gender, age and other disabilities. However, those limitations are not problems in the virtual world and do not restrict their virtual activities as such. Social games enable gamers to adopt a virtual identity, such as a farmer, a mafia leader, or a restaurant owner. This identity is affirmed through social interactions between gamers within the games.

Besides that, transformative experiences also come from the differences between rules and regulations in online social games and that of the real world. For example, in the game World of WarCraft, there is a lot of fighting and killing involved during Player Vs Monsters (PVM) or Player Vs Player (PVP) gameplay. These kind of violent actions do not comply with the usual ethical rules and laws in the real world but they are usually the natural order in online social games. Game players are attracted to virtual worlds because of the unique experience that cannot be experienced in the real world.

Social Networking A second reason for playing online social games is that some people believe that online social games such as World of WarCraft and City of Heroes are good media and platform for social 7|P ag e [Term Paper – Team 6] networking. Basically there are two types of players: people who play with real-life friends or family members and people who play these games with strangers. According to a research conducted by Cole and Griffiths, 67. 4% of the 912 self-selected MMORPG players believe that online social gaming can positively affect their relationships with other players.

And nearly half of them think that their virtual world friends are comparable with their real world friends or even more reliable than real world friends (Cole & Griffiths, 2007) [5]. Apart from developing friendship with other gamers, some players believe that they can learn more social capabilities such as teamwork, communication and cooperation through interacting with other gamers in online social games. Stress Alleviation and Relaxation Another important reason for playing online games is for therapeutic purposes, in order to relieve stress and loneliness.

According to the research result by Cole and Griffiths, female players spend more time on gaming per week on average. Furthermore, 39. 3% of the survey participants said they would discuss sensitive issues like relationship problems and family problems with online gaming friends but not real life friends. And female player are more likely to confide online than male player (Cole & Griffiths, 2007) [5]. This kind of motivation is one of the bases of the therapeutic application of social gaming in the future, which would be really beneficial if it was properly developed (see the part of modern applications of online social games).

Curiosity and Interest There are still a small number of players who play online social games because of curiosity and interest. Online social gaming is now a booming culture, and it attracts a lot of attention from the general public, especially youths. A large portion of players are actually new players (Dugan, 2010) [6]. Below is a table that details the survey results from Cole and Griffiths’s research. This abstract summarizes the points we discussed above. Curiosity, astonishment and interest Attention, reasoning, creativity, problem solving Enjoy a different lifestyle in virtual environment Total (%) 19 22. 27. 3 Male (%) 20 22. 2 28. 2 Female (%) 15. 9 23. 4 25. 8 8|P ag e [Term Paper – Team 6] Therapeutic refreshment None of the above Total 15. 7 15. 5 100 13. 4 16. 3 100 [5] 21 13. 9 100 Figure 3: Motivations for Playing (Cole & Griffiths, 2007) Psychological Impacts of Social Gaming A lot of gamers already integrate gaming into their normal life, which means they set aside an amount of time for gaming every day or every week. So what exactly are the psychological impacts of online social gaming on the general public as well as our society?

Loss of Connection to Real World For some gamers, they think they may behave in a manner that reflects of their true selves when playing online social games than they are in the real world. Consequently, online social gaming can be really involving and thus, blurring the boundary between the virtual world and the real world. In some extreme cases, gamers would even mistake virtual world for real world. For addicted players, they might face the danger of losing connection to real world because they rely on virtual social activities instead of real world social activities.

Such discontinuity between the real world and the virtual world could be disastrous. For example, a real 3-month-old baby starved to death while her parents were busy nurturing their virtual baby on a game at an Internet cafe in South Korea (Arvind, 2010) [7]. Excessive Playing and Addiction In another research conducted by Grusser, Thalemann and Griffiths, 840 (11. 9%) out of 7069 the gamers in the study can be categorized as addicted players. And for the gamers that fall outside the “addicted” category, the average amount of time spent on gaming per week is nearly 23 hours (Grusser, Thalemann & Griffiths, 2007) [8].

