I as an excercise in making sure I stay grounded in reality partipate in a forum for gamers so’s adding perspective from the gamer side.
My position is this:
Many of the people on this forum refer to their so’s problem as an addiction. I personally see it as a choice, they get upset when I comment that they choose to do what they do and are not forced by any magical or chemical force to go for another raid on scholomance.
Are these people really suffering from an addiction? Do they have other issues that they are hiding from by playing and making the SO think its the game, not the person. I believe the latter is more the case, but the forum seems to live under the first assumption. Am I a non relevant example even though if left to my own devices without my wife or other responsibilities I would probably play 12 hours a day without fail.
Well, considering there have been cases of people DYING from doing nothing but palying games (usually online ones) for days straight, I think that yes, for some people is is addicting.
Though that is a VERY small percentage of people. Of the millions of video game players, and even the smaller contigent of MMORPG gamers, which are often the more hardcore gamers, sicne they are willing to pay a monthly fee, there have just been a few deaths.
Excessive gaming does meet the following criteria for addiction (it also doesn’t meet some others like physical withdrawal).
Using the stimulus more often or in larger amounts than intended.
Unsuccessful attempts to stimulus; persistent desire, craving.
Excessive time spent in stimulus seeking.
Giving up other things for it.
Continued use, despite knowledge of harm to oneself and others.
It is hard to say if it is a “true” addiction because we still have a very poor understanding of addiction at the brain level. Most laypeople estimate that the science of addiction is way more advanced than it really is. Understanding is really poor all around.
You say that it isn’t “chemical” in this case. That is a potential fallacy because the whole brain operates on chemicals (neurotransmitters and others). I am not trying to be petty or overly academic. Much of the research on addiction points to something like an abnormal feedback loop between brain structures that gets reinforced through the stimuli. This would make addictions of this type as physical (and “mental”) as any other disorder.
You are so cynical. Allow me to correct the OP’s capitalization
So he is getting the viewpoint of the Significant Others of the gamers to see the effect the gaming has on them. Sure, doesn’t rank up there with building houses for the homeless, but it’s something…
This is kinda the angle I am looking with it, I am wondering how much correlation causation is going on in an inappropriate manner. I would opine that someone who dangerously neglect themselves/relationships/children at an activity would have to have something wrong with them above and beyond liking MMORPG’s.
Many of the people I talk to are blaming the game, I blame the player (myself included). I get the clarification on the “chemical” aspects, but its not like alchohol where your body does develop a physical need for an outside substance. I’m figuring that the need that an alleged game addict has can be fullfilled by several means, this is just their particular choice. I you spent all your time working on an old car or pursuing some hobby and spent hours on end neglecting yourself and others would they be called a car addict or a model shipbuilding addict?
I guess what I am trying to pin down is, I don’t feel that this behavior is a new problem, just a problem that has found a new way to express itself via PC gaming. An learning how to better identify and address that problem rather than calling them a game addict and trying to blame the game and its designers is the solution to that problem.
If you take away the game will they find a new way to manifest the problem or is the game truly addictive?
I think that people become addicted to games because they have “issues”. Video games don’t alter your brain like heroin does, but anyone will get addicted to what video games offer to gamers. Like drugs, they offer an escape from your problems.
It might be a choice to start playing games at first, but if you are playing 12 hours straight you are most likely avoiding something.
I guess it would be possible for a person to solve all their big problems in life and still choose to play video games 12 hours a day. I don’t think this scenario is common though. IMO, more often than not, people are playing video games to escape reality (mass online multiplayer games especially).
There is such a thing as a psychological dependency.
Taken in moderation, videogames are no better or worse an activity than reading, watching TV or building model trains.
The problem with excessive gaming is that:
it’s sedentary - you don’t get any ACTUAL exercise running around Vice City
it is isolating - virtual relationships are not a substitute for real ones
it can be a distraction - if you are missing work or skipping stuff you need to do, you might have a problem
and IMHO, indulging in fantasy 12 hours a day can’t be good for you
Those MMORPG drive me nuts. A couple of friends of mine used to play them non-stop. It would get to the point where you would litterally have to drag them out of the house on Friday night.
