Effects of Playingdota

Chapter 1: Introduction and its background
Introduction
"One of the top reasons for college drop-outs". FCC Commissioners, Deborah Taylor Tate, blamed it to online gaming addiction. We are now living in a computer age, different new gadgets are invented to make our life easier and more comfortable like getting information, entertainment, communication and reference from the internet or websites. There are also different kinds of Computer games Online or LAN gaming for the youth and young once. Video game addiction, or more broadly video game overuse, is excessive or compulsive use of computer and video games that interferes with daily life. Instances have been reported in which users play compulsively, isolating themselves from, or from other forms of, social contact and focusing almost entirely on in-game achievements rather than broader life events (Computer Game Addiction. Berkeley Parents Network). Among the most in demand games include Ragnarok Online, RAN online, War Rock, Grand Chase, Cross Fire, Counter Strike, Left for Dead, Flyff, at Defense of the Ancients or most popularly known as DOTA. Defense of the Ancients is a custom scenario for the real-time strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, based on the "Aeon of Strife" map for StarCraft. The objective of the scenario is for each team to destroy the opponents' Ancients, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. 1 Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and AI-controlled fighters called "creeps". As in role-playing games, players level up their heroes and use gold to buy equipment during the mission. (Tok, Kevin (2006-01-25). "Defense of the Ancients 101, Page 2".) DOTA is played by 2-10 players through LAN gaming and if World Wide you need a Garena Application. You can also play alone with the computer as your enemy with the choices of easy, normal or insane. Many are hooked up with this kind of game specially the youth after classes. Now this prevent them from doing their homeworks and assignments at home. Unfortunately, this cause the students to skip classes or worst drop from the role. On the other hand, college students who are serious to finish their course and at the same time hooked with DOTA managed to budget their time in studying and playing they have plan specific times for studying, Try to study at the same time schedule each day and etc. They are aware of their priorities. They apply different techniques and styles in their studies. They know how to balance playing and studying. Addictions are an imbalance in a persons’ life. They have severe negative consequences for the addict himself and those closes to them. They often result in huge financial debts and the destruction of long fostered social relationships. They are characterized by an inability to stop or reduce a particular behaviors thus resulting in negative consequences. Playing the game Defense of the Ancient…Noob or Pro? 2 A. Background of the Study: A report by the Council On Science And Public Health to the AMA cited a 2005 Entertainment Software Association survey of computer game players and noted that players of MMORPGs were more likely to play for more than two hours per day than other gamers. In its report, the Council used this two-hour-per-day limit to define "gaming overuse", citing the American Academy of Pediatrics guideline of no more than one to two hours per day of "screen time". However, the ESA document cited in the Council report does not contain the two-hour-per-day data. In a 2005 Tom's Games interview, Dr. Maressa Orzack estimated that 40% of the players of World of Warcraft (an MMORPG) were addicted, but she did not indicate a source for the estimate. She may have derived the estimate from the informal survey managed by Nick Yee at The Daedalus Project, who notes that caution should be exercised when interpreting these data. A 2006 lecture reported by the BBC indicated that 12% of polled gamers reported at least some addictive behaviors. The lecturer, Professor Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University, stated in another BBC interview that addicts are "few and far between." In 2007, Michael Cai, director of broadband and gaming for Parks Associates (a media/technology research and analysis company), said that 3 "Video game addiction is a particularly severe problem in Asian countries such as China and Korea." Results of a 2006 survey suggested that 2.4% of South Koreans aged 9 to 39 suffer from game addiction, with another 10.2% at risk of addiction. A 2007 Harris Interactive online poll of 1,187 US youths aged 8–18 gathered detailed data on youth opinions about video game play. About 81% of youths stated that they played video games at least once per month. Further, the average play time varied by age and sex, from eight hours per week (responses from teen girls) to 14 hours per week (responses by teen boys). "Tweens" (8–12-year-olds) fell in the middle, with boys averaging 13 hours per week of reported game play and girls averaging 10. Harris concluded that 8.5% "can be classified as pathological or clinically 'addicted' to playing video games", but did not explain how this conclusion was reached. A 2009 survey by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Ontario of 9,000 students from Grades 7 to 12 showed almost 10% get "screen time" for seven (or more) hours a day. A little over 10% also reported having video gaming problem in the previous year. Edward Swing, a graduate assistant at Iowa State University in Ames co-authored a study in the Pediatrics (journal) that found a mild association between watching television or playing a video game and attention issues in more than 1,300 children ages eight to 11 years old. 4 Children who played video games or watched television for more than the normal two hours a day maximum, which is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics were 1.5 - 2 times more likely to show signs of attention issues, the researchers found. The same study showed that 8.5% of video game players showed "pathological patterns of play, defined as exhibiting at least six out of 11 symptoms of damage to family, social, school, or psychological functioning a definition similar to that for pathological gambling." The press has reported concerns over online gaming since at least 1994, when Wired Magazine mentioned a college student who was playing a MUD for 12 hours a day instead of attending class. In a July 2007 article, Perth, Western Australia, parents stated that their 15-year-old son had abandoned all other activities to play RuneScape, a popular MMORPG. The boy's father compared the condition to heroin addiction. In an April 2008 article, Telegram.co.uk reported that surveys of 391 players of Asheron's Call showed that 3% of the respondents suffered from agitation when they were unable to play, or missed sleep or meals to play. The article reports that University of Bolton lead researcher Dr. John Charlton stated, "Our research supports the idea that people who are heavily involved in game playing may be nearer to autistic spectrum disorders than people who have no interest in gaming." 5 On March 6, 2009, the CBC's national newsmagazine program the fifth estate aired an hour-long report on video game addiction and the Brandon Crisp story, titled "Top Gun", subtitled "When a video gaming obsession turns to addiction and tragedy". In August 2005, the government of the People's Republic of China, where more than 20 million people play online games, introduced an online gaming restriction limiting playing time to three hours, after which the player would be expelled from whichever game they were playing. In 2006, it relaxed the rule so only citizens under the age of 18 would face the limitations. Reports indicate underage gamers found ways to circumvent the measure. In July, 2007, the rule was relaxed yet again. Internet games operating in China must require that users identify themselves by resident identity numbers. After three hours, players under 18 are prompted to stop and "do suitable physical exercise." If they continue, their characters gain 50% of the usual experience. After five hours, their characters gain no experience at all.