Addicted gamers spend much more time on gaming than the other gamers, which is very time consuming and can really decrease productivity in work. Excessive playing can also lead to more serious results other than time loss. In 2005, the deaths of at least seven South Koreans were because of excessive online gaming (Cain, 2010) [9]. In a general sense, excessive gaming can lead to various health problems like bad eyesight and mental diseases (Computer games and health problems, 2008) [10]. 9|P ag e [Term Paper – Team 6] Virtual Violence and Real World Violence

Some people believe that some online games which involve fighting and killing scenes can trigger violent behaviours in the real world. Although no direct evidence has been found between the virtual violence and real world violence now, we should still treat it as a potential risk of online social gaming and take some measure to prevent that. Actually, a lot of players are aware of the bad influence of gaming on their normal lives. However they simply cannot stop playing because of poor self-control ability. They always play longer than they intended (Hussian & Griffiths, 2009) [4]. Conclusion

However, these phenomena are not exclusive for social gaming. These issues, which have surfaced multiple times on media, are major negative impacts that are related to inappropriate use of information technologies, or Internet. Hence, they cannot be evidences against social gaming becoming a beneficial industry in the future. Additionally, it is apparent that social gaming is a phenomenon that will stay and continue to propagate in the coming years. Therefore, the approach that we should adopt towards social gaming is to embrace it and at the same time mitigate the negative consequences of it through education and other related means.

In summary, the solutions to these issues lie in the social, ethical and technological aspects, which require the effort and cooperation of the whole society as well as the government. Impacts of Social Gaming on Economics and Government Policies Introduction As we all have known, social gaming has its pros and cons on the society. We shall discuss some of the problems and opportunities social gaming brings, as well as the reactions from the governments and game developers. 10 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] Social Gaming Industry As discussed previously, social gaming is becoming more and more commonplace nowadays.

Consequently, more and more governments are investing money on it since they believe that this growing industry is able to generate revenue for their country through methods like online micro-transactions. For example, in games like World of WarCraft, some virtual items could only be brought using real world currency. By restricting certain items to be bought using only real world currency or allowing the option to be purchased using real world currency, players are motivated to fork out real cash for the virtual goods they desire. This generates revenue for the social game developers.

Hence, social gaming can be a contributing factor in the economy of the country. And because of the explosion of social games in recent years and its resultant revenue, this industry has remained attractive and interesting to governments and corporations worldwide. For example, about a year ago, entertainment giant Electronic Arts acquired one of the most popular social game developer Playfish for $275 million (Alexander, Nov 2009) [31]. Analysts expect that the social gaming industry will continue to have a fast growing trend in the following years. Generating revenue

Social games have generated revenue and enlarged the market over the past few years. Zynga, one of the most popular social game developer, have estimated that its revenue to be somewhere between $500 million and $800 million this year. They also estimated that this amount will reach $1 billion by 2011 (Gaming: Playing The Social Game, 2010) [16]. Furthermore, Research and Market observed social gaming to be the fastest growing segment of the gaming market. It was further reported that social gaming made $725 million revenue in US, which was nearly 2 percent of the $46. 5 billion global gaming market in 2009.

This number is expected to be tripled by 2012 (Research and Markets: Social Gaming: Virtual Crops Yield Real Profits, 2010) [17]. In 2010, the global gaming industry will grow at an annual rate of 7% to $1600 billion. Online and wireless games, as the fastest growing categories, will grow by 11% and eventually reach 14% by 2013. However, the market share for typically single-player games is continually decreasing. Since most of the online and wireless games are social based, social gaming’s share of the market is definitely increasing (Global Online Gaming Report 2009, 2009) [18]. 11 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] Two Business Models

Basically, social game developers generate revenue from two business models. One is the micro transactions model: “a free-to-play business model that relies on users paying small amounts of money for virtual goods and in-game items”. Some popular social games can generate substantial revenue per day. Like in the example mentioned earlier, Facebook applications generated approximately $150 million revenue for Zynga in 2009 (Parker, 2010) [19]. Another business model is subscription-based. This is used in MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XI and World of WarCraft, charging each user a certain amount monthly or based on the actual hours of playing.

