Break off thread - Gaming and MMOG Addiction

This thread is a break off for a more serious discussion from this thread:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10021802
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in actual response, at one point on the news a while back, there was something about the adrenaline rush that can become addictive to people who play alot. They showed some people playing CS, so maybe there is some truth.... seriously, you can become addicted....

I'll post a speech I did recently. Every year theres a public speaking contest, ive won it twice and im going for my final year win. I was to lazy to write a real speech so I made something up with computers. Please note this speech was designed to win a contest and I don't really believe it.

The negative effect of cyber culture on society’s youth.

A fad is sweeping the word specfically targeting the youth. This fad is instant messaging and texting. Due to word caps and time constraints, youth around the world have redeveloped a new English dialect which consists of shortening and replacing letters with numbers or other letters. Teenagers believe this makes them seem cool but this only serves to lower their I.Q. Regularly smsing or instant messaging lowers your I.Q by a whole 10 points. Compare this to regularly smoking marijuana which lowers your I.Q by a mere 4 points. This was proven in a study from the herald sun, so basically it’s more harmful to sms than it is to smoke marijuana.

Another form of cyber culture is sweeping the world, is violent first person shooters and addictive mass multiplayer online role playing game. A program called Xfire tracks online gamers who have the program installed. Online gamers can be tracked to any part of the world not only the western world. Countries from the Middle East and other third world countries also have gaming clans. This just goes to show how far video games have spread. Violent first person shooters have a negative affect of the people who play them.

When a person commits an act like shooting a child or bombing an area, whether if it’s real or in a video game, that act never leaves that person. It desensitizes the players to a very violent act. An act so violent that no one should have been desensitized to. The perpetrator of the columbine shootings practiced his killings on a first person shooter called Doom before he committed the aforementioned shootings.

The other from of online gaming is MMORPG’s. In these games you play a character through a virtual world. These games are meant to be addictive and gamers often lose themselves in such games. Often these people have a low self esteem when they play and thus think they are the people they are playing as. The MMO’s brings about a new sense of escapism. People throw away their ordinary, boring life and become fearless warriors fighting orcs.

The only problem with this is that people don’t know when to stop playing. These gamers go on marathons for more than a day straight gaming with no breaks. There has been a case of a young man in Korea dying from exhaustion from gaming for several days straight. Due to this every MMO has to have a reminder for the player to take a break every hour after 3 hours. These warnings are often ignored. To solve this problem, the game should feature a lock out system after a long period of time clocked in-game.

You yourself can help fight this by pro-actively helping the people around you. Instead of sending a text message, actually meet up with the person. If you have some anger built up, instead of taking it out on fictional orcs, take it out on a punching bag. If your out with a friend in the city and you ask him how are you getting home. If he replys I'll just use my heartstone, take him aside and give him a good talking to. All is not lost and the people affected can be saved.

Hmmm, this topic is a lot more serious than people think. I know what i'm talking about, i once had a gf that was seriously addicted to computergames and it was a nightmare. She totally lost her connection to the real world. Speaking to her would only result in a nod. No matter what i said. Touching her would result in... nothing. Giving her a kiss on the cheek would result in a second pause of playing only to quickly resume what she was doing online.

But the most sad thing was when she started Arguements over a stupid game, getting jealous of other people online, giving me hell for having completed a quest without her. Playing the same game as her was honestly the only way to talk to her without risking talking to a wall. When i first met her (online, sigh) i was like "wow, someone who understands what it means to emerge into games and enjoy them. That's perfect". But once she started to get addicted to it, it went bad real real fast.
I once simply deactivated the power to her computer without her knowing. At first she was very calm, staring at the black screen two minutes after i came back into the room. She then started hammering onto the keys, started screaming hysterically, was crying (!) and then went into a phase of apathy.

Ironically enough she allways said she could stop playing anytime. The excuse of every addict. Get real people, game addiction IS out there.

Nonetheless, that doctor still needs some help himself. A simple Label as means to fight addiction? Oh great, i remember when they started doing it on cigarettes. Nothing changed at all.

Exactly what I was thinking.I wouldn't be surprised if World of Warcraft had caused some people to become Recluse.

