Why are the gov, private institutions not doing anything to curb this? This problem is very serious, not a lot of people realized this. It’s destroying families, kids, relationships, health, sanity, etc. There should be a worldwide campaign or something similar to that of illegal drugs. So the video game addicts can acknowledge their addiction. Bec what’s happening now,is that when you tell them they are addicts they say there is no such a thing as video game addiction.

While someone who holds a job, raises their children well, and supports a family, yet supersedes all other social interaction in the real world with gaming might find themselves full of regret later in life.

Happiness is relative, and there is no way to say whether or not someone can or cannot feel happy and fulfilled when spending an excessive amount of time in a game. Just as many people watch tv, or read books in their spare time. I draw no differences from those types of things.

It can easily be argued that a life full of gaming, when one feels fulfilled by it, is equal to a life full of any other sort of achievement. I am simply a different type of person who wants more. If I spend hundreds of hours working on something I wish to be able to look back on that time spent later in life with pride.

When a gaming company pulls the plugs on the servers of a game, all you have are memories and screenshots, then its on to the next game.

I have seen some people who form many quality life-long relationships and friendships from within a game. Quality ones where groups of guilds have annual meetups in person, or a group of gamers who move, together, from game to game.

This post was not meant to bash games, but to draw a parallel on how they can fulfill your needs. This is not necessarily bad.

Just not in line with what I want for my life, personally.

I’ve recently stopped playing MMORPGs after a fairly long period of what would qualify as addiction. The argument that Maslow’s needs are almost all addressed and fulfilled by such games is robust, and demonstrates how people can spend so much time playing them.

After reading the article, my thoughts were of some of the ‘hardcore’ players whom I encountered during my recent MMO days. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that over 90% of their waking hours are spent in-game.

My question is this:

Assuming these people are law abiding citizens, doing no harm to the real-world community – if they are content and satisfied by spending the overwhelming majority of their time playing a game, is it a ‘bad’ way to live? Should it be discouraged?

Secondly (and for this I will assume that the aforementioned lifestyle is seen as a negative one), you suggest that the players are at fault, and not the game’s designers.

I think it is fair to say that MMOs are addictive by design – it is obvious that in order to maximize profits the game is designed to keep people paying their monthly fees for as long as possible. So from this respect the game designers are not at fault – they are simply doing their job successfully.

However, compare MMOs with another addictive habit – smoking. In many European countries warning messages are posted on cigarette packaging that smoking is addictive (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_messages) this, and the general widespread knowledge of the addictive nature of nicotine allows me to feel much more confident when I suggest that smokers are ‘at fault’ when they decide to start smoking than I do when I suggest that a MMO gamer is at fault for having a lifestyle entirely taken up by a game. I may be wrong, but as far as I know, there are no addiction warnings on MMO boxes, and the knowledge of their addictive nature is – though growing – far less widespread than that of smoking. Perhaps the designers, or maybe the publishers could be faulted for this?

Returning to the assumption made at the start of this point – if the hardcore gamer’s lifestyle was *not* seen to be a negative one is there still a case to suggest that a warning should be put on the game boxes? To put this question a different way – if smoking was not harmful, but still as addictive, would the manufacturers still be asked to print a warning about addiction on the packaging?

What are your thoughts?