Defining Video Game Addiction 354
1Up has a feature discussing where the line should be drawn when it comes to game addiction. The author speaks to researcher Neils Clark about some of the common characteristics of addiction, and how the high level of immersion in many modern games contributes to the mind's ability to drown out mundane tasks. We've discussed game addiction many times over the past several years. Quoting:
"If we're not all dribbling addicts, then why are we playing so much? Clark puts this down to a theory proposed by The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien — primary and secondary worlds. The primary world is our own real life. The secondary is the fictional world: literature, film, videogames, and so on. 'It used to be that the imagery and artistic intent had to be fully available before you could really "find" yourself in a written story,' Clark says. 'Immersion has progressed to the point where entering a world [inside a game] is almost automatic. At the point we're at, playing healthy not only means understanding immersion but [also] recognizing that these secondary worlds are designed to be more fulfilling than the primary. Learning to balance them is its own technology. It's something that humankind is in a process of developing, even if on a subconscious level for most gamers.'"
Yea Its addictive.... (Score:2, Interesting)
MMORPG's Are addictive. I seen the damage its done. For a majority of people certainly gamers who have learned to control there online time it isnt a problem , agreed. But for those who have stood by and watched Kids go unfed till way to late at night, Having the TV or DVD's parent the children while a partner spends the entire weekend online until its become to much and it wasnt the marriage you signed up for...
Well "Widows Of Warcraft"... its a joke for some people and a reality for others.... or did you think someone made up the term EverCrack because it wasnt addictive...
There are people that Suffer from addictions, gambling, alcohol, Cigarettes some chemical addictions of the body, some mental addictions of the mind. Those people prone to or a tendency for access compulsive behavior often fall into the metal category.
Never before has such a "wide net" been thrown, MMORPG are cheap compared to Cigarettes, available 24/7 in your own home (as opposed to gambling other than online...) and gives you an escapism thats better than the real world...
Anything in excess is a problem, and this problem is sooo easy to get hooked on.
Not Just MMOs (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What a load of... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:your assuming it's an addiction (Score:3, Interesting)
No but unemployment, no social life and a health problems due to the lack of exercise might cause you a few problems.
Re:What a load of... (Score:3, Interesting)
I refuse to play MMORPGs any longer. To be honest, I think that they encourage and reward "addiction." I refused to play MMORPGs
MMORPGs require a high level of investment in order to produce rewards. Oh
Plus, they're social: you're making friends, a virtual lifestyle, that is SO much more rewarding (discrete/measurable awards at that), and appealing than the Real World.
I literally spent 6 months in game. That's actively playing the game, logged in, leveling, crafting, etc. Not sitting idle on 'bazaar' or anything of that nature. The only times that I was logged in and not holding a controller or typing on the keyboard was when I was in the kitchen whipping something up, or (maybe) outside having a cigarette (but still eyes on the TV). That was over a calendar period of 9 months.
I spent 2/3rds of my life for the better part of a year plugged in to that game, sacrificing school, social life, and the only reason why I didn't explode was I barely ate enough to keep me alive. 'Addiction' can be a very abused term, however, in the case of MMORPGs, that's a lot of what drives them. You need to be 'addicted' in order to be successful.
The worst part is, I managed to keep my character well-equipped, and leveled up, and I never managed to make it to level 75 RDM. Burned out @ 73. Even had most all of the other jobs leveled up (every job to 10, lot of jobs to 20/25, and NIN, WHM, BLM, DRK, SMN all up to 40). Finally stepped back and said "Can't do this anymore."
A lot of my (then) non-gaming friends didn't understand, then started playing WoW. I still get hassled about not playing WoW with them (and now Age of Conan), but I know I have a problem and like any other addict (be it alcohol, or drugs), I know better than to tempt fate, because it will just suck me right back in.
The difference is, "normal" games have an END, and a "save state." I can mess with Gears, or Dead Rising, or almost any other game for a few hours, maybe even upwards of 16-20. I can knock Halo out 24 hours after launch, and it's done. It's finished. Or play through a 6-hour session of Blue Dragon and walk away, come back later. MMORPGs are persisting, you're missing out when you're not plugged in, and on top of that, they do NOT end.
