February 25, 2007
Recently I was able to conduct an interview with a friend of mine from Star Wars Galaxies. His gaming alias is SaberMaster and he has kindly allowed me to share this interview on my blog. This is another case among the many where MMO addiction comes into play, and line between game and reality fades. There’s no psychological study here. It’s me one on one with a fellow gamer, who has taken the courage to reveal one of his deepest secrets to the world, and what he went through.
Me: The date is February 14, 2007 and I am about to interview a friend from the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies. SaberMaster had told me his story in game about two years ago, and today he is going to share his story to others, and also give me an update on his current status. SaberMaster, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview.
SaberMaster: No problem Stav.
Me: First off, tell me about yourself. Who are you?
SB: I’m a 22 year old college student living in Ohio. I’m a Star Wars fan, a gamer, and am currently working at a bank. I grew up in suburbia outside Cleveland with my mom, dad, and sister and attended Ohio State University. Typical white boy life 
Me: All right, when did you start playing Star Wars Galaxies?
SB: In September of 2003.
Me: How did you find out about it?
SB: I was in an online gaming clan. We played a variety of games, like Jedi Outcast, Enemy Territory, and Call of Duty. Someone made a post on our forums about Star Wars Galaxies, and said it was a pretty neat game. I decided to give it a spin.
Me: Was this your first time playing an MMORPG?
SB: Yeah, I didn’t know you had to pay a monthly fee until after I got the game. I thought it was going to be a cool takeover the galaxy sort of shooter. For the first few days I kept forgetting that I couldn’t save the game.
Me: What server did you play on?
SB: Flurry.
Me: Tell me about your first week in SWG.
SB: I guess the best way to describe it is “overwhelming.” I bought Galaxies without knowing a thing about it. I bought it purely on my clan mate’s assurance that it was a good game. I had no idea what an MMO was up to that point. As the game installed and downloaded the updates, I read the user manual and the quick start guide from cover to cover. It was a lot of info, but I still didn’t really understand what kind of game it was. It wasn’t until day two, when my buddy had finally showed me around and I had gotten the hang of the game where I realized that this was something I had never experienced before. It was really fun, and the possibilities seemed endless. I’d find myself thinking about the game during class, getting butterflies in my stomach whenever I got closer to my dorm. The first week was like the first week after you lose your virginity!
Me: Lol, ok, so this was all at Ohio State University, right?
SB: Yup, during the Fall semester of ’03.
Me: You must have been a good student to be at OSU.
SB: I’m not a genius or anything, but I kept my grades up.
Me: That changed after you discovered Star Wars Galaxies?
SB: Yeah, unfortunately. I began to play more and more hours each day. My studying and homework I’d put aside until late night. I’d go to class, and scramble back home to log on to SWG. I wanted more. I enjoyed the game so much, I just couldn’t control my desire to keep playing it. I knew that I had to study, but I just wanted to do one more Krayt hunt, or craft one more rifle. Plus I had gotten a high position in my guild, so people counted on me to organize events and hunts. I was a leader, I had responsibilities, people relied on me. My routine was simple. Wake up at 7am, play SWG until about 10:30, go to classes, come back around 3:30pm, play until midnight, cram for an hour or two, and go to bed. That was my schedule on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.
Me: What about the rest of the week?
SB: It was Galaxies from server up till server down.
Me: Did you ever take breaks?
SB: Initially, yes. But the more time I played in game, the less I unglued myself from the monitor. I eventually stopped going to classes. The first time was, “OK, its just one class.” Then it became “It’s just one week.” Then it became, “I can’t go back to class, what will everything think of me ditching for two weeks?” Basic necessities were down to a minimum. It became really bad.
Me: How bad?