Also..it isnt a surprise if someone dies after gaming for an incredibly long period of time,especially with sleep deprevation and the fact that they are sitting in one place for numerous hours.

Anyone who's going to play a video game for so many hours are truly putting them at a health risk.

The article that the original post is based on, is essentially true. I have friends and have known people, who have literally dissapeared into games. Everquest, World of Warcraft, Asherons Call, and yes, GW. A great number of people who post in this forum on a regular basis, are to various degrees, addicted to GW.

People find the social interactions, the activities, the challenge and the sense of belonging to something with a purpose, easier to find within a virtual environment, than in the real world. They find it easier to connect with people, disconnect with people and live virtually, how they choose. They stop taking care of themselves, paying their bills, going to work, eating. They end up disconnecting from real world social interactions, friends, family, everyday people.

This could be the worst case scenario of an addictive, obsessive personality developing durring game play and worsening over time, but it doesn't change that the problem is there. It really isn't very funny that things like this happen to people, and society sees it as a joke because, after all, it is just a game, right?

Oh you guys can over analyze anything! It was both serious and a jab at the article that wanted to put warning lables on MMOG's. A warning label doesn't stop people from smoking cigarettes so the parallel that it might affect those buying games was just slightly amusing to me. I know all about game addiction, having a pretty addictive personality myself My first MMOG, I played 7-8 hours every single day. Yes you heard right... nearly every day for 2 years. I can look back at it now and just cringe at all that wasted time but I just can't be pulled into a game like that again so doing fansites are my next obsession

Being addicted to anything is a very real concern whether it's golf, building cars, sports, etc. if it takes you away from real priorities and responsibilities such as work, family, spouse, friends, or school. The article has many good points and has merit and anyone who has been addicted to something, smoking cigarettes, Tetris, an MMOG, knows that it can not only be difficult to stop but impossible to stop thinking about or waiting until you can get back to it.

I can joke about it but of course it's a serious subject. As players of MMOG's I'm sure we've all had that 'certain' friend that can't pull themselves away. I don't think that means we need to take ourselves so seriously though that we can't jab and try to lighten the mood on the subject.

But if we only consider the reality and not the people themselves are to blame for their choice of methods for escaping it, and most importantly the degree to which they succeed in escaping it, we cannot understand why some succumb to addiction and others don't.

This is more of a question of "does the subject have a personality predisposed to addiction" rather than "is the subject in a situation that promotes escape from reality." During the Great Depression in the 1930s, movies skyrocketed as the popular pastime in America, yet I highly doubt that there were "movie addicts" whose only concern was to escape reality by immersing themselves in the movies (as opposed to, say, working so they could feed themselves and their family).

Granted, there were other "socially acceptable addictions" then that still exist today, smoking and drinking most notably. Drinking in particular has a similar escapist effect on the mind of an addict, except where in movies or games the mind is occupied with an alternate reality in drinking the mind is idle (same could be said for drugs and other mind-altering substances). And while it may well be true that the majority of addicts come from the worse-off layers of society, there are addicts everywhere. Yesterday, Robin Williams just checked himself into an alcohol rehab facility.

More importantly, not all people in the real-world position to need an escape from reality become addicted to the means of escaping it. Some people are able to moderate themselves even despite the seemingly overwhelming odds that statistics puts against them. This is a question not only of - lets call it predisposition towards escapism addiction through social status - but also of each particular person's brain chemistry, and the way certain receptors in the brain of said person react to addiction-causing stimuli, whether those stimuli come from games, movies, alcohol, drugs, television, sports, or gambling.

And now for your last point. United States has legalized gambling in 48 out of 50 states despite recognizing that gambling is addictive. Each gambling establishment must make all customers aware of the fact (usually somewhere in the back and in small print) and provide the number for the free hotline that helps people break away from the gambling addiction. Yet each year, the government spends millions of dollars promoting the lottery, a gambling scheme that has a similar effect on the poor as addiction does. Many people - especially those on government aid who believe they've got nowhere lower to go - spend what little money they have on the lottery in the hope of escaping their present situation rather than spending it on their daily needs, and as a result require even more help from the government down the road.

