Doctor: 40% of World of Warcraft players addicted

I doubt less than 99 percent of the players play for fun. Addiction has taken on a new meaning, and a negative one at that. I doubt anyone, maybe a handful, play this game while hating it but unable to stop. If you enjoy it and it doesn't cause you to physically or financially hurt yourself or others then I don't call it an adiction, they are misusing the word. Just because something can be so good that you don't want to stop doesn't make it an addiction. I've never played the game, but clearly it's fun. Noone out there simply can't function, breaks down, goes into a coma or shock from not being able to play this game. If anything it is a rare case.

If these researchers are going to throw these figures at me I could just as easily say(and probably get a lot of support for saying it) that 80% of catholics who regularly attend church are addicted to it. They've been doing it so long they can't stop and they don't know why they do it anymore, it's just habit that can't be broken, they don't feel anything from going anymore and it makes them feel bad so they have to keep going to try to scrap the feeling of enlightenment from the service.

Anticrawl

I did not tried it because of the addictive nature of it. Both my sister and her husband have it and certailly her husband plays it too often. They proposed me some 3 months free trials but i refused them.

Yet they don't watch that much tv now... if you get my point.

But i believe its addictive, it has the surrounding (pc-room), the social enviroment (buddies online) and the increasing use (multiple characters and often expanded level). It can be addictive, and i think in some time we all will have to admit there can be a problem for a small percentage of users. But due to the amount of people, that small percentage will represent a huge amount of people.

Sorry, I'm about to go into a long rant.

"In additon, I'm not sure games or other "mental" activities should be lumped into the same group as tobacco and other addictive substances."-Seth

Good point, this debate going on here is pretty stupid, as we all know that there are two different types of things that we call "addictive". Drugs and non-drugs. Alcohol, tobacco, weed, these are things many people feel like they need to do everyday, but obviously it's not like some of us feel we need to play games on a daily basis. You may feel like you "need" to play games, so there's a mental addiction but there's not a physical one. And if you get into harder drugs like heroin, the physical addiction is so strong that withdrawal doesn't just make you want it again, but it makes you sick without it. Really sick. That's PHYSICAL dependency.

Now anybody can have a mental addiction to anything. I recently turned my mom on to Sudoku, and she can't stop. What about overweight people? Trust me there are a lot of fat people out there that are trying to be thinner, but have a dependency(this is probably the hardest non-drug "addiction" to kick, considering we all need food).

"Gambling and sex are obvious examples. Would doctors warn us to keep gambling and sex out of our lives? I should certainly hope not."-JTS

Actually that's not true. They do have Gamblers Anonymous, and Sex Addicts Anonymous out there. In that sense if there is addiction centers for those problems(and they do give warnings on lottery tickets to call a certain number is you have a gambling problem) than I guess there is no problem with considering video games as having addidictive properties as well. Just because something doesn't have a physical addiction doesn't mean that it shouldn't be taken seriously, I just think we should find another word besides "addiction" to use.

The problem isn't that some people believe that gaming can be addictive, it's the way it is potrayed compared to other media. http://www.joystiq.com/2006/06/01/european-game-addiction-clinic-opens-next-month/

I read an article about this in ESPN the magazine and the director Keith Bakker said "If a kid is putting 35 hours a week into gaming, he's not out playing soccer or meeting girls. Most of these kids' social networks consist of people around the world they've never met."

Four problems with these comments. 1. It confirms the stereotype that all gamers are losers who don't get any exercise and don't get any women. And we all know Miyamoto is a pimp. 2. This guys statement assumes it's only guys who play videogames anyway, or at least straight guys and lesbians. 3. Because most of the media aren't gamers, there is the assumption that addiction only occurs amongst gamers but not any other type of lesiure activity. What about movies or television, someone can be addicted to TV and movies but not games? This is a sport magazine, but nobody would ever say that there is such a thing as sport addiction to the point that millions of people get injured a year so that they can be the best at their sport. That's not addiction, but this is? 4. Let's assume, that all these guys statements are true. That it's almost all guys who play games, and they never get out to meet people, and this doesn't happen in any ohter form of entertainment. Did anybody ever consider why? Maybe gamers don't go out because they can't play sports. Perhaps some gamers have trouble with relationships and would rather not have to deal with it. This article is assuming that things such as playing soccer and meeting girls are much better experiences, while in reality they can be challenging and painful.

