Online Video Game Addiction

Looks like one of our own is mak­ing good in game­space — here is a nice arti­cle from Jesse Upchurch on video game addic­tion that just hit gamecareerguide.com. I’ve been play­ing a ton of Sec­ond Life lately — not to men­tion my lat­est re-discovery of XBox Live.

In these games, the player takes on the role of an avatar that ven­tures through an elab­o­rate fan­tasy world and inter­acts with other real play­ers and NPCs (non-playing char­ac­ters). The attrac­tion of this genre of games can some­times lead to play­ers feel­ing the need to play even to the detri­ment of other aspects of their life. This leads to a ques­tion that many have debated and are still debat­ing today: is it pos­si­ble to be addicted to an online video game?

I didn’t think it was pos­si­ble to be addicted to the games. Sure, I play hours upon hours of “Gears of War” online, but no — not until I intro­duced my father in law to Zuma did I real­ize the true dan­ger of online gam­ing to humanity.