The reason nothing is being done to stem this is that lottery, like drinking and watching television, has become a socially acceptable vice. Smoking has been slowly moving out of this category with all the recent lawsuits against tobacco companies, but drinking is still firmly implanted in the American society today. What do you do at a party? At an office get-together? In a club? The fact that a lot of alcohol addicts are homeless and spend their last penny on booze has done nothing to reduce alcohol's social status because addiction is seen as personal choice.

I believe it's about time we started recognizing that addiction - by the very definition - is something beyond the conscious control of the user, and as such needs some sort of an imposed "safety net" to guard the people who might lose control of themselves. The problem is that Americans in particular resent government oversight, and see any sort of an "imposed safety net" as an infringement on individual rights. As a result, creating the "safety net" is up to any and all concerned individuals, and this will not change until there are enough concerned individuals around to influence elections - which would imply that the addiction has spread widely through society without becoming socially acceptable, the way drugs have.

Since we live in a capitalist country, the only thing that can compel companies to regulate themselves is the language of money. Government oversight is impossible, but "civilian oversight" does happen. A great illustration of this is the air travel industry, where a particular term - tombstone technology - has been introduced in order to designate that improvements are only made when the cost of making them is lower than the cost of lawsuits that result from the problem. I believe the term is applicable to all spheres of a capitalist society, and if we ever see change in the gaming industry's stance on addiction it will be the same as in all other industries: slow, reluctant, and fraught with numerous legal battles.

We are on the road to destruction, gentlemen

"Parents sue over WoW death"
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/11/21/wow_lawsuit/
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/11/22/su...rldofwarcraft/

"Neglected child dies while parents play World of Warcraft"
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thum.../2005/6/21/547

Sure, playing games are addictive, but one has to take responsibility and know when to stop. If you, the player cant decide when to stop, you should seek help. Find another more healthy hobby like Tennis, Archery, Pottery, Woodcrafting, cooking, flying kites or sailing. Anything really to distract you from the game. Preventing yourself from getting addicted is the players own responsibility. To suggest putting warning labels means you might as well put warning labels on fast food, music CDs and almost every leisure activity/product.

Oi!

Yeah, been there, done that...

However, is this necessarily a bad thing? I mean yes, it obviously is if it leads to the player losing control of his life, but otherwise, is it really any different from being an avid golfer or athlete? Why is it socially acceptable to train four hours per day, but not to play computer games four hours per day?

I've spent immense amounts of time in various games in my life, and of course I'd have been doing something else if I hadnt... But I don't regret it. I had fun.

er the reason nothing is done against smoking and alcohol is the amount of TAX that is raised and goes to the government in question.

Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, yet they don't ban it.
Everyone knows that drinking (Excess drinking) is bad for you if you drink enough.

The only reason is as I said....TAX TAX TAX.. the government don't care as long as they get there cut.

The government also taxes all video game sales and all "pen and paper" RPG book sales, yet neither video games nor PnP RPGs are considered socially acceptable vices. Over the past twenty years or so, American society has considered gaming an anti-social behavior, destructive to the gamer (lack of sunlight/movement/social interaction) and to the society (games blamed for violence). For comparison, drugs are also blamed for violence, while alcohol itself isn't. Remember, killing someone while driving drunk didn't use to have nearly as harsh a punishment ten years ago as it does now.

Governments usually tax all or most sales, so taxation isn't really what motivates the government. If it was, America would have already legalized drugs and prostitution and taxed the hell out of those, undercutting crime syndicates and enjoying an influx of taxation funds from these "new" industries. Even with the "old" industry of gambling which has been proven profitable over the years of legalized gambling (think Nevada), there are still two states which prohibit gambling altogether. If fiscal benefit was the only thing on the government's mind, gambling would be legal all over.

The problem is that smoking and drinking were around before we knew they were bad for us, and have already become part of our culture. They've turned from fads to socially acceptable vices, to things we may even engage in while interacting with others at social functions like parties. But you also have to remember that gambling, drinking and to a lesser extent smoking have been around for centuries, whereas gaming, even in the form of professional sports, is much younger by comparison. Competitive sports leagues didn't really come into full swing until the 20th century, but at some point they did move from the "just a game" into the "multimillion dollar industry" category. This is currently happening to video gaming in Asia, with "cyberathletes" competing for prize funds in excess of $100,000.

