BBC Investigates Game Addiction

"Rowe also said that a developer showed him "some of the invisible psychological devices in video games which keep players wanting more.""

O-RLY?

LMAO

Right, because it would be much more in both developers' and gamers' interests if games DIDN't have elements in them that made gamers want more. Duh...

The wording alone makes that quote hilarious. How do you show someone something that is invisible.

A non addictive game. The perfect formula for selling a game, BBC.

I think this would be about persistence. Persistence is stuff that carries over between different play sessions (like loot, achievements, level).

The real world and most (old) multi-player games don't have persistence, but it's becoming a big thing in games due to the fact that it makes players feel like they need to spend a lot of time playing to obtain the goal.

Note: Persistence refers specifically to things stored by the game, not within the player (like improving soccer or RTS skills).


I want to see persistence classified as addictive NOT because I don't like games, but because I DO like games and I think all the persistence they add makes (non RPG) games worse. (eg: SC2 achievements, TF2 persistent loot).

IMO non-RTS multiplayer games (especially RTS's and FPS's) should be solely about skill, not about playtime and accumulating things/stats over multiple games.

"Panorama : Addicted to Games" Hosted by Jack Thompson, and paid for by the MPAA

The addiction of games is completely related to achievement (which is heavy in persistent worlds). I used to stock pile massive things in my old UO house. People get achievement out of games that they completely miss in the real world (which most of the time sucks for most people whom use games to exit this reality).

What about people who watch the BBC for hours at a time? Are they suggesting that no one has skipped school or missed sleep in order to watch the telly?

Fixed for you.

What about people who read novels ?
Now, that's an addiction

If by any chance this has any real basis and truth its serious and for children of young age could be very serious.

It was actually a fairly balanced programme. Well as much as it can be in such a short space of time. In it's conclusion, it clearly stated that games are completely harmless to most people who play, but that certain people who have personality traits which lend themselves to addiction are at risk.

I don't think there's any point ignoring this, and I wouldn't say the programme tried to demonise games at all. There are people who have died of exhaustion whilst playing. Another couple neglected their baby to the point of death. Others have damaged their lives to lesser degrees. These people need support. It was stated that these cases were a very small minority.

I think I'm more addicted to my PC hardware than anything else.

"There is a world of difference between people who claim, that they are addicted to games, in scientific parlance, to drugs or alcohol. People may claim to be addicted to something like games or football, but in most cases they are not," - I believe to this.

Seems he did a good job. Instead of talking about the problem of people passing all their free time (and even more) in front of a game, the discussion is about the games being an addiction or not!

Better getting a hit of WoW than Crack if you ask me!

Some people were also saying that they were addicted to pong. If games didn't have anything in them that make us wanting more then we would not have this conversation/blog today.

Games are supposed to be fun and like anything else it should be taken/done moderately and those who would rather play games before their obligations just have their priorities all wrong.

Don't blame the game, blame the person.

Sex is addictive... oh wait!

You know, we live and work for the things that make us addictive, it's how things work, it's how mother nature keeps us go on and produce babies.

For anyone who watched the show, it did show balance. The point being, some people have addictive personalities. You can be more prone to becoming addicted to something. And when this compulsion, replaces all other "hygiene" factors in your life (eating, washing, socialising etc), it is dangerous.
To use some of the extreme examples above (though I've not heard of anyone reading books at the expense of all other things), it would be of a similar concern.
Being an ex WoW player, the pressure is also not solely produced by the developer, there is also the peer pressure aspect of the Guild. In order to get the best items (and let's face it, who wouldn't want the best things), you have to be in a guild, raiding 5 times a week of which YOU WILL BE ONLINE AT X GAMETIME OTHERWISE WE'LL BOOT YOU OUT....

This has been done before:

http://www.cracked.com/article_184 [...] icted.html

I'm getting really tired of this ongoing attack on games - for something to be addicting in any clinical sense, there has to be a persistent change in the person's nervous system, and no one I'm aware of has ever been able to demonstrate such in a gamer. Quit using the pejorative term "addicting" when it isn't! Gaming may be a habit, and perhaps can become a compulsion to a small number of highly susceptible people, but it's not addiction...