Blur the line. (Score:5, Interesting)
I find the Primary and Secondary worlds thing fascinating. Even more so, I find it fascinating that as humankind advances there will probably be a merger of the two. For instance, if you've read Alastair Reynolds' The Prefectyou probably know what I mean. In this story a huge community of habitats orbit a central planet. This community is called the Glitterband. Within it, each habitat is different. And I don't mean different in that one is painted grey and the other is blue. Every habitat has an abstraction core, which when combined with the right wetware and advanced technology in the citizens bodies allows them to live in virtually any sort of environment they please. Similar to being able to queue up anything on the Holodeck, even including changing your basic body type, or having no body and being a floating wisp of energy, or whatever you can imagine.
The cool part here, to me, is that this was originally a Secondary world as taken from Tolkein's theory. But for these people their Secondary world has become integrated with a democracy and a community of other Secondary worlds, all of which participate in this democracy (if they choose to). So in effect, their Secondary and Primary worlds have merged, and if they want... for good.
This is where I see games starting to take hold of this possibility of a merger. You can almost pay for your bills by playing WoW, if you choose to sell gold. What am I say, almost. People do. Lots of them. They literally live off of WoW. I'd even wager that for some of them their Primary world is WoW and their Secondary world is having to feed themselves and sleep, because they probably don't do much else outside of WoW.
No, things aren't nearly to the point where I'd say there can be a true merger. But when it happens, are you going to call these people addicts? What if they are richer, happier, and live longer than you? At what point does it stop being an addiction to WoW, and become YOUR addiction to the 'old ways'?
Just food for thought..
Re:Television is addictive (Score:3, Interesting)
If they hold down a job and remember to eat and have the occasional friend over they're not really addicted are they?
A game addict (or a TV addict) will generally be unemployed simply because leaving the house to work will be less important to them than playing/watching. Or eating. Or anything for that matter. Addiction takes over your life.
Trying to describe people who watch excessive amounts of TV as addicts just because that's what they do in the evenings doesn't work. Same for Wow players or anyone else. That doesn't mean that addiction doesn't exist - it's real and it's painful to watch people go through it.
Re:What part of the game is the addiction? (Score:3, Interesting)
People cybering and such in Second Life is only sex addiction if it is an activity people continue to engage in even when it threatens things they value. In other words, if it screws up your marriage and you continue to engage in it, yes, it's (part of a) sex addiction.
I think there's a lot of resistance to the idea that anything that's not a chemical being "addictive." But that's kind of an artificial mind/body distinction at play. What makes chemicals addictive, after all, is the patterns of responses in the human brain to exposure to them over the long term. Other cognitive activities also create neuro-chemical responses (after all, I can increase your production of adrenaline just by scaring the hell out of you, but the act of scaring the hell out of you isn't, itself, chemical.) MMOs are a suite of activities and environments which frequently enough lend themselves to an addictive response, and I think they do it through a socially-reinforced system of semi-predictable rewards.
Re:What a load of... (Score:2, Interesting)
Even though I'm not necessarily enjoying myself during this discovery process, I know how good it can be, and I keep on at it, trying to find a good server...Usually, I find one, and then play on it for some time before its overwhelmed with douches...when I quit and look for somewhere else...
Is this addictive behaviour? Or is this just par for the course for a gamer playing a game overwhelmed with douchebags?
Personal Experience (Score:1, Interesting)
It's possible to get addicted to video games, but the term is also often misused. Rather than trying to define it, I'll just share a personal experience.
In high school I played Star Craft and Diablo II to death. I would get angry if something went wrong in the game, to the point where it would affect my interaction with other people in my real life. If I didn't get to play for 4 hours a night, I would also get antsy, angry, and I was unable to focus on anything. Mind you, I still did well in high school and was able to get into an engineering program at U of T after all was said in done. I was addicted, it caused problems in my life, but everything ended up OK.
Recently I had my laptop at a friend's place. Their brother, who (I think) is heavily addicted to games, borrowed my laptop to play Mass Effect. After two hours, I asked for the laptop back. The brother respectfully handed it back, but became extremely anxious and irritated. He then asked his parents to buy him the game, and when they didn't agree, he became extremely angry. This kid is not spoiled, mind you. His entire personality changed, and it was like a window into the past seeing my behavior at that age. He also does well in school and is a well mannered kid (except for this time).