The problem with computer gaming is that it's too recent, so the society hasn't been able to formulate a uniform opinion on the subject just yet. Americans love professional sports and excuse some player behavior that would be considered unacceptable for non-athletes. If we end up with a similar situation in computer games, "cyberathletes" will probably be hailed as excellent members of society, but gaming addicts might take on the same "has been" or "never was" status as the washed-up sportsmen do now. In that case, nothing will be done about the addicts unless their addiction becomes "socially destructive" rather than the "socially constructive" addiction of "aspiring cyberathletes" which we'll see as "socially acceptable," and unless a large part of the voting public becomes aware of the fact, considers it an important problem, and demands the government to take action.

Dude, are you serious? How can u actually compare being a basketball star or something, training everyday compared to video games? Video games are fun, i know i was addicted too but once i put everything in perspective in my life, and once I was able to maintain that perspective I no longer had cravings to play. Sports make you stronger, healthier, compared to pc games and video games where you wither away at your desk or couch like a slug, no longer a human being. Those years that you, or many other people spent playing, I consider an extremely big loss of time, especially if you feel that your life has some great potentiel which you can achieve.

Also though, I must credit my parents, because they were the ones who greatly helped with my game addictions, and without their constant nagging (yes, i'm only 15 years old) and complaining about my playing, even disconnecting my internet, I probably would've had the similar problem as you. Just think about it, do not go into denial about your mistakes, because if you do your bound to repeat them again.

Smoking and drinking are horrible ways to compare with Game addiction. It's like comparing Guild Wars to WoW, or an apple to an orange.

Alcohol and cigarettes are only available to adults and are usually obtained when presented with a valid ID. Sure underaged kids can fake IDs but how many of them do you think can do that? They are statistically small.

Games on the other hand are readily available to anyone at any age. The +12 limit on the Guild Wars game box doesn't mean sh!t.

And yet thousands of college kids get drunk each year, when they're clearly too young for it (not 21 yet). There was a study recently that urged for on-campus drinking, because off-campus drinking happened anyway but in much worse conditions and with much worse consequences. Alcohol is supposed to be inaccessible to underage kids, and yet we still have underage drinking.

As for tobacco, did you ever see those truth.org ads where tobacco executives were trying to come up with marketing schemes to get kids to smoke? Those were based on the actual transcripts of meetings on the executive level. The only reason we don't have massive alcohol and tobacco advertising campaigns targetting kids is because the public rejects it, and so the government forbids it.

See, now this is where you're derailing yourself. Sure, a parent can buy Guild Wars (or another "Teen" game) for their pre-teen kid, but in that case the parent is the person responsible for obtaining the game. The parent is assumed to be a person of solid moral judgment (at least as far as the welfare of the child is concerned), capable of making decisions for the child until the child is legally able to do the same.

The fact is that some people get addicted to video games, just like some people get addicted to the internet and some people get addicted to alcohol and some people get addicted to tobacco and some people... you get the picture. The problem is not in the video game but the personal predisposition of the user towards addiction. In that sense, video games can be put on the same level as drugs and alcohol and tobacco, since they may trigger the addictive personality to take over an otherwise functional member of society. In that sense, video games need an "addiction warning label" to prevent lawsuits that will no doubt stem from "my son was just fine until he picked up your game" statements, but the same labels would need to be placed on all addictive substances and products that are bought and sold freely. We already have them on "controlled substances" like painkillers, so why not broaden the scope and introduce one warning label for all?

Warning: This product may trigger addiction. Please consult with your physician or psychiatrist before using this product. If you notice any signs of addiction while using this product, please contact your physician or psychiatrist immediately. If you would like to learn more, call 1-800-ADDICTS.

That generic warning would cover gambling, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, video games, sports, the internet...

Actually, that warning sounds..... Plausible!

It'll give me an excuse to go: HA! It's your own fault you screwed up your life!