For World of WarCraft, it has more than 12 million players, amounting to about $180 million per month for Blizzard Entertainment just for subscription fees (Hyon-hee, 2010)[20]. Additionally, both models promote micro transactions, global payment and online billings for virtual goods. As social gaming is becoming more popular, more online transactions are being made for virtual goods resulting in increased revenue. In 2007, Facebook earned about $15 million from the selling of virtual gifts. This figure doubled in 2008. The value of the total virtual goods was approximately $2. billion in 2008, and will eventually reached $10. 3 billion in 2012 (Szugat, 2008) [21]. Figure 4: Revenue generated by sale of virtual goods on popular sites/games (Szugat, 2008) [21] 12 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] Figure 5: Projected Revenue of Virtual Goods in 2012 (Szugat, 2008) [21] Singapore as an example As the social gaming industry is looking promising in recent year, countries such as Singapore have recently announced this year that they will be investing $20 million for the next generation games (Funding boost for large-scale media projects targeting the international market, 2010)[29].

One of its main projects is to address the needs of the entire games value chain by providing support for concepts development all the way to marketing strategies. More financial supports are provided for game developers to develop their games. They will be investing in large scale and bigger budget content projects such as the development of multi-million MMOs. With all this investment, we believe that social gaming would soon reach a new and higher level. This has also brought in more people to be interested in the field both in terms of technology and industry developments, as more emphasis is placed on it nowadays.

Risk investment One important segment of risk investment is the investment on gaming industry. Social gaming has provided new opportunities for risk investment. In the past, risk investment seized the opportunity when social network first came out. Now, the same thing is happening to social gaming. As mentioned above, social gaming industry appear to behold a promising future but its development requires funds, and this is the reason why risk investors cooperate with social game developers. In 2005, only 3 Chinese social game companies received about $13 million from risk investment.

The number doubled in 2006. In 2007, it reached $76. 5 million and eventually $150 million by 2008. In the first quarter of 2008, the revenue from social games is 13 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] about $84 million, with a net profit of about $21 million (Risk investment focuses on the third generation of online game companies, 2008) [22]. Future trend Social gaming is in a period of rapid development. Besides its continual expansion throughout the Internet, we can expect social gaming to combine with mobile industry in the near future.

PlayPhone Inc, a mobile entertainment company, on 13 October 2010, introduced a new mobile social gaming platform, PlayPhone Social, which will focus on establishing a mobile gaming network for users to connect and play with friends (PlayPhone launches mobile social gaming platform, 2010) [23]. This platform will apply to all major mobile systems such as iPhone and Android, thus integrating social games on mobile. (Kim, 2010) [24] Issues in Social Gaming Money Trading “Gold farming” is a very common phenomenon found in massively multiplayer online (MMOs) game.

Basically, when playing games, players are able to obtain in-game currency which is usually referred to as gold. With gold, players are then able to use it in game to purchase virtual goods and complete various tasks. However, players begin to sell the virtual currency for real world cash. This kind of conversion is sometimes illegal and in violation of the Terms of Service, hence most game operators usually take an active stand against such acts – offenders are usually punished with a ban on their accounts.

Despite the efforts of the game developers, there are still quite a large number of people doing it. What’s worse, people mostly in China and developing countries have taken this up as their jobs as they could earn money through it. (Scott, 2007)[25] A lawsuit case involving the problems Although it is stated in the games’ Terms of Service that any unauthorized selling of virtual money and products are prohibited, many people are either unaware of it or simply ignoring it. Recently this year, Zynga, one of the most popular social network games company has sued a third party site. Caoili, 2010)[28] It is a real money trading marketplace for unauthorized sale of virtual currency. This marketplace also involves trading for many popular MMOs, including World of WarCraft, Aion Online, EverQuest, Final Fantasy XI, and many more. 14 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] Advertisements in Social Gaming There are many social games and most of them have contents different from one and another. Some games are educational, while some are not suitable for the minors. Most social games are online based, which can be accessed easily. Advertisements are one of the revenue generating sources.