6 B. Statement of the Problem: The primary reason of this study was to determine the effects of playing the game Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) on the study habits of college students and other players of DOTA.

Sub Questions: 1. What is the basic effect of the game DOTA to the student who gets use to it? 2. What is DOTA for a student who plays it? 3. What are the reasons why they are interested in this kind of game? 4. What are the disadvantages of playing DOTA? 5. Do study habits contribute to the improvement of students’ academic performance? 6. What are the benefits of playing computer games like DOTA? 7. What are the other outcomes of playing DOTA aside from its effect on study habits? 8. Does DOTA tend to lower the grade of a student who plays it? 9. Why some students are using their time of studying just to play DOTA? 10. How does DOTA affect the lives of the students who make use of it?

7 C. Significance of the Study The importance of this study is to identify students who are hooked in computer games and recognize the advantages and disadvantages they acquired from playing the said game. Furthermore, this will try to address the concerns of the students regarding the effects of playing computer games in their study habits. D. Scope and Limitations The Study will cover different students and players of dota who are addict in playing the game. E. Definition of Terms:
Study Habits- includes studying techniques, habitual learning procedures, acquiring knowledge through study patterns.
Computer game- a game played on computer; a game in the form of computer software
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DOTA- Defense of the Ancients; can be played on LAN or online. A role playing game which the goal is to destroy the world tree (for the scourge team) or frozen throne (for the sentinel team).
MMORPG- massively multiplayer online role playing game; is an online multiplayer role playing game for people.
Addiction- having a great interest in a particular thing to which a lot of time is devoted.
LAN- Local Area Network. A Group of computers that has connection with each other forms a networking.
PRO- is a term used in the game DOTA meaning you are a very skilled in playing the said game.
NOOB- an insult to a performance of a player; the player is performing like he is new to the game but is not.
GG - good game. The game is over.
Imba – imbalance, term by the players insulting other as abnormal.

9 Theoretical Framework: Uses and Gratifications Theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication. The theory places more focus on the consumer, or audience, instead of the actual message itself by asking “what people do with media” rather than “what media does to people” (Katz, 1959). It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs. The approach suggests that people use the media to fulfill specific satisfaction. In our case, the students who are playing the game DOTA which is a video game that is considered as one of the media, therefore we conclude that these students are playing for their own satisfaction. The media which is the video game offers pleasing convenience to the students because the students choose it for it for it meets their needs. These needs may include the joy, social interaction, arousal, interest, diversion, skill, fantasy world, team work, challenge and money making. They are motivated to play DOTA because of these needs that they could acquire when they play it. DOTA is then viewed by the consumers as a media that would provide for their happiness or pleasure thus a reason for patronizing it.