I guess I can say that you can be successful and still be addicted to things that affect you negatively. It may not be an outright addiction, but if it affects your personality and how you interact with others, it's a problem none the less.
Re:your assuming it's an addiction (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I used to be a semi-professional athlete. I clocked up a hell of a lot of hours of WoW, since there's not much else to do once you've done your ~4 hours of training a day.
It was certainly healthier than the excessive drinking that plenty of other athletes spend their spare time on.
Re:Not Just MMOs (Score:5, Interesting)
Single player games tend to have explicit end points, which help prevent addiction. Plus, the most eggregiously long single-player games generally are slated to last for 160 hours with massive grinding. I've seen Everquest players pull that in two weeks.
Non-massively multiplayer games can be additive, but usually focus more on "sport" aspects. As such any sort of character development mechanics are explicitly removed to create level playing fields. Playing for another hour is its own reward, rather than the tempting "I need just one more level." This also self-limits in that due to the competitive nature the barrier for entry is high: Counter Strike has become notoriously impossible for new players to enter.
MMORPG's really hit a sweet spot with RPG character development (I invested so much time in this character! I'll just play tonight until I get that piece of armor.) and human aspect which keeps gameplay fresh. Also, MMORPG's are the only game structure where the planned primary gameplay curve stretches out for thousands of hours. Oblivion and Nethack are probably the only major single-player game that comes close to this time scale, and both have similar levels of addition for many players.
There is definitely discussion within the industry itself as to when compelling is too compelling. There are a lot of techniques utilized in game development to keep people interested, just like there are in movie and television show development. Soap Operas have their toolbox to keep people coming back day after day, but they can only consume one hour per day. MMORPG's have their suite of techniques to keep players interested and playing, but can absorb much more of a person's life.
Of course, we saw similar additions in the early days of television and radio. This may just be growing pains as society evolves to absorb new technologies.
Ian Livingstone, Creative Director, Eidos (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:smoking. (Score:5, Interesting)
This "addiction" subject is really fascinating. Aren't we all addicted to food? If you take food away from me, wouldn't I go nuts too? What about money, women, and cattles? What about life?
Actually, it is possible to be pathologically addicted to sex, food or money. Well, the money one's debatable, but there's some pretty compelling evidence for it. For the food one, you don't have to look that far - you've probably seen such people if you frequent fast food restaurants, even if they didn't stand out from the rest of the clientele. Eating disorders can run either way after all - vast overeating, or self-starvation, and the overeating behavior is classic addict.
The tricky part is that everyone needs to eat. Everyone in modern society needs at least some money to get by. (Almost) everyone needs to screw. That isn't addiction, that's biology, social necessity and plain old hormones.
When you stop eating to live, and start living to eat, then you start calling it addiction.
Re:What a load of... (Score:4, Interesting)
Also depends on the person's habits. Some gamers snack at their machines, some don't. Some people who do snack will eat right, some won't. I'll guarantee that that alone will make a huge difference.
The likeliest outcomes are going to be somewhere between scrawny and obese. A sedentary lifestyle, gaming motivated or otherwise, isn't going to do good things for muscle tone and endurance, but it won't affect weight the same way for everyone.
Re:your assuming it's an addiction (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if you'd asked me while i was playing MMOs for 50 hours per week, I would have said I was fine... and I did keep my job, even though my performance suffered somewhat... but I did what was needed.
However, after i quit the MMO, I was able to start a business, start working out, get back into shape AND volunteer in the community.
I regard my time in the MMO world as a low-level addiction, yes... along the same lines as a "functioning alcoholic"... where someone CAn maintain a job, but simply CANNOT get through a day without drinking... or at LEAST being completely preoccupied with NOT drinking when you can't do it.
lol
I used to try to sneak time on the MMO at work, even tho it could have got me fired. It was scary!
My experience as a WoW Addict (Score:2, Interesting)
Because I think it's relevant, I'll post my experience with WoW and my addiction to it.