I think theres a fine line between being addicted and simple escapism. Why don't people worry about people who watch tv for 9 hours a day?

imho, you're not addicted to the game until you die because of it. ;o

most people who play these games are under parental supervision. It is up to the parents to stop the kids from playing so much.

GW is not available to a 12 year old kid unless the parent supplies them with the means to buy it.

Now adult addiction, well that's a whole nother issue. But as far as kids go, the parents need to do something about the problem not society. My tax dollars should not be used to counter people's inefectiveness at being parents.

I also blame myspace too. I blame that site for all our problems in the world.

But that's precisely how "tombstone technology" operates: no action is taken until someone dies and the resulting lawsuits make it less profitable to continue without changing something than implementing the change.

In case you missed it, scroll up to the links I put into my previous post. Here are their titles again:

"Neglected child dies while parents play World of Warcraft"
"Parents sue over WoW death"

Don't kid yourself that the gaming industry is farther away from oversight and regulation than everything else.

And that's precisely what warning labels are for: to eliminate liability for things that should have been common sense in the first place.

The vast majority of the populace seems to be too stupid to understand things like "the human liver can only handle so much alcohol" and "ingesting pesticide will kill you" and "putting tar in your lungs will make it hard for you to breathe," so warning labels clearly state what will happen if people obtain... let's call it "side effects from the use of a marketed product." That's why there was that recent push for warning labels on fast food: if obesity is designated as a medical condition, we must treat the things that cause it the same way we treat things that cause lung cancer.

However, if we're going to mention that products can be harmful to physical health, we should also mention their effect on the mental health of the user. Controlled substances mention the possibility of addiction because they alter brain chemistry due to an increased level of certain chemical compounds in the brain. Any activity, video games included, can increase the level of certain chemical compounds in the brain, which can further lead to dependence or addiction or chemical imbalances. This can be especially harmful to developing children (define this age-wise as you wish), but no one seems to even acknowledge the millions of child prescriptions for mind-altering substances that are written every year in the United States. Video games are a popular scapegoat only because the general public understands them even less than they understand medicine, and trusts doctors more than gaming industry executives. The problem is that in those one-in-a-million cases when something does go wrong, the doctor can blame the result on the interaction between the user and the drug, while the gaming industry executive has no option for that - either the blame rests with the user or with the game.

But don't people form societies in order to alleviate the pressure on the individual? Originally, human communities served the same purpose as, say, buffalo herds - mutual protection against outside aggression, whether from nature or from other human communities. Now, however, when the global economy forces people to compete not just on the personal but also on the national level, shouldn't the government do something to prevent certain practices that may lead to a decline? We're fighting a war on drugs (last I checked no one called it off) precisely because drugs are supposed to "corrupt the youth" and "prevent people from becoming effective members of the society." At the point where something becomes a social problem rather than a personal one, the society and the government has to consider action. This point may not have arrived for you just yet, but when the current generation of internet-weaned children becomes the main part of the electorate things might just progress too far to be controllable.

As well you should. It's owned by Fox, after all

I like playing basketball - it's fun, even if I'm not the best at it. I like playing Guild Wars - it's fun, even if I'm not the best at it. Entertainment is entertainment, by and by. But to suggest that one is somehow platonically "superior" to the other? I'd be curious as to why you see it that way. There is an upside and a downside to EVERYTHING.


Nothing is good for you in excessive quantities. "Everything in moderation. Nothing to excess." Those Greeks were clever guys. Be it video games or sports, or anything you can think of, too much is not good for you. How many people have died because they played lots of video games? And how many have died playing sports?

Sports are not all sweetness and light. An establishment and mindset that pushes people to mistreat their bodies and abuse a myriad of illegal substances isn't what I'd call "strong and healthy". There are inherent factors to physical competition (like any competition, for that matter) that combine to produce an unfair playing field. All other things being equal, if a guy has a bigger heart and a higher VO2 max than you, gg. The same is true of any competition, though - while all wo/men may be created equal under the law, physical reality indicates anything that people are anything but. So far, however, we haven't invented any drugs that will make people better chess players; the steroids and hormones are for now limited to physical endeavours.