10 Media-System Dependency, first introduced by Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur (1976), is defined as “a relationship in which the capacity of individuals to attain their goals is contingent upon the information resources of the media system.” Those information resources can be categorized as the ability to create and gather, process, and disseminate information. According to Baran and Davis (2009), "media systems dependency theory assumes that the more a person depends on having his or her needs met by media use, the more important will be the role that media play in the person’s life, and therefore the more influence those media will have on the person". We therefore conclude that these students are dependent to the media and as stated to the previous theory, the video game offers convenience a reason why the students considered the game DOTA as important for they depends on it. The more a person depends on having his or her needs met by media use, that is the DOTA, the more important will be the role that media (DOTA) play in the person’s life, and therefore the more influence those media (DOTA) will have on the person. Influence may include our topic that is the effect of the Game DOTA to the study habits. The students who are consumer of the game are getting influenced, creating a manipulation of instead of doing their duties in school, they will now longer do that for they devoted a lot of time in playing the game thus no more time for duties. 11 Causation According to Hume, we reason inductively by associating constantly conjoined events, and it is the mental act of association that is the basis of our concept of causation. The logical positivist interpretation is that Hume analyses causal propositions, such as "A caused B", in terms of regularities in perception: "A caused B" is equivalent to "Whenever A-type events happen, B-type ones follow", where "whenever" refers to all possible perceptions

Assuming that A is the Addiction or dependency in the game DOTA and that B is the effect in the study habits, whenever addiction and high dependency occurred to the students we therefore conclude that it is the cause why the study habits of the students are affected such as skipping classes because they want to go to the computer shop and play, they are willing to ignore assignments because they wanted to play DOTA that badly. Addiction or dependency in the game and effect in the study habits goes like B (effect in the study habits) happens because of A (Addiction or high dependency in the game DOTA) thus a cause and effect reaction.

12 Active audience theory is a theory that people receive and interpret media messages in different ways, usually according to factors such as age, ethnicity, social class, etc. The audience is neither passive nor homogenous.

The students may interpret the game DOTA in different ways, for people who plays DOTA at ages 30 plus like my brother and his friends, he plays DOTA occasionally not as much as teenagers up to 30 years of age, they play more often than ones older than them.

Different backgrounds or culture/ethnicity is also one of the factors, as a proof I saw in the GARENA Application is that there are 33,000 estimated players of DOTA in the country of Philippines. Players of DOTA in the country of Malaysia is estimated 13 000, Country of Indonesia totaled 303 players, Thailand has totaled 872 DOTA players, Vietnam DOTA players estimated 28 300, country of USA with estimated 1300 DOTA player, Russian DOTA players is estimated 28 100 , and Romania with 4160 DOTA player. This does not include LAN players. Philippines rated highest on the numbers of people who plays DOTA in GARENA. One reasons of having different amount of players in GARENA is the different culture/ethnicity of a country.

13 Conceptual Framework: Fig. 1

The Video game is recognized by the consumer and by the time he started to use it, that’s the video consumption. The Arrow head pointing up in the Video Game Consumption means that there is a high frequency rate for the usage allotted for the Game. It can lead to game dependency or stop at that point. By then, the consumer has a high frequency rate of getting Game Influences, exposure/experience and involvement/connection thus making the student dependent to the video game. It would lead to either stop at that point, or skip the addiction and proceed to the effects to the study habits or addiction first before the effects of the study habits. Affected study habits at this point the student can stop video game consumption realizing that it affects his study habits, but the question arises if an addicted person can even stop his point of obsession 14 Fig. 2

Like what is mentioned earlier these are the needs of a students the enjoyment, social interaction, arousal, interest, diversion, skill, fantasy world, team work, challenge and money making. They are motivated to consume a video game because of it. Too much consumption can lead to video game addiction at that time the effects follows.
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Consumption

Effects

Addiction

Motivation

Team Work

Social Interaction

Arousal

Money making

Challenge

Interest

Diversion

Skill

Enjoyment

Fantasy World

Video Game Effect: Study Habits

Video Game Consumption

Game influences, Exposure and Involvement =dependency

Stops at this point

Video Game

Video Game Addiction

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