Without them, companies might face economical difficulties to maintain its gaming infrastructures. However, there are also harmful advertisements which are not supposed to be displayed to minors. Players might be linked to other harmful games or contents through clicking of those advertisements. Governments should play their part here to promote healthy and positive contents of games (Chinese Government To Police Social Games, 2009) [30]. This could be done through regulating the content of the games or banning any harmful websites as well as supporting activities to games which have positive contents.

We believe that the responsibility of regulating or restricting harmful social games lies with both governments and the society. Different Perspectives When there is a demand, there must be a supply. Most people in the developed countries usually do not have enough time to play the games but they could use real money to catch up with their progress in the game. This is usually achieved through “illegal” purchases of virtual currency from “Gold Farmers”. As such, the governments have stepped in and placed laws and regulations on it. They realized that virtual goods could have real value too.

Additionally, by trading between virtual and real world currency, jobs are created. In fact, research has shown that the number of unemployed in developing countries has decreased due to it. (Heeks, 2008)[26] Next, currency trading also leads to an increase in the national income. Money earned from foreign players take the form of exports, thus creating a social impact on the country’s economy. In this means, further problems like poverty could also be alleviated. However, there are differing takes on this phenomenon with some countries supporting it, and others objecting to it.

For example, Korea has ruled that exchanging of virtual currency with real world cash is legal but is subject to taxation. China however has banned the selling of virtual currency for real world cash but did not do anything for the converse. (Xinhua, 2009)[27] 15 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] Conclusion From the above, we can see that although virtual currency’s trading and other economical activities relating to social gaming has lots of inherent problems. With the problems, more and more laws are set in place to regulate it.

Since it has already shown its profitability in recent years, we can expect it to become a revenue generator to the economy. Modern Applications of Online Social Games Even though online social gaming can have many bad psychological influences on the players, it still has some good points that can be made use of by the society. Educational and Training Tools A novel application of online social games is its application as educational and training tools. Online social gaming can eliminate formal boundaries between educators and students.

Hence, this kind of indirect communication through online social games can sometimes get better results than direct communication methods. Some basic skills such as typing, reading and comprehension can be trained through gaming. Also, communication, cooperation and teamwork activities that are required in online social gaming can also enhance the social capabilities of players. A lot of learning techniques (as shown in the table below) such as peer review and panel discussion can be integrated into online social gaming.

Partner activities Think/pair/share Share/check Work/review/discuss Peer review/edit Partner conference Peer interview Tell and retell Group activities Electronic cafe Round robin/round table Jigsaw Discussion group Structure controversy Panel discussion Debate Figure 6: Cooperative Learning techniques for Online Social Gaming (Cole & Griffiths, 2007) [5] Even some professional knowledge like mathematics and economics can be learned through online social gaming. For example, the game named “The Algebots: Beat the Game, Pass the 16 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6]

Course”, which is under development by LAUSD’s LAVA Virtual School, is an algebra curricular game aimed to enhance the algebra knowledge of players. Another typical example of educational game is “Campus: Second Life”. In 2005, there were already 10 university courses in the Campus: Second Life developed by Linden Lab. The courses vary from arts subjects to information technology subjects. Another interesting public educational game is a game titled “Cyberbudget”, which was launched in 2006 (French Budget Minister Jean-Francois Cope announces Cyberbudget Game, 2006) [11].

It was a governmentsupported online social game that was aimed to find solutions for the country’s financial challenges. Therapeutic Online Social Games Etherapy games are designed for therapeutic purpose. Unlike other commercial online social games, the content of therapeutic games is always controlled by the games creators. Despite that, therapeutic games are designed to incorporate high level of fun and guide players to find out health problems (mainly mental problems) and seek for solutions at the same time (Freddolino, Blaschke, 2008) [12]. Personal Investigator” is one such example. It is designed for the purpose of helping teenagers overcome mental health problems (Coyle & Matthews, 2004) [13] . Other examples of therapeutic games include “Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus”, which is designed to help educate about asthma management and “Ben’s Game”, which is designed for solve mental problems caused by cancer (Education and Learning Games, 2005) [14]. Online Gaming for Selection Purpose Interestingly, online social gaming is also now used for selection purpose.