For people with ADD such games can give them what they are looking for. The ability to focus on one thing, to shut off all that other noise that constantly bombards their minds. This might be considered addiction or perhaps self medicating of sorts.
It’s the age old bitch of the SO. “Pay attention to MEEEEEEEE!”
For the entire time I’ve lived with my wife, she knows my needed routine.
Work all day, drive home, and I need a few minutes of “alone time,” and after that I’m her’s. This time can be spent checking e-mail, playing a quick round of bf2, standing on the porch watching the wind, etc. Don’t talk to me, don’t request anything. I’m not listening. We’ve discussed this, she claims to understand, and will comply.
She doesn’t comply.
If she’s upstairs asleep, and I put on a game, then I’m choosing the game over her. If she’s in another state, and I put on a game, then I’m choosing the game over her. You get the point. It’s not that the game is evil per se, but that you are no longer easily available, even if you’re unneeded.
Simple solution really. You don’t get to play as much as you’d like, and you’ll always play more than she wants.
I’m sure I do similar things to her… nah, I’m perfect!
It can be. One of the big problems in the relationship I had with my ex was video games. I’d come over–and this was a long-distance thing, so it wasn’t like I was constantly popping over–and he’d spend eight hours a day playing video games. I’d get ticked off, and he wouldn’t know why I was ticked off.
We’ve been apart for almost four years now–I’m now married, he’s in another relationship. The last time we talked, he admitted that he’d had this problem with a number of his other girlfriends (after me, I was his first one), and apologized. I don’t even remember how it came up. I think that, in his case, it was an issue of not knowing where the limits and line of common courtesy were.
It can be a psychological addiction–almost anything can, if you derive pleasure. But I don’t think that everyone who enjoys video games/computer games/role-playing games has that problem, just as not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic.
I agree with you, drachillix, to a degree, and responsibility lies with both the person and the game.
This is a valid observation. Video games have been singled out for wrecking marriages, ruining educations, et cetera, but any hobby taken to an extreme can have adverse effects on personal relationships.
However, playing a MMO isn’t exactly like working in the woodshop in the garage. A MMO is really little more than a Skinner box. The player starts, gains a level, finds the game pretty fun, and then the in-game advancement takes progressively more time, by which point many players will continue playing the game beyond the point where it’s been fun. Sometimes they’re just playing (or grinding - such an apt term) to the next reward, at which point they tell themselves that they’ll have much more fun. (“Once I’m level 48, I can go to this zone with my guildmates, and then I’ll be able to kill Foo and get Bar and whooo!”) Or sometimes they’ll look back on all the time they spent and not want to quit, thinking that it means that all of the “work” they put in is now meaningless, or not wanting to come to terms with the fact that, say, 25% of their waking hours over the past year were spent playing a fictional character that they’re now leaving behind. (“Oh, god … it says I’ve played this character for 26 days. No point in quitting now.”)
Because of this, I’m not comfortable putting all of the blame on a player’s addictive personality, and saying that if they didn’t spend 12 hours a day in WoW they’d just spend it on another hobby.
Ok this is the kind of information I was looking for, and it makes sense. My next question is, when you do this with a pidgeon their options are limited, if the box isn’t closed, most would fly away before figuring out the reward. So why do we choose to “get in the box”.
Yeah, my GF used to get pissed off at hearing the “BING BONG” of the alert bell in Age of Empires II over the phone.
Basically, it would be the same thing if you fixed car engines, golfed every Sunday or watched football.
See that’s a problem. If someone travels a long distance to see you, put the freakin game down for a day or so!!
Of course the ideal situation is you find some girl like Morgan Webb from Tech TV who’s pretty hot and is really into videogames. But odds are that’s probably not going to happen.
Of course if shes that into them, you end up with the same problem…your hot video gaming girlfriend who never comes to bed, or pays any real attention to you. Has you bring her dinner to the computer so she does not have to leave the game, etc.
For most people, this is pretty much my feelings. I’ve played various MMOs over the last 6 years.
Yes, there are some people who could probably be called addicted or obsessed. Just like there are people who obsess over movie stars or Illuminati theory or sports on TV, or shopping or …
Most people I know have just replaced TV watching, and maybe some reading with on-line gaming. For MOST people I know, it’s just a different allocation of free-time.