Are You Addicted?

[Fragmintz]

This was the top headline on my Yahoo front page yesterday:

Massively Addictive
As millions continue to spend large quantities of time in virtual worlds, what effect is this having on the real one?

The article goes into the evils of video game addiction, and talks about

Warcraft woe -- stories of broken marriages, ignored friends, lost jobs, and wrecked lives. If you want to play the game at the top level, a serious commitment of time is required, and that's leading some players to neglect real-world responsibilities.

A noted expert on game addiction then compares video game addiction to other addictions like gambling:

"The same reward center in the brain is tapped -- the dopamine system. Gambling has all the components that go with these games," she explains, citing Solitaire as a simpler example of a game that can also lead to compulsive behavior.

Hmm ... I hate Solitaire ... anyway, the doc goes on to talk about symptoms:

"There are a lot of things. People might ignore their friends, they may not get to work on time, and their family relationships are often affected."

Lastly, and this is my favorite part, we hear the sad stories of actual video game WOW addicts, who pin some of the blame for their neglect of everything reasonable in life on, yep you guessed it, Blizzard Entertainment. How long before Jack A** Thompson makes a go at a massive multiplayer class action lawsuit. You can be sure with articles like these on the table it isn't too far behind. Here's what one gamer said about Blizzard's culpability:

He also lays some portion of the blame at the feet of the game's creator, Blizzard Entertainment, for structuring the game to encourage such heavy addiction. Once your character reaches the game's maximum level -- currently level 70 -- the time commitment required to keep advancing "skyrockets," as he put it. "When you master the game, another patch is released and your work is now obsolete."

Hopefully we will soon find an end to the scourge of video game addiction.

[grife]

Originally Posted by Fragmintz

Hopefully we will soon find an end to the scourge of video game addiction.

I do believe its already been found, and is known as personal responsibility.

[D_Litch]

I have no choice but to laugh at people who lose their lives over a damn video game. Do we as a society not have enough self-control just to stop playing?

[Fragmintz]

Originally Posted by grife

I do believe its already been found, and is known as personal responsibility.

LOL - that or "get a wife ... I mean a life" ... either way, both help to put an end to over indulgence of video games.

[CamDawg]

Originally Posted by Fragmintz

LOL - that or "get a wife ... I mean a life" ... either way, both help to put an end to over indulgence of video games.

The having a wife thing does a good job of keeping out most additions like this.

[lovekeiiy]

Well, at least someone knows the American way, implied by the media, "someone else is did it." Obviously Blizzard wants people to blow off all their responsiblities like jobs so they have no money to purchase games and the various what not.

Sadly, this is nothing new. Every generation has some kind of "blaming scape goat." Some of us or our parents it was Rock N Roll, others Rap, now it's video games. Couldn't be the person is warped or just not brought up well. I was so irratated during the Columbine being blamed by the video game Doom, when the game was already five years old.

I'm waiting to hear about Second Life and people wasting away on that thing. I haven't personally been on it, but just think, you can really use "why don't you get a real life" LOL.

[Vanphyre]

Sadly, this article hits home as one of my best friends lost his wife over WoW several months ago. I played with him quite a bit, everytime I logged in, he was there.. no matter what time of the day. I'll admit I was hooked the very same way when Everquest first came out. My girlfriend threatened to leave several times and I finally quit playing. Part of the addiction in that game though, was the whole ebay thing. Selling items and in-game money (Hey I got to pay off a 2001 SVT Cobra Convertible at age 23). heh..

I wouldn't knock people for this addiction as it is as real as being addicted to drugs. It is a lot of fun, and you actually make some damn good friends even if you don't know them in real life. I am still an avid gamer, but have learned to control it.

[Fragmintz]

Van - I am not knocking the woes of addiction, as I know first hand how one can get hooked. What I find ridiculous is pinning blame on the creators of a game for the irresponsible behavior and uncontrollable urges of individuals. Are we going to tell game makers, "don't make your games SO well b/c people will get addicted"? The game maker should not be penalized for doing their job, which is making a great experience. The problem with addiction is that the addict has an emotional and spiritual void in their lives, and so they find a substance, activity or even person to fill that void. Even if the game or other addicting factor were taken away, that person is still a sick individual in need of help. It is likely your friend who lost his wife had other emotional issues he wasn't dealing with such as selfishness, fear, and resentment. Regardless of the underlying causes and conditions, I hope that no one has to suffer from any addiction, and that they get the help they need. The only thing I advocate is not to blame the creative forces behind game making for doing the job we legitimately pay them to do.