You are mistaken my friend, what about all those that have gambling addictions? its a matter of personality problems and/or genetic traits, like they said in the program is usually linked with those who have psychological problems to begin with.

Overall i think the media play on it far too much, just like with anything in life there are going to be those predispositioned more towards addictive behaviour due to a plethora of possible psychological problems wether geneticly inherited or socially instigated.
It is no different to the arguments of those opposed to violent games and people who have killed others supposedly because of a game, since when does a game override a persons moral judgment unless that person is predispositioned towards violent tendencies in the first place.

They also fail to recognize that the reward mechanism in the brain is designed to reward for actions that improve skills. Everything that is pleasurable is addictive, that is the real truth. At least in how they use the word like it is negative. Without addiction/reward in the brain, everyone would become zombies that slowly waste away and die in misery.

Watching the program as I saw the link and the question that keeps coming up is "Why don't you get some friends or do something else?" I remember as a kid playing sports outside and having several run ins with the police for balls hitting windows or cars. The nearest open space is beside a 20min walk along busy road, as a kid there was no point in heading down there. Local football pitches charged so again no useable for a kid. Whats a kid to apart from game? Any friends I try to go out somewhere with would rather sit in a dark corner and drink or are "too busy". Instead of gaming I play guitar yet I'm constantly being told I'm addicted to that!! At least now im older I can afford to book a pitch with some mates and play football and my GF like hiking which is a perfect activity to combine with photography.

Basically what I'm saying is it isn't all the kids fault. If counsels provided safe play areas, parents actually had time for their kids (2 working parents leaves little time or energy for kids) and so called "friends" actually cared about other people than themselves (How many times has a friend refused to something because "they don't like it" and left a group and just went home?), kids would be able to "break the addiction".
I don't think the problem is kids struggling to making social connections, its just easier to make them online.

I would argue that skinner box-esque gaming elements don't actually improve gaming experience, they just make it seem like gameplay is longer. And, since they're easy to program vs actual content, games are becoming filled with them, sadly. Now excuse me while I go get my 'clicked SCV 100,000 times' achievement.

If they really wanted to make a case, or a least blur the lines, BBC needs to compare gaming (as in computer games, video games, etc.) to gaming (as in casino cards, poker, slots, and gambling) and talk about gambling addiction.

I highly doubt many people have skipped school or work in order to watch BBC.

As a long time gamer I can fully admit game now a days are generally more addictive then when I grew up on them. Most games in this day and age are by design addicting and time consuming particularly MMO's.

No they don't gambling addiction is all ready very well documented and talked about by comparison.

Game addiction is a lot like alcohol addiction people know it exists and is a problem, but most choose to ignore it and refuse to admit they have a problem with it.

i just admitted i had a problem and canceled my wow and deleted most of my games. I am also going though a separation in marriage, hopefully i will be able to completely kick the addiction and save my marriage. True story, i was up to 4.5hrs a day on WOW after work and school...

24hrs day
-9 work
-3 school
-1 driving to and from work/school
----------
11hrs left
6-8 sleeping
----------
3-5hrs remaining
4.5 wow
------------
either sleeping is affected or i got 0.5hrs to satisfy my wife, do projects, clean our house, share joint responsibilities, do shopping, hang with friends, ect....

DONT LET GAMES or TECHNOLOGY ruin your life as it has for me... As long as you can control it play it...

Life sucks right now.

Interestingly, at the same time BBC is producing their show, an English scientist studied game and violence and concluded that there weren't enough evidence to link the two.

Seriously, I fail to see how an entertainment lasting 3-4 hours at most has more influence on violence than peers that people spend half the day with.

The reason gaming addiction doesn't exist in the medical texts, is that for something to be an addiction it has to have a chemically visible consequence during abstinence. There is however a lot of debate that compulsion disorders and addictions are to be treated the same. The first is primarily a psychological problem, and the latter primarily a physiological. But both present themselves with the same sort of problems and consequences of abstainence. One example could be someone who is a gaming addict, or someone who are sex addicts. If you look at the behavour and consequences of abstinence, they're very much the same as someone addicted to alcohol or cigarets.

In short - that one statement by some doctor person in the news piece isn't nessecarily wrong, but it's clearly being abused by removing the context.