I want to say first and foremost, I don't fault WoW or Blizzard at all, it was merely a medium that I attached my addiction to. You could probably insert any MMO for me and my story probably would have changed only by date.
Anyway, a great bit of irony starts with when I first played WoW, I avoided the game like the plague because although I greatly enjoyed WC3 and many other blizzard titles, I didn't want to get hooked to it.
Ok, maybe this part makes me a bit unique, and may perhaps only makes my addicting nature to games manifest worse, but when I get a game, I do in a way enthrall myself into any new game I get and play relatively non-stop till I feel I beat it, or get really bored of it. I have to beat a game, and I have to beat it well enough to feel good or superior in some fashion, even if it is self-indulgent.
I started playing WoW like I started playing any game. I could go onto a long story about my slippery slope that got me completely addicted to it.
There were a few catalysts on the way: 1st catalyst was a girl. She broke my heart, yadda yadda, what did I turn to to "comfort" me? WoW. My grades were already slipping, as was my interest in school, WoW was merely a catalyst for getting me out of school. No more school, so what did I have more time to play? WoW. Then the restaurant I worked at closed. I was already long gone at this point, going home early, taking the cut early in the night so I could go home and play WoW is the norm for me practically. when the restaurant closed, I got to play 16hrs a day, 7 days a week for 2 months. glorious by my measure. Then with a pretty powerful intervention, I stopped playing WoW.
I wouldn't say I went through any physical withdrawl, but man, I definitely had some significant "mental" withdrawl. For me, WoW was a nice cocktail of things: Ego, Attention, and Indulgment. I think there is a physical side effect of game playing that ALL gamers get addicted to, its the adrenaline and endorphins that get released turning something exciting, FPS shooters likely get it when they kill someone or go on a killing spree. For me, it was difficult boss kills. Get me a difficult boss, throw me at it for 40hrs of raiding and finally killing it, there are few better feelings in the world than that. THAT is the addiction that MMO "addicts" get. I was in a very real way addicted to the chemical release my body gave me when killing bosses, I couldn't wait for tough bosses to kill. I would say it was highly different for alcohol addiction or other drug addictions that was said earlier to have the brain literally rewired, where the drug of choice didn't have any real affect or any more "pleasure" on the person anymore, gaming addiction is very different, there is that chemical addiction I think, and for me, some of my biggest "highs" were toward the end of my time, and there were significant amounts of smaller "highs" early, and other big "highs" at other times as well, but there was never for me a "meh high" that drug addicts get in their late addictions.
That's not how addiction works (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, that's not how (real) addiction works. Addiction to a substance happens when your brain chemistry starts adjusting in the other direction. Biology is largely about self-tuning feedback loops like that. If you have too little oxygen in your arm, e.g., because you do a lot of physical effort, your body grows more blood vessels. And if the brain has to work while disrupted by alcohol, it compensates its chemistry in the other direction.
Addiction is that compensation in the other direction. And when you are properly addicted, it's not as much that your drug is fun, as that life without it is not much fun.
E.g., Nicotine inhibits MAO-B, which breaks down Dopamine and Phenethylamine. It's part of a chemical equilibrium in the brain. When you're happy about something, you get a shot of dopamine, but almost immediately MAO-B is released to make that signal decay back to baseline. Nicotine perturbs that mechanism, so it originally makes you feel better. But soon your body adjusts its equilibrium in the other direction, so now you feel shitty without a cigarette. Eventually those cigarettes do nothing except bring you briefly to the point where a non-smoker is naturally all the time. That's addiction.
E.g., Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, which doesn't actually mean it makes you depressed, just that it makes certain individual synapses and pathways less responsive. But again, the body immediately starts to compensate in the other direction, and those synapses gradually become hyperexcitable. If you keep doing that, essentially to the point where they fire erratically on their own. See, delirium tremens. So essentially after a while you notice that without alcohol you're nervous, have less motor coordination, have hearth rhythm problems, and the like. Essentially your body just started telling you, "man, I really could use a drink." And again, gradually you need more and more of it, and eventually the first sixpack just gets you back to the normal "sober" point. (Alcohol tolerance really is just the road to delirium tremens, sadly.)
