With ever growing numbers of people beginning to play online video games there has been an increasing trend in gamers becoming “addicted” to playing. Online games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest, are well known for having addictive properties. These games both fall under the category of MMORPG’s, massive multiplayer online role-playing games, and as such they do not have a fixed ending like most console based single player games, which are played offline. MMORPG’s are all carried out online and in many cases players are required to team up in the game and work together to achieve a common goal, which would be impossible for a single player, such as killing an extremely powerful boss or opening a door that requires numerous switches to be activated at the same time. I formerly played World of Warcraft and found the game to be very engrossing. I would not go so far as to say I was addicted, but I did spend large amounts of time playing on a regular, if not daily, basis.
In order for gaming to be considered an “addiction” the five main criteria are; salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse (Grusser et al. 2007). In a recent study 12% of gamers surveyed fulfilled three of these five criteria for addiction with regards to their gaming habits (Grusser et al. 2007). Gaming addictions are now thought to follow the same patterns as alcoholism and compulsive gambling, although simply spending large amounts of time playing video games does not necessarily mean that one is addicted (Chappell et al. 2006). While video games can take up large amounts of time, they have been proven to relieve stress and to provide players with an escape from their daily lives in a positive way.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I would expect that games that have many different levels or types of achievements would be the most addictive. This would lead to a release of dopamine every time something positive happened in the game, and it is through the release of dopamine that one becomes addicted.
Roseanne Dale
My younger brother plays video games on a daily basis for hours at a time. I've joked around that he is addicted to video games, not realizing how serious such an addiction is. To be compared to alcoholism is very serious. I know that video games do have benefits like learning how to accomplish goals through finishing levels on video games, but too much of a good thing can easily turn bad.
Post a Comment