It is similar to the lawsuits against McDonalds by overweight individuals a few years ago.

[ZoomZoom71]

Originally Posted by Fragmintz

It is similar to the lawsuits against McDonalds by overweight individuals a few years ago.

[keezy]
If you've never seen Supersize Me, but it's worth watching. Not sure of the guy's motive behind making the film, but it does bring some stuff to light.
[/keezy]

*I'll start a new thread, if this gets off-topic.

[KEEZY]

You called?

I agree that it is wrong to blame the game makers, and also agree that addiction is very real. Just last night I put off doing my HW to play Crackdown. Damn my addictive personality! Alcoholism is ending this generation, but hopefully video game addiction won't take its place.

[Wondermonkey]

Does anyone know if that A&E show "Intervention" has had any for video games yet?

I don't know what the scientific data says about addiction statistics as far as games are concerned, but I can't imagine they've ever really done a complete study on it either.

Non-smokers don't understand how smokers get hooked, non-drinkers don't understand how alcoholics get hooked, and non-gamblers don't understand how gamblers get hooked. I would imagine people that don't get invested in video games don't understand how people could get hooked on games, but it's clearly real.

You can't blame game creators for making quality products that people want to play though, that's not their fault. It would be different if the makers of WoW were selling it with crack, nicotine, or percocet, anything chemically addictive, but they're not.

If they were doing that sales may be even better and then they could probably be held accountable.

[Swagger]

i did see an intervention with video games. i thought it was a joke for the first 7 minutes that i stumbled upon the channel.
alas...it was not.

[Fragmintz]

Apparently you can be addicted to ANYTHING, but drug, alcohol and substance addictions have another component to them. Most recovery organizations talk about TOTAL ABSTINENCE from the substances b/c they run on theory that the user has an allergy to them. "Allergy" in this context is defined as: an unusual sensitivity to a substance, which in like amounts does not affect others, and is characterized by systematic disorders. Activity based addictions, i.e., shopping, gambling, video games, etc. tend to be more characterized by behavioral dysfunction. While I am not sure if these other categories consider exposure to the activity in the same vein as exposure to addicting substances, I do know that there are plenty of recovery organizations (based on 12 step models of alcohol and drug recovery programs) for these addictions. Also, I am not sure if the programs preach total abstinence from video games, etc. or just moderation. In any case, I don't doubt the fact that people can be addicted to video games, I just hate to see the finger of blame pointed at content creators.

PS - I did see Supersize Me & the truth is that these foods are meant to create cravings in the body, but every court that has looked at obesity/fast food cases has ruled that the connection between an individual's obesity and the marketing plans / contents of fast food are too tenuous. For the most part, the courts find that there are other factors contributing to the obesity such as lifestyle, genetics, bad habits and other dietary choices. Something like McDonald's could be one part of a very unhealthy diet.

[Vanphyre]

Originally Posted by Fragmintz

Van - I am not knocking the woes of addiction, as I know first hand how one can get hooked. What I find ridiculous is pinning blame on the creators of a game for the irresponsible behavior and uncontrollable urges of individuals.

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly! It's been going on forever, people blaming the video games / creators themselves for people's RL problems. Blaming Crime, marriage problems, medical issues, you name it.

Hehe, your McDonalds analogy is pretty good too. People never can blame themselves. :P

[lovekeiiy]

There was video addict on intervention. The guy was so dorky and had no ambition. He would literally play xbox 24 hours straight. How he managed to have a girlfriend is beyond me; some girl he's known since elementry school. Here is a link to the episode on it: http://www.aetv.com/intervention/int...episode=112192. There's also a video clip from the episode: http://www.aetv.com/videos/display.j..._sf_bottomline. He's the only guy they're giving the intervention to in the clip.

As for the McD's, that's just funny. I haven't seen the movie, but from what I heard, they guy just ate McDs for a month and didn't no physical activity. No physical activity, you're going to gain weight if you're a bunch of food or bad food. I don't know how many people would call McD's three squares.

There's actually more to the McD's case and why it got thrown out besides the issues above. I heard someone tried to bring against McD's in England and they threw out right away.

Addiction isn't funny by any means, and be a serious issue. But stuff like McD's case is funny to me because it's got to be the ultimate form of "it's someone else fault, not my stupidity/bad decision making."