ESPN seems to agree with these comments by saying things like "Although a vid addiction doesn't pose the same physical dangers as one to drugs, it does present significant psychological challenges: Unlike cocaine or alcohol abusers, such patients must learn to live with their drug." Sure you can make a point that this is a true, but how is this different from any thing else in the world that anybody enjoys doing regularly. It's just this sort of narrow mindedness that makes video games unfairly categorized as an addiction compared to anything else.

The fundamental issue here and the primary cause for debate is whether there is such a thing as "psychological addiction". Is thier some stimulia that you can continue to feed humans that is not chemical in nature that causes a similar reaction to that of normal addiction? The nightmare sceanario has been imagined for years. We have talked about it before, episodes of star trek have covered it as well as Snow Crash. Can something be so psychologically compelling that it is actually qualifies as addicting?

I am not sure thats even quesiton we should be asking. The question we need to be asking is whether the product (in this case a game) is harmful to society. We are a free market society, the nature by which we conduct business ultimatly means that companies that make products are more concerned with how well the product sells over who might be harmed. That is the nature of our society. As a side effect we relie on government organizations to keep companies in line with whats best for society. The FDA is one of these organizaitons. The liberatarian priniciples of you should have the right to destroy yourself aside, these organizations are supposed to protect us from our own free market (whether government bueacracy is capable of doing this effectively is another debate). Companies should be held reasonably accountable if they purposefully cause harm to society.

What is scary is that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots here for video games and MMORPGs especially. If it is ever possible to create a video game experience that is so pyscologically compelling as to do a great deal of harm to society then eventually video game companies will find it. Its the nature of the darwinistic way in which games are developed. We keep the fun parts and get rid of the boring stuff. Eventually through many generations of software development we WILL arrive at a pandora's box for video games (we may be close now). MMORPGs utilise pavlovian principles of psychological reinforcement masterfully, they will only get better at this. It is only a matter of time before they find a formula that is just too compelling.

The unfortunate result is that we may in the future end up seeing a FDA like organization for video games, which undoubtedly would suck. But if society is better with such an organization than without it then its hard to argue agianst. I don't really know whats a good answer, I just would hate to see my favorite pastime get censored (this is really our biggest fear). But even I admit that I would probably be more productive without ever playing MMORPGs (as they stand now).

AntiTimeSink

cringer8 for president. He summed up my own thoughts on these endless loop online games quite admirably. Get outside, talk to people face to face. Things work about better for you that way.

You people that have never played an MMORPG and don't think it's addicting need to sit down and STFU, you just do not know what the hell you're talking about.

I have seen normally responsible, healthy adults with good jobs and families LOSE IT ALL to EQ1 and/or WoW and other games of this sort. I knew one guy addicted to EQ1 who couldn't stop playing at home, alienating his wife and children to the point of ending up in divorce, and also played the game at work which eventually got him fired. We're talking about games that because of the way they are set up, encourage you to play for hours on end, avoiding responsibilities and relationships in your real life.

MMORPGs are just as addictive as gambling and other activities that obsessive/compulsive personality types gravitate toward. Should they come with a warning label? Absolutely. Something along the lines of "Certain types of players of this game may end up spending unhealthy amounts of time playing to the detriment of their real life relationships and responsibilities. Please play with caution, and if you find yourself falling into this category, quit playing and seek counciling."

There is a REASON that China and other Asian countries are trying to come out with legislation to put built in "time outs" to these types of games. Such as only allowing you to play in the game for a certain number of hours per day then locking you out, etc. PEOPLE HAVE DIED from ignoring their own physical needs for too long while playing these games. For some people they just BECOME their character in the virtual world and everything in the real world is completely out of their mind.