SB: I cut myself off from the outside world completely. Food was down to a minimum…whatever existed in my dorm. If I ran out, then I wouldn’t eat until my parents came. They’d come once every two weeks to visit. I usually had enough food to last me until a day or two before they came, but I would eat sparingly. I began to live a disgusting life. I’d be glued to SWG because I was addicted. I’d shower once a week because taking a shower took up precious game time. The bathroom was located across the hall. I wouldn’t use it. I would drink bottled water, since I had plenty of cases. Whenever I’d need to pee, I’d pee in those bottles. If I needed to go number two, then I’d sneak across the hall into the bathroom. My lights were always off. During the day I’d open the blinds halfway to light up the room, and at night the glow of the monitor would let me see. If anyone knocked on my door I’d turn off my speakers, stop breathing, and not move. They’d go away. I had sunk to an all time low.
Me: You can’t be serious.
SB: I’m not lying. I lost twenty pounds that year.
Me: Go on.
SB: My parents would always come on the same day every two weeks, around the same time. The nights before they came was the only time I stopped playing SWG for more than 30 minutes. It was around midnight that night that I’d make a major effort to make myself look civilized. I’d take a shower, take out the trash (there were at least two or three bags), and do the laundry. I’d open my windows all the way to air out the room, even if it was freezing outside. It smelled pretty weird. It was body odor, mixed with cologne and popcorn. Not the most pleasant of smells, but after a few minutes you don’t notice it. I’d clean my room, organize everything, vacuum and tidy up. All the water bottles filled with my urine I’d put in plastic bags and throw out. I’d be done by 6am and sleep until 11am, when my parents would arrive.
Me: What happened when finals came around?
SB: I crammed the night before. I got minimal sleep. I went to the final, took it, failed it, and went back and played SWG. I knew what I was doing was wrong. During finals week when I went to sleep I’d toss and turn in my bed, panicking about my grades. There were a few times where I actually cried and hated myself for what I was doing. But my vows to quit SWG were quelled by the voice inside me saying “it’s too late.” The next morning I’d be online at server up again.
Me: I can’t say “I understand” because there’s no way me or almost anyone can relate to what you went through. Did going away for Winter Break help?
SB: I came back home for Winter Break. It was a little over a month we had off. My family was totally in the dark about what was going on. I had a pretty good poker face, so I hid all my fears, worries, and emotions. I told them I had done well in school.
Me: So you lied to your parents.
SB: What was I supposed to say? How can you possibly explain to your own parents what was going on? And it didn’t stop there. They knew grades would come online. I convinced myself that I could pick up my grades the following semester, and since they came online, I could cover it up. So I finally got my grades online. All F’s except one C. My GPA plummeted. I saved the web page and did a bit of editing in Dreamweaver. I changed the grades to a variety of A’s and B’s, loosely calculated my GPA, and printed it out. I gave my parents a transcript with fake grades. It was indistinguishable from the original. My parents were elated and my dad made a copy to show his colleagues at work. In the meantime, I got a job to keep me out of trouble and out of sight. I didn’t bring my SWG CDs back home with me. I thought I had the will power to put an end to it if I was away from that game for long enough. So for a little over a month I was Galaxies-free…a new man. I went back to OSU to start me next semester, and was ready to reverse my grades from last semester.
Me: You went back to SWG instead?
SB: No. Well, not yet, at least. Two days before classes started I got a phone call from my mother. She was crying. They had gotten a letter from the university saying I was put on academic probation due to my grades, and they had sent a transcript home. The rest of that conversation was a blur. It involved me being silent, feeling sick and light headed. My parents were devastated. The next day my dad drove over to have a talk with me. He was a mess. So was I. I didn’t tell him what was going on. He assumed it was me partying. I told him I had made a huge mistake and I promised that I would work my hardest to get my grades back up. After he left I spent the rest of the day feeling like someone had stabbed me in the stomach. I felt like a loser, like I was the world’s biggest embarrassment.
Me: What happened the next day?
SB: I went to classes. I also registered for this mandatory “counseling” class where there were others who were in the same situation as me…academic probation. It involved study methods, time management, etc. Except none of them were there because they played a computer game for 18 hours a day. I was determined to reverse what I had done. I wanted to do well in school. And for the first two weeks that is exactly what I did. And then one day I got an email from a guild mate telling me that everyone missed me in Galaxies, and that they hoped I was OK.