It's true that people become addicted to video games. But people become addicted to all kinds of things. There is very little stigma against drinking - indeed, some amount of drinking is seen as a good thing most of the time. Conveniently enough, a moderate alcohol consumption may in fact improve your overall health. But nobody says alcoholism is a good thing. What strikes me as imbecilic is that the same attitude isn't universal (where warranted, of course - it's not like "moderate" cocaine usage does you any good) when it comes to other things. I'll bloody well play video games for fun whether society cares or not, but if there's an issue with addiction - especially if product(s) are designed to be addictive - then the means need to be present to prevent that from ruining people's lives.

By no means do I want to slander physical activity. Physical activity is great. Too much, however, and you start running into problems. That's just the way things are. And by the same token, there's no reason to slander video games off-hand. Playing EQ or WoW or GW or whatever for 8 hours a day is unhealthy. But playing for 1-2 hours to relax in the evening isn't.

Drinking and smoking are far worse in my opinion. Someone who smokes a pack a day? Bad for them and they are killing themselves. Someone who drinks a fifth... or two, a day? Bad for them and they are hurting themselves. Meanwhile, I've logged 1133 hours on this game in 15 months. It really hasn't affected me negatively. I still hang out with friends, work a demanding job, play with the dog, go drinking, etc. If anything, I watch less TV and surf the net less. 1133 hours is roughly 47 days. 47 full days out of 15 months... some folks would call that an addiction, but it hasn't slowed me down in the least.

So I guess it's all relative. I'm pretty much set in life, no worries, so I have time. I seriously doubt a kid would have the time to be online that much. Between cartoons, sports, classes, friends, curfews, PARENTS and sleep, most kids would be lucky to get an hour or two of gaming in. I'd be more worried about the PSP in their backpack. (**Granted, I don't have kids... hence the no worries... and am going by when I was a kid, not too long ago... relatively speaking.**)

It's just my opinion that there are quite a bit of restrictions on just about everything. I'd hate to see more restrictions based on a minority of cases, meaning that: Just being a smoker puts you in the majority of adversely affected people. Just drinking more than socially on a regular basis puts you in the majority of adversely affected people. Playing a game 25-30 hours a week means nothing to most folks who do it.

the difference between MMO addiction and chemical addiction though is that MMO addiction is PURELY PSYCHOLOGICAL. You are not introducing any new substances into your body to make your responses different, you're just changing the way you think. Therefore, while people can go without cigarettes, meth, or alcohol for a good while and, after all the withdrawal, still be fine, being addicted to an MMO can basically change your psyche, which is very very bad.

"But don't people form societies in order to alleviate the pressure on the individual? Originally, human communities served the same purpose as, say, buffalo herds - mutual protection against outside aggression, whether from nature or from other human communities. Now, however, when the global economy forces people to compete not just on the personal but also on the national level, shouldn't the government do something to prevent certain practices that may lead to a decline? We're fighting a war on drugs (last I checked no one called it off) precisely because drugs are supposed to "corrupt the youth" and "prevent people from becoming effective members of the society." At the point where something becomes a social problem rather than a personal one, the society and the government has to consider action. This point may not have arrived for you just yet, but when the current generation of internet-weaned children becomes the main part of the electorate things might just progress too far to be controllable."

Yes, this is true but not everything should be society's problem. While it lessens the burden on the induvidual, it also creates more burden on everyone else as well.

The whole burden thing works great for taxes but not for raising children. And when a society gets involved in the raising of kids, often times it's not going to work out well. I'm not talking the concept of 'it takes a whole town.." I'm talking about how the govt is no better at raising kids then we are.

What bothers me is we as a society spend a lot of time, money, and energy on the things that don't effect a ton of people. Meanwhile, the big issues get swept aside. Mental health experts focused on videogame addiction research should be ashamed of themselves in a society that allows cycles of domestic violence to continue unabated. Doctors should not be able to look themselves in eye if they are devoted to this subject when EVERY minute cancer kills another person. Community leaders should not feel like they are accomplishing things when they preach about videogames ruining people's lives while homeless people live on the streets in their own town.