So in short, this doctor is spot on. WoW and games of its sort ARE addictive, and should not only come out with a warning lable, but should also put built-in safety guards to prevent people from playing excessively in the extreme.

Oh and to the poster who said "who cares, do we really want these people in our society anyway", just wait until someone you care about becomes addicted to something like this and see how you feel about it then. Not all the people who became addicted were social rejects to start with, we're talking normal family men and women, not to mention kids.

Its a fucking game, not crack, knight37.


I play WoW, and last time I checked, I was out driving today.

Gambling is addictive. Sugar is addictive. Theres pretty much a threshold for everything. This person is just talking out of her (thats really a her?) own opinion. Do you really need to have a label that 'THIS GAME IS MOST POSSIBLY GOING TO TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE YOU LIFELESS LOSER!' ?

I am actually incredibly impressed by the way Asian politicians handle games.
Basically, they recognized a real problem (i.e. people ruining their life, sometimes even killing themselves over video games), realized that they don't know shit about games, researched, asked former gamers, understood how games work, came up with a viable solution, and are about to enforce it for the better of their whole society.

Compare that to American or European politicians, who cry about sex or violence in games, don't acknowledge that they don't know shit about games, and thus come up with measures that either don't get implemented or don't help anyway.

Knight37, I'm not sure if you're referring to my post as I didn't say "Who cares?" so much as I said "Yippie! Something to entertain the weak and divert them from breeding!" I've had MANY friends get addicted, lose jobs, lose spouses, and suffer from MMORPG obsessions. I could list off names but they'd be meaningless in this context. The point is they are people that can be completely happy playing the game, who am I to say their happiness isn't in their best interest? If all they're going to do is obsess over something they're not really contributing to society and it's better to sever them off from it. It was said previously, and it's true: addiction is a weakness. It needs to be culled from the populace, not nurtured and safeguarded with warning labels. Those people can spend the rest of their lives being perfectly happy engrossed in it, and when they're gone there won't be another generation to take their place. The problem will solve itself if we just leave it alone. It's not the games that are a problem, it's the people; most are just too soft, or proud to admit it.

Give MMOs warning labels. Who cares? Final Fantasy XI has one that pops up before you log in and I'm certain it doesn't detract anyone from playing. There're probably people out there who still don't know what it even says.

To all those who are happy that "those losers" waste their life away:

My cynic side would certainly agree me, if it weren't for two things:

1. It's not just some fools who do it. Some people who waste their life away like this could probably contribute a lot to society if it weren't for the games.

2. Many of them still bred. Actually, some might even bred more than otherwise, especially if they eventually notice that their life is empty and need to fill that void with something. So the problem won't actually solve itself.

My apologies, my earlier comment may have misrepresented my actual opinions. Judd and Knight 37, you both make similar points that really get to the heart of what I was beating around the bush at: sure games are addictive, just like my previous examples of sex and gambling, but the game itself is not responsible for the irresponsible behavior, just as the institutions of sex and gambling are not responsible for sending people to Gamblers Anon or Sexaholics Anon. Knight hit the nail on the head, some folks are going to get addicted to these games. My guess is that before they played they engaged in other compulsive or unhealthy, habitual behaviors. In a lot of ways, 12-step programs that cure alcoholics or drug addicts or sex addicts for that matter, are merely substitutes that seek to redirect and reprogram certain feelings and desires. I would never try to belittle someone's addiction to video games, I believe it exists, but I just don't want to see warning labels on games, just like I don't want to have to sign a wavier to walk into a casino. It's up to parents to police their children, and it's up to adults to police themselves. If you're losing a friend or a spouse to a game, do what we do with addicts: have an intervention. The first step to defeating a gaming problem is facing the fact that you have one. In the meantime, we as a gaming community need to put a stop to unreasonable mis-labeling of gamers and attempts by government to restrict the creativity of the gaming community.

I played WoW for two months, got bored and put my account on hold. I can't focus on one game very long, especially when a major part of the game involves social interaction. Meh.

Scapegoating: The Final Frontier.

All this talk of games, TV, food, etc. in the pejorative really makes me sleepy.

