Massively Multiplayer Online Games

[Chaerophon]

MMOG/Internet addiction occurs in people that already have certain, for whatever reason, tendencies to become addicted to various activities. I believe the figure was that 90% of all definied cases of MMOG/Internet addiction were in people that were already alcoholics, had OCD, were addicted to various drugs, and so on. For whatever reason, there is just some innate brain chemical imbalance which causes some people to become addicted to certain things more easily. I actually wrote a rather long paper on this subject in high school, so I know a little bit about the sbject and am not just pulling numbers out of the sky here either

Quite frankly, I think that you're deceiving yourself if you don't believe that a rather large percentage of longtime lurkers, including myself, have not been addicted even to only a comparatively moderately addictive game such as Diablo for at least a period of months, if not years. While I love the game, I fear it as well, strange as that may sound. For a period of about six months, my hockey career, school, and even my relationship with my girlfriend took a psychological back seat to the "realities" of my online world. Whether or not you have experienced the same thing, the ability of an MMORPG to make money depends upon longtime subscribers and a large proportion of these subscribers are addicted, whether they want to believe it or not. I will acknowledge that for some people, online gaming has come to represent a large part of their real life; however, as soon as it has a detrimental effect on real life, the gaming, in my opinion, has gone too far. I'm not going to blame the gaming companies for making an addictive product - that's why they're in business. However, the notion that some prior weakness must exist in order for an individual to become addicted is only a half truth. Perhaps it is weakness that leads to addiction, if you're willing to consider familial problems, relationship issues, excessive stress, etc. to be "weakness". That being said, the gaming addicted world is not solely populated by drug and alcohol addicts, the severely depressed, and other such individuals. A large portion of the addicted gaming world is merely seeking a place where they feel that their presence makes a large difference or where they can be recognized as a prominent member of a community; opportunities that they may not feel that they have available to them in real life. As an intrinsic part of the business, gaming companies prey upon this "instinctive desire" to "be someone".

In my opinion, gaming addiction is a much larger problem than many people realize and often people pass off their own addictions as "passions" without realizing that their behaviour is actually rather compulsive. I've made the same arguments to my family, to my girlfriend, and to some of my friends in the past; "it's just escapism", "I just love to play the game", etc. Studies and experimentation may say one thing, but based on experience and overcoming such an addiction myself, I would make the case that although I may suffer from clinical depression, many, many of the people with whom I regularly played, from all around the world, exhibited the same or even worse behaviours than my own and I have a hard time believing that they all suffered from some sort of psycholgical ailment prior to their participation in the online world. I suppose my argument is this: gambling addicts don't know that they're addicted until they gamble. At the core of your argument is that those who become addicted to gaming are seeking some sort of escape just like those who are alcoholics, drug addicts, and compulsive gamblers. However, the fact that there is such a societal stigma attached to those activities and that the same stigma is not attached to gaming speaks volumes to me. Perhaps those who are addicted to gaming are merely choosing an avenue for their hidden desires that is not so frowned upon by the rest of society. Does that mean that they are any less addicted? I suppose that a case could be made that they are not; however, the effects of gaming upon an individual's life can be just as damaging as any other addiction and I would make the argument that the allure goes beyond the chemical in nature.