But it's because those are difficult things to solve and videogame addiction looks like an easy fix, so that's what they will focus on. It isn't at all though because it requires a parent to say no and they don't want to these days. Families are children-centric and that is another major problem in our society.

A bunch of kids not being properly told to get the hell off the computer and do something is bad parenting. When a 12 year old kid is playing Wow at 2am is that neither the game's fault or society's responsibility. The parent created the problem not the child. Why should I bear the burden of irresponsibility?

I'll accept the burden when it comes to some things but until our society tries to tackle the real problems in life I say 'none on me'.

You bring up a wonderful point, though, I'm looking at it from the other side.

I go through stages of emersing myself deeply into whatever it is I'm doing. This, in itself, can look like an addiction, and probably is to a certain extend, but I can't keep a hobby for too long before it gets boring and I start on the next hobby.

I did have a stage in my life where 'escapism' was practiced by me, and it did hurt my family life to some degree. I believe it was put down to an addiction to all things online, which in the meantime, I can clearly say that it was not, it was me escaping my life.

With GW, I know I've submerged myself into it deeply, and at times too deeply, but can normally pull myself out of it. Takes a bit of planning, but things like warning people in advance that a particular weekend is spend away from phone/people helps a lot.

Those who are escaping reality need to look at why they are and see if there is a way to change their life so that they do not need to escape the presence anymore.

Those who see family members/friends escape into games and other things should probably try to locate the cause and support their friend/family member through the hard times rather than tell them that they're addicted and they should just snap out of it.

GW should be to relax and have fun and escape the present for a few hours, not unlike a good movie or book. It should not cause you to neglect your needs due to the amount of time you play, nor should it cause you to neglect the needs of those who depend on you.

I somewhat disagree with "the real life is the problem, not the game".
In fact, I found that the more you are comfortable with your life, has money, spare time, the more you can fall into this addiction, leading maybe to a total loss of what you built in your life (spouse, job, children), but only after you are addicted.
When you get to work to survive, to eat, to pay your bills, your taxes, and you realize that if you don't work and get a goal, you will loose everything, you can trust me, you stop playing quiclkly.

addictive yes..... But it beats smoking crack.

We are on the road to destruction, gentlemen

"Parents sue over WoW death"
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/11/21/wow_lawsuit/
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/11/22/su...rldofwarcraft/

"Neglected child dies while parents play World of Warcraft"
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thum.../2005/6/21/547[/QUOTE]

Did you ever see the one for Everquest? (what a joke)

glountz, from personal experience, when my life went to hell, I burried myself into a fantasy world. I use the game as stress relieve, the more stress, the more likely I am to be deeply involved in it. But then, that's not really an adiction, more an escape because I can't handle life.

Without stress, the game is fun and I'll take more breaks between playing.

Really nice and great reading the posts.

I tend to agree somewhat with Numa on the point , comparing addiction to other "activities", maybe not quite competitive sport, but as another poster said - TV.

I have actually made the decission to substitute the time I spend watching TV with Game Play. This is my defense now - for playing the game - mostly Guild Wars. I argument that I spend x hours a day while my peer group spend the same amount x watching TV. I also plan the time carefully to not interfere with friends and family. I guess it is like hiding for a sigaret or closet drinking for an alchoholic.

In the weekends I get up way early, in the weekdays I stay up late some nights. In short - I do it when I'm the only one awake. When other people are awake I'm just a normal guy.

I have been an addict to games also, maybe I still am. I am somewhat pretty succesful when it comes to what "supposedly" makes you succesful -i.e. education, career, family, travel, money, vaction etc etc.

I have the hardest time defending my time playing Guild Wars, to almost everyone i know - except my brother . It is not really accepted for "grown ups", I guess. The Betas though were tough on everybody. I booked those weekends - explained etc...and did my 3 days straight ...heheh...Man did I get a lot of flak.. BUT WTH - it was all worth it, best gaming experience of my life.

So I wonder if I should classify myself or other people in my situation that play games , when their lifes are so full of other tasks - family, career etc as ADDICTS!!

I hope not.


Ratatass