Some elitist snots out here actually thinking they're better than someone else just because that person enjoys partaking in that activity & they choose not to.
Then contrast that condemned activity with something like "reading" making the latter the "better" activity.
As if someone who watches a lot of TV or plays a lot of videogames is doomed to be a failure in life & such.
The bastardized Darwinesque notion of weeding out the gene pool.

People need to get off their high horses.
These attacks on fun diversions are as old as civilization itself. Anything popular with a following gets attacked by the jealous, scared, or ignorant.
'The Simpsons' was seen as trash TV once now they have become a vibrant source of social satire influencing the culture AND the language.

TV is NOT for dull minds. If people knew ANYTHING they'd know that knowledge exists EVERYWHERE not just in a book or an institution. TV does NOT rot your brain & neither do videogames. You can learn about the world by observing a common orange. You can watch the blades of your fan whizz by & learn from that.
And you CERTAINLY can learn a lot from TV AND Videogames.

As for addicting? What ISN'T addicting? Anything that rings pleasure can become addicting. It's all body chemistry. As long as the addiction isn't significantly harmful to the life of that individual then there's no problem. There are those addicted to exercise & fitness forgetting the reality that no matter how hard you try we're all gonna die. George Burns lived to 100 smoking cigars & drinking booze every day. The guy who co-created the Powerbar died at 51 in a marathon.

All warning labels REALLY do is make the product more attractive to the consumer. We all know the power of "taboo". Biblical Adam & that dadgum apple he WAS NOT supposed to touch.

I myself play videogames for hours at a time too. I watch TV heavily. And I eat my fair share of junk food at times. Yet I have never had a problem holding a job or supporting my household. And I'm healthy to boot.
And I can hold an intelligent conversation. I can & do read books & even follow heavy technical jargon-filled texts. I keep up with what's going on in the world (like reading a newspaper) & I'm not controlled by mass media propoganda. I know how to use critical thinking to separate truth from fiction from a report.

I know when it's time to play & when it's time to work.
When I have somewhere to go I have no problem turning off the tube & powering down the game console.
And there are times I go all day without playing either.

Some people are more susceptible to addiction than others. Everything in life has these biological degrees of variance.

When someone you know is addicted to anything to the point that it begins to wreck their life, all that's needed is an intervention & some counseling to pinpoint & work out the source the addictive nature in order to control it.

There are those who say the internet is an addiction.
I too do my fair share of that as well (like i imagine everyone here does).
But it's all a matter of personal control when you get down to it.

Enough with the elitists & fun police.
These folks ain't hurting nobody.
John Lucas

Is WoW addictive for some people? Probably. But then I figure anyone sad enough to get addicted to WoW would have found some other way to screw their life up in the absence of videogames.

Besides, can we even be sure a warning label would do any good? It might be that a "This game is addicting" notice might serve to attract just the sort of person who is looking for an alternative to the Big Scary World. So there could be an effect opposite to that intended, kind of the way those "Explicit Lyrics" labels increase record sales.

Perhaps we should start dealing with this issue by educating people about how to spot the signs of a gaming problem, and what to do if they or someone they know has one, rather than compelling game companies to stick warning labels on their boxes.

i've never started playing that game, but only cause i remember diablo 2 and how it stole my life. however, a certain part of me longs to experience this game, knowing how it would steal my life , but i just can't do that again.

Can games become addictive? Absolutely. Games become addictive the same way gambling or any other activity can become addicting. You feel this necessity to play. It almost becomes like a duty, something that if you didn't do it immediately it would be like you're doing something wrong. I have my own experience and the experiences of many of my friends to attest to this. Game addiction is real.

If you want to see the potential consequences of widespread addiction, just look to Japan. They have words that specifically describe people (both children and adults) that spend weeks, months, years locked up in their rooms away from society. Is it possible to live like this? Yes. Will it harm others? Only those who the person had previous, non-addiction based relationships with. Should they be allowed to stay addicted? I would certainly think not. It is up to us to solve addiction. It up to the addicted to understand that it is in fact a problem, and it is up to those who know that person to help them deal with it. I am not saying that ending addiction would be easy. If it was, it wouldn't be addiction. I am also not saying that we should ban WoW or any videogames for that manner. There is fun to be had. But you have to watch yourself, and you have to have others watching out for you to. But as for those out there who have no one left to help them, I suppose all I can do is wish them well to level 60...