Addiction to something fun isn't an addiction at all. There is no external chemicals perturbing the brain balance. It's just the normal way the brain works. There is no, say, nicotine inhibiting MAO-B so you get artificially elevated doses of dopamine, and forcing the brain to adjust. It's just the normal "this is fun" signal in your brain.
So at best it's just lack of willpower, but not an addiction.
And people get pseudo-"addicted" like that all the time. The village gossip who goes around bad-mouthing the local WoW "addict", is, funnily enough, herself "addicted" to her own "hobby". She gets her brain signals out of that social interaction, to the point where she has to even poke into someone else's life to have a topic. The guy who obsessively watches football or soccer or baseball, to have something to talk about to his group of friends, essentially is again just doing something to feed a similar addiction. It's his way of getting his daily shot of "I'm happy and appreciated" brain mediator. The guy who's doing overtime all week and goes fishing every weekend, ok, he's probably more like keeping himself away from getting an "I'm unhappy" signal at home, but nevertheless that's the same pseudo-addiction. Etc.
There's really nothing special about WoW. If your wife was out gossiping with the neighbours 18 hours a day, well, you'd probably just think some stereotype about women instead. But it would be the same thing, essentially.
At any rate, addiction it ain't.
Except if it were real physiological addiction, that wouldn't happen.
Re:smoking. (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree to a degree what you've said. But the limiting factor of those, at least for me might be money. Cause for me money = time. Working for money takes at least 9 - 10 hours away from my time each day and I ended up tired.
So I get home all tired and can't really screw (no gf in the basement), play pc games, and eat. Now if I have unlimited funds that gives back the 10 hours to play games for example, I probably spend 4 of those hours playing some MMO. But even then I still won't call that an "addiction". Because I really enjoy playing it. I've experienced this during my younger years when I had lots of time lying around, with Dune 2, Doom 2, or Legend of the Red Dragon.
However, based on the description of "addiction" you gave, and I apologize for selective quoting:
A better rule of thumb for determining whether somebody is addicted to something is to ask them if they still enjoy it....
"Addiction" gets applied far to frequently to abuse or overuse of any kind...
My job, life, or lust for a raise at work and having rice for dinner everyday (for an Asian :D) seems more like an "addiction" then my counterstrike gaming. There're many things I don't enjoy but have to do it, like going to the laundromat. While I do enjoy every time I get a headshot in CS.
Just weird to me.
Re:i can define video game addiction in two words: (Score:3, Interesting)
I went through a phase in my late teens where I would get up on a sunny Saturday morning at about 11am, turn on my computer, and fire up Civ II. At 3am on Sunday I would realise that I was still wearing my dressing gown, hadn't showered, hadn't eaten or drunk anything, and in most cases hadn't moved except to go to the toilet.
On the other hand, I have conquered Europe more times than most people...
Re:smoking. (Score:2, Interesting)
I see where you're coming from now. One thing I've noticed about these "addictions" is that I can survive happily without a pc when it's removed out of circumstance. e.g. no Internet immediately after moving into a house, not taking my pc to uni (I do Computer Science, go figure...). When these happened, I'd get along fine and won't even look back, however, put it back in it's place and old habits from a few months back will sit straight back into place.
So, would and could you just give up your smokes and pc willingly for an arbitrary length of time? Say, 30 days? 60? 365?
If yes, why do you smoke? It's ultimately bad for your health, sex could release more endorphins and what-not into your system (I'm assuming it's closer to basic function needs, long-term partner(s) etc).
As for me (what, is this self-help psychiatry?) I don't think I could give up my pc willingly as a conscious decision. I just wouldn't have a clue as to what to channel it into insteadand that gap will be there. On the other hand, it's not really detrimental to my life, it doesn't replace any friends I have in real-life, I continue to do activities with them.
The problem for me, comes when it replaces other activities and hobbies. As in, they all mostly have to be on a computer. However, I'm a student, I don't have the money to go out parachuting every other weekend (although I do hear you can pay for it by packing parachutes!). (Ooops, did I just try and justify that there?)
As we evolve we will reverse (Score:2, Interesting)