Me: That is when you went back.
SB: Yeah. I initially didn’t want to, but then I sort of made a deal with myself. I would only play a few hours a day, no more. I’d limit my time, and I could do it. I wanted to do well in school. But that didn’t last. Within a week I was back to my old “sewer rat” routine. I was sucked in. Galaxies consumed me. There just was no end to the game. There was so much more to be done, so many more professions, so many more planets. The fact that the game was constantly updated with patches didn’t help. Adding new content just meant that the end of the game was even further away. And I could not stop until I reached the end. This time, I just stopped caring. I had already reached rock bottom with the last semester, there was no turning back. That semester went by, and I went back home as a failure. OSU sent me a letter saying they were kicking me out for a year, and after a year I could go back only if I petitioned with the board and made a public statement in front of them. My parents would never let me go back. I was a failure and a disappointment. My mother pretty much disowned me, and my father became depressed. Whenever a family or familiar face looked at me, I had this paranoia that they were laughing at me on the inside. I didn’t go to any family functions, or any functions that I’d be recognized at. I managed to get in at my community college and I worked. It was at that point that I finally managed to reduce my Galaxies playing time to a few hours a week. By mid-2005, I was done with it. One year of Galaxies ended up ruining my life for two more years. I was paranoid, depressed, and suicidal. I had nothing to live for, the secret that I failed out of college was out. My pride was crushed.
Me: Thank God those urges didn’t take over your actions, like Galaxies did.
SB: Yeah, time heals. It wasn’t until I got accepted into a local college that I began to see hope again. That was the turning point for me, it was me second chance, so to speak. So here I am, a year away from a degree. I have made new friends, I go out more often, and I’ve been MMO free since. I’m still a gamer, but I only play games that have a definite ending to them.
Me: And I’m glad you got your second chance. Although I noticed you didn’t mention in your story when you and I first met :p
SB: Cause it wasn’t a life-changing experience
Me: Lol, anyway, I really appreciate you taking the time to tell your story and letting me post it on my blog. It’s quite an unbelievable story. Who knows, it might even draw criticism, but in the end, only you will be able to know and understand what you went through.
SB: I just hope nobody else has to go through that.
Me: I’m sure others have, and I’m sure you’re not alone. Is there any advice you would like to give to anyone who ventures into the world of MMOs?
SB: Admit your addiction when you start to notice it. The hardest thing to do is to admit you’re addicted to the game, and admit that you need to stop and perhaps seek help. I refused to do either and it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I don’t think age plays a role here, I think anyone can face the problems I did. Willpower is the key: don’t let yourself go too deep in the rabbit hole, no matter how tempting it is. The decision is solely yours, unless others know what you are doing. Have the courage to step away and unplug and save yourself from any bad decisions you will make. That’s the only advice I can give.
Me: All right, that about wraps it up. Thanks again for everything.
SB: No problem, glad to spread the word.
Last week, on a chilly Chicago afternoon, I was walking from campus to Union Station. It was windy, as usual, but the not so warm temperature of 50 degrees ensured that everyone was wearing a jacket. As I passed outside the Federal Reserve, there was this decent looking girl with a clipboard standing on the corner. We made eye contact. She smiled. I smiled back. We were captivated in that moment in time. We had a bond. Then she asked me if I wanted to sign a petition to stop global warming. The bond was broken. And thereafter, so was her neck. She was a prime example of a “beautiful bimbo.” First off, if you’re stupid enough to think a petition to stop global working is going to work, or even be remotely effective, you’re a dumbass. Second, if you’re going to try to get signatures for that petition, don’t do it on a chilly spring day. For some reason the fact that it was mid-May and the temperature was 50 degrees makes it a tad bit less believable that global warming is actually an issue. Instead, it just shows that the real issue is common sense and the lack thereof in this individual.