My brother plays WoW all the time. Hes currently going on 30. He spensds ALOT of time on it, but its not an addiction. Its just how he spends his free time. He has perfect control and judgement. I've seen him ditch out of a 40 man raid in seconds because he had to go tend to his crying baby, because his wife isn't home.


A very small percentage of people would actually get addicted to the point of harm.

Warning labels are for sissies. Anything and everything can be addictive. Food can be addictive, exercise can be addictive, reading can be addictive, not just the obvious things like cigarrettes.

Sure video games can be addictive, but so can watching shows like 24 on TV, where you just have to find out what happens next. Should 24 have a warning before the show? No, that would be silly.

Some warning labels are necessary, I admit. For example, a warning label for a bottle of poison is indeed a good idea. But a warning label on video games? What kind of sissies are we that we need to be informed before purchasing a video game that we might become addicted to it? That is about as stupid and obvious as the warning label on coffee, "Warning, contents are hot." No shit.

People that dumb deserve the consequences. Maybe that way they'll learn from their mistakes and think before they act next time.

If these WoW addicts weren't addicted to WoW, they'd be addicted to something else. Some people just have addictive personalities. And to think we have to warn them every time that they might become addicted to something is just assinine.

You call people elitist and "on high horse" and then you rattle off a page long comment that you expect us all to stop and read? Thou dost protest too much, methinks.

I'm currently playing WOW, and I must say, it is addictive, but I'm not addicted. I can control myself, so I still have a life and I still go outside regularly:P

A buddy of mine though, runs out of the room at the very mention of WOW. Back in highschool he was big on MMORPG's and Warcraft in general, so now that he's in University, he's avoiding it at all costs.

Ach, if it wasn't an addiction to games it would be crack cocaine, either way it makes the (real) world a much smaller place.

Lets face it if you play one game for 6 hours everyday for a number of years you probably haven't got that much to offer society anyway.

You guys just need to try my World of Warcraft Patch. It's actually a time release coin pouch you attach to your arm with a rubber band. Every ten minutes, you shake it and see what falls out. It could be a nickel, a penny, maybe even a quarter! Of course, there are a whole lot more pennies in there than the rest, but maybe if you just shake it again in ten minutes you'll get something better! If you get the dollar coin to fall out, and you are now bored with shaking it, you have beaten your addiction

For the hardcore WoW raider/PvP rank grinder, you need to step it up to the World of Warcraft Epic Addiction Kicking System. Run on a treadmill for four to seven hours (whatever your raid schedule is), and at the end of your running, I will come to your house and you will pick a hand. In one, a delicious Junior Mint. The other, I punch you in the face. Next run, it's two Junior Mints, but two punches in the face, and so on. I predict you will beat your addiction after three to four punches to the face.

That's all WoW is, in a nutshell. You put in a ton of effort for a minimal gain, and even when you reach your pinnacle, Blizzard adds some more "phat lootz." You grind and grind and grind and eventually you'll get some minimal reward and be happy for a little while, but then you'll be right back on it. It is the exact same addiction response as a slot machine player, except that with the slot machine, there is a jackpot, and when you hit that, you are pretty likely to stop playing that slot machine for at least a little while (you're not going to put your hundred thousand you just won and keep on spinning). With WoW however, they just tack on a new jackpot everytime you win. You spent months building up DKP to get yourself full tier 2 gear, and then they release tier 3 gear. Then you'll get that, and tier 4 will be out.

I've reached the end game three different times, and everytime I restarted, I thought it would somehow be different. I was wrong. 1-50 is almost fun. The rest of the game, especially 60, is simply not good for a person, socially, physically, mentally, whatever. I took a 6 month break, and came back. A two month break, came back. Finally, I can say I've had my fill and am done with World of Warcraft.

