190°

Video gaming joins smoking, gambling on list of common addictions

Australia's Okan Kaya likes Call of Duty: Black Ops II. In November he played the blockbuster video game for a world-record 122 hours.
"I'm a massive fan," he said. "I've been playing the series since the World War days and absolutely love it."
Circumstantial evidence suggests gaming can be as addictive as gambling. In July a Diablo III fan in Taiwan collapsed and died after a 40-hour session at an internet cafe.
Australian National University psychologist Olivia Metcalf has found concrete evidence that gaming is indeed addictive.

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timeslive.co.za
USEYOURFIST4127d ago (Edited 4127d ago )

I would argue that this is far from "concrete evidence". its strongly argued the media have created the concept of videogame addiction through a moral panic, creating a panic in society by over exaggerating the problems caused by gaming, in addition to comparing it to more serious problems such as gambling addition without much rational reason for doing so. Why dont any of the major world health organiztions recognise video game addiction as a clinical condition? overplaying is not addiction! it comparable to over reading not over smoking.

zerocrossing4127d ago

In all my 20+ years of gaming I have never been unable to tear myself away from a game.

Some peopled are more susceptible to becoming addicted though, but over gaming is more a form of extreme escapism rather than addiction, IMO of course.

Lord_Sloth4126d ago

Exactly. These rare and isolated incidents are nothing more than a serious lack of self control. I haven't even played a game in a month at current. If this were an addiction, wouldn't I be yelling at people for no reason like smokers?

jrbeerman114126d ago

in that vein than watching television should be added to that list. more people are glued watching honey boo boo, and singing shows than video games.

Canary4127d ago

I think you're overreacting.

Gaming /IS/ a common addiction.

That doesn't mean it's dangerous, let alone life-threatening.

You know what else are common addictions?

Coffee.
Chocolate.
Sex.
Masturbation.
Biting your nails.

It's not a big deal.

ajax174127d ago (Edited 4127d ago )

Well, it can be life-threatening... Mainly to those who play StarCraft... Remember that South Korean guy who died after playing for 50 hours straight! Now that is an addiction!

rainslacker4127d ago

I'd stop gaming and smoking...but my mom taught me to never be a quitter.

USEYOURFIST4126d ago

you missed the point. From a clinical standpoint the phrase 'gaming is a common addiction' is factually incorrect, untill more research leads to a reclassification, which i dont see happening.

I may have come off as OTT lol its just ive been studying gamings effects on kids and found the medias representation of gaming is usually as a negative hobby that through their 'gaming addiction' makes kids violent and shoot classmates. This view bugs me as its basically not true and i could, have, write an essay about it lol.

Coffee and chocolate are are chemical addictions like drugs.

Im not sure if sex and masturbation are clinicaly recognised addictions, hypersexual disorder maybe but again not clinically recognised as an addiction disorder.

Sorry im going off on one again lol just defending gaming! (sh*t, maybe im wrong and actually am addictied lol), look i agree with most of your points but the word addiction is used wrongly quite commonly in these cases which leads to gaming being related with 'bad' things such as drugs.

Bimkoblerutso4126d ago (Edited 4126d ago )

It might be more accurate to label them a "compulsion" to some people. "Addiction" suggests a degree of physical dependence. If you quit gaming, you're not going to go into withdrawals.

When you start getting into mental dependence, it becomes a matter of mental disorder. A human can technically exhibit mental dependency on literally anything, so it seems silly to me for all these "scientists" to automatically target specific sources when they can't just throw it under the physical dependency category.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 4126d ago
shutUpAndTakeMyMoney4127d ago

They should have seen xbox in 2005! It would be considered a smoker.

Nykamari4126d ago

Lol! That's too funny! I choked on my chronic smoke when I read your comment!

2pacalypsenow4127d ago

Except Smoking and Gambling can ruin your life gaming not so much

dark-hollow4127d ago

It can. If you spent too much time on it you can abandon work/school/uni for it.

I know several people who lost their jobs due to their addiction to gaming.

swice4126d ago

You need to slap them. Hard.

EddieNX 4127d ago

I agree with this. I am OCD when it comes to gaming. Although I actually love and appreciate the art that I choose to buy As I do film or music.

I do seem to spend a LOT of money on gaming. And I have a terrible addiction.

I'm addicted to buying sealed games and slowly unsealing them and then smelling their factory fresh innards.

God have mercy on my soul...

BrianC62344127d ago

To help get off your addiction in 2013 all games you buy must be digital downloads. :)

EddieNX 4127d ago

DON'T SAY THAT!!!!!!!!!! DIGITAL DEVIL!!!!!!

I will buy my retail games from the store for a long as possible. A- I like to colllect. B- I like to sell what I don't want to collect.

Digital doesn't offer such flexability.

Indie games and smaller games all day long though:)

Show all comments (41)
70°

Razer Kishi Ultra Review - Full Size Fun

The friendly folks over at Razer recently sent us their full size Kishi Ultra mobile gaming controller, and this thing didn't disappoint.

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terminalgamer.com
120°

Ranking the Devil May Cry Series

VGChartz's Mark Nielsen: "Upon finally finishing Devil May Cry 5 recently - after it spent several years on my “I’ll play that soon” list - I considered giving it a fittingly-named Late Look article. However, considering that this was indeed the final piece I was missing in the DMC puzzle, I decided to instead take this opportunity to take a look back at the entirety of this genre-defining series and rank the entries. What also made this a particularly tempting notion was that while most high-profile series have developed fairly evenly over time, with a few bumps on the road, the history of Devil May Cry has, at least in my eyes, been an absolute roller coaster, with everything from total disasters to action game gold."

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vgchartz.com
VersusDMC2h ago

First to last for me...3,4,5,1,2.

VersusDMC33m ago

Me leaving it out should be telling of my thoughts on it. Better than 2 as a DMC game.

Still a good game though.

Friendlygamer1h ago

3,1,4,5 to me, never played 2. 5 gameplay is amazing but level design was really disappointing to me, just a bunch of plain arenas, the story felt like a worse written rehash of the 3rd and the charater models looked weird ( specially the ladies ). Another problem with 5 was that there was not enough content for 3 charaters so I could never really familiarize with any of them

monkey60256m ago(Edited 55m ago)

2.
Dmc.
4.
5.
1.
3.

God DMC2 was an awful game.
And in case this isn't obvious it goes worst to best

80°

The Epic Games Store Has Two Free Games This Week

The Epic Games Store continues to dish out free games and you can add two more to your library this week.

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terminalgamer.com