Since online social gaming is a virtual platform for social networking, it can give a reflection of the social capabilities of players to some extent. Online social games also create complex situations for player and require a lot of decision making process. Some companies are now trying to make use of those characters of online social gaming in recruiting processes. Companies would integrate a lot of information relating to the company itself and the essence of the job position into online social gaming, and set different tasks using the given information in order to test the abilities of applicants.

Some companies introduce a CyPRESS (Cyber Pre-selection System) to enhance the quality of selection and reduce selection time and manpower (Laumer, Stetten, Eckhardt & Weitzel, 2009) [15]. 17 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] Conclusion The three applications of social gaming mentioned above are all under development – the technologies and regulations relating to them are not yet mature. However, we can see that social gaming really has unpredictable potential. There may also be more novel applications of social gaming apart from the above-mentioned three which we cannot foresee now.

And to what extent can those applications of social gaming positively affect our society depends on how we make use of those potentials. Overall Conclusion As social gaming is a new trend in recent years, we can be certain that with the prevalence of social networking sites and its accompanying social games as well as MMORPGs such as World of WarCraft, social gaming is going to impact the individuals of the society in more ways than we can possibly expect. From the above analysis we can see that online social gaming has both positive and negative impacts on the general public as well as the whole society.

It depends on what aspects we are looking at and from what kind of perspective. Although online social games can have some negative psychological impacts, it can also positively affect the general public. And we think the positive impacts outweigh the negative impacts in many ways. In the aspects of education, therapy and recruiting selection; the potentials of social gaming has surprised us in many ways. Other than the impacts on the general public, social gaming industry has positive effects on economics.

With the two business models of social gaming, the fast-growing online gaming industry has gained a larger market share and been generating more revenue. Risk investors also gain benefits from social gaming. Moreover, we can expect social gaming industry to combine with other industries, such as mobile industry, to reach higher revenue level. Social gaming has its advantages and disadvantages. For the advantages, if the governments could play a positive role in it, many issues like employment rate, poverty could benefit from social gaming.

As for the problems in online gaming, one possible solution is for the governments to step in and take control of the situation. However, we believe that the resolutions of those problems relates to social, ethical and legal aspects. The health development of social gaming relies on both the governments and the society. 18 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] To conclude, we believe that social gaming, both as a prosperous digital industry and advanced digital technology, has unpredictable and unlimited potentials.

If proper instructions are given to the general public, and if there are more online social games which are designed for positive purposes, the general public and the whole society can benefit more from online social gaming. 19 | P a g e [Term Paper – Team 6] References 1. Jon. (May, 2010). The History of Social Games. Jon Radoff’s Internet Wonderland. Retrieved October 23, 2010, from: http://radoff. com/blog/2010,/05/24/history-social-games/ 2. (August, 2010). “What Americans Do Online: Social Media And Games Dominate Activity” [Painting]. Retrieved October 23, 2010, from: http://blog. ielsen. com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/what-americans-do-online-socialmedia-and-games-dominate-activity/ 3. Ingram, M. (2010). Average Social Gamer Is a 43-Year-Old Woman. GIGAOM. Retrieved October 23, 2010, from: http://gigaom. com/2010,/02/17/average-social-gamer-is-a-43-year-old-woman/ 4. Hussian, Z. & Griffiths, M. D. (2009). The Attitudes, Feelings, and Experiences of Online Gamers: A Qualitative Analysis. Cyber Psychology & Behavior. Vol 12, Num 6. 5. Cole, H. & Griffiths, M. D. (2007). Social Interactions in Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Gamers.

Cyber Psychology & Behavior. Vol 10, Num 4. 6. Dugan, L. (2010). One in Five Social Network Users Play Social Games. Social Times. Retrieved October 23, 2010, from: http://www. socialtimes. com/2010,/08/one-in-five-social-network-users-play-social-games/ 7. Arvind, (2010). Case Korea – Getting Over Addiction Blues [Social Gaming]. PLUGGD. IN. Retrieved October 23, 2010, from: http://www. pluggd. in/case-korea-getting-over-addiction-blues-social-gaming-297/ 8. Grusser, S. M. , Thalemann, R. , & Griffiths, M. D. (2007). Excessive