Time to send some characters off to eBay and make it official.

Oh by God she? is right, I am quitting WoW and Taking up drinking.If you were able to procreate a few decades ago granny , have your grandkids play in the Street, I will be weaving , I mean driving over soon.
What a waste of a college time and money for one of their professors wasting resources and gaining unwanted attention for such a stupid statement. Someone should fire that old bat.

Cant be bothered to read through the comments to see if anyone else has made these comments, but there are two very important things to remember about the article.

1. The 40% addicted figure is entirely made up, it is not based on any research at all. This means that Dr. Maressa Orzack is a totally unprofessional individual whos 'opinions' should be regarded with a great deal of suspicion. Statements like the above should only be made when supported by research.

and

2. Dr. Maressa Orzack is in the business of making money out of game addiction. His statements and 'research' can be regarded as nothing more than advertising for his business.

Individuals like Dr. Maressa Orzack bring the scientific comunity into disrepute.

I don't argue that gaming addiction doesn't exist, there are many cases of lifes being ruined by such addiction, but it is clear that this man is exagerating in order to drum up business for his clinic.

OFC if it turns out that his clinic is a free charity run one then I withdraw these comments, but somehow I doubt that this is the case.

or how about Warning: This game is very expensive. You can get a nice MMORPG for free at conqueronline.com and save yourself $50 plus $15 a month.

Seriously, why $15 a month? Xbox live is $5 a month (talking original Xbox, I donno about 360) and that supports loads of games. Why pay $15 a month for WoW when you can get something that's sort of the same for free?

Seriously, Conquer is free, no $50 and no $15 a month, just free. So I don't see why all these people play WoW. I play Conquer all the time and it keeps me entertained. Even if WoW is better, Conquer's still fun and entertaining, and it's free.

So in my opinion WoW is a waste of money.

I am a WoW addict. Even though I know I am and know its effects on my social and family life I continue to play. Why is this? I believe it is a mixture of reasons. 1. WoW is addictive, like everything a person enjoys and has the opportunity to continue doing. 2. In leaving WoW I would (as sad as it sounds) feel like I was missing out on something. Probably better items, new experiences, etc. 3. The options many WoW addicts have after leaving WoW are limited as they have played for so long, their friends have moved on, and no longer class themselve's as their friends.
However, these three reasons are my opinion and how I feel. I think other WoW 'addicts' may feel the same. Please share your opinions, I'd like to know them. ;)

Are you still reading this thread??? I sure hope not, i stopped at about the tenth comment ... but if you are reading my post ... you are addicted to world of warcraft hype. on that note ... i'm going back to myspace, i'm such a ladies man there!

I have been a WoW player for a while. I loved its reward system, gameplay, tactics in 5men instances, economy and even social interactions. Now once I hit 60 it became a whole new experience. Very thrilling at first. But hey, being part of a 100'men team that has to schedule for raiding times and all, that was too much. I had to quit in order to regain control of my life. Casual gaming can be seen as 'prefered way to spend free time'. An addiction, WoW in my case, will make you change your habits and way of living in order to furfil that urgent need to log on. Heck sometimes I would log on not even to chat, raid, or anything social, but only to get in touch with the character, in order to make it 'grow stronger' through skill testing and killing creatures to get new items. The addiction was really bad, to the point of making me skip rendez-vous, call sick for job and all. To what end? To add 10101011 on some server that I don't even know the location of?

Warning or not on the boxes wouldn't change anything though, as players do seek addictive games by nature. The more addictive the better in a way. As for the time you play that's the very purpose; to fully integrate the virtual world, being a fantasy world or a blockfalling realm of geometry. It's up to the person to lay down his limits. Family and friends are a big support on that. Now if a particular person will even reject them and refuse to limit himself, thats a case of problematic addiction. But those are isolated phenomena imo and experience.

I used to play, haven't for several months, and only played for two months that time, with another several months before it....

Yeah it is addicting, that is why you can't let yourself play too much of it.....