W.H.O. made who?

_{[Image from a 1982 issue of The Philadelphia Inquirer found by Cat DeSipra]}

Another year, another round of headlin??es about the World Health Organization's take on gaming addiction disorder. I can't blame people for cont??inuing to spin their wheels on this topic. Your average person knows so little about addictions that have been around for centuries, like alcoholism and opiate dependence, that I can hardly expect them to feel confident in their u?nderstanding of a non-chemical addiction to a medium that has only been around for 60 years or so. 

If you are one of these people who doesn't know much about what game addiction is, this panel might help. Psychiatrist James Sherer, Social Worker Geoffrey Brewer, Journalist Susan Ardent, and myself put it together a few months ago, and the audience reaction was really positive. We got into which games are more likely to lead to patterns of play that are similar to gambling addition, the media's long history of treating gaming like a dangerous, ?deviant behavior, AAA gaming's concert??ed effort??s to make gaming more addictive, and the way games that make you like yourself more when you're playing them can be particularly tough to quit??, to name a few themes. 

James also runs a podcast called The Psychiatrist's Guide if you're interested in hearing more from them. They represent the first generation of behavioral health clinicians who were brought up with the idea that videogames were a normal, adult pastime. It's voices like theirs that will shape the conversation on what game addiction is i?n years to come. 

The post What’s the difference between gaming addiction, compulsion, and harmless fascination? appeared first on Destructoid.

Because why discuss anything with your children?

Did you know that it is impossible for children today to do things outside of video games? They can't leave the house, or go to the park, or hang out with their friends, or eat dinner with their families. They literally cannot do any of these things, because they are playing video games 24/7. Britain has even started closing all of its schools, because ch?ildren never show up for lessons any more.

Or at least, that's the long-given impression of kids and video games, a tired media stereotype that has been prodding at adults from as far back as when I was a child, and that was a long time ago, folks. Still, if you are wholly unable to restrict your child's time with Fortnite, or... The Snorks or whateve?r the kids are into these days, then the UK division of supermarket Aldi - ??which has nothing to do with the video game nor the parenting industry - has the answer.

"Teatime Takedown" is an upcoming promotion designed to get kids "back into the real world" and, best of all, it requires no responsibility to make it? happen. Simply hand over your child's Gamertag to the gro??cery outlet and, between March 22 and March 31, Aldi may send a "squad of professional gamers" to hunt them down in-game and take them out, ostensibly sending them to the dinner table, where you can discuss why you've failed them on a social and disciplinary level. I'm not sure if anyone's clued Aldi in to the concept of respawns. I won't deny that I appreciate Aldi's prices, and that those prices help a lot of struggling families, but this promotion seems to be ill-advised, reaching somewhat outside of their comfort zone of low-priced food and into parental/child psychology.

Regardless, if you'd prefer your local grocer encouraging your child's familial growth, rather than yourself, then?? you can register fo??r Teatime Takedown right here. Here's hoping that the teatime you spend together will afford you the opportunity to talk to your child about their hobbies, learn a little about why t?hey find video games so exciting a past-time, and perhaps implement your own fair rules about restricting their usage, like a parent.

Is gaming getting in the way of dinner time? [Official]

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Crackdown on 'Gaming Addiction'

Global media holdings group Tencent has announced a new campaign aimed at restrictin??g the youth of China's access to video games. The new measures are a part of China's current efforts to combat what it sees as "Gaming Addiction" which it believes is damaging the physical and mental heal??th of the nation's children.

The first game to feel the impact of the new rulings will be popular MOBA Honour of Kings which, from September 15, will require a real-name registration service which will then be cross-checked against police regist??ration files in order to ascertain the age of the player, and limit their playtime accordingly.

For Tencent, it is hoped that these new measure will be seen by th??e government as an active stance against "Gaming Addiction", whilst helping Tencent bolster their market value. The online giant has suffered a huge value slump in the region of $197 billion since January, which is believed to be due in part to the country's new, tougher stance on video gaming.

Of course, it was also recently announced that Tencent was entering into a global partnership with legendary developer/publisher Square Enix, which could perhaps be seen as a move ?to increase the com??pany's profitability outside of China.

Tencent to apply tougher restricti??ons to video gaming's youth [Reuters]

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The first taste is free

I'm not entirely sure how these things happen, but every now and again I'll find myself looking for a more familiar game to pick up. Sometimes it's as simple as a few matches of Overwatch, other times a few rounds of Street Fighter, but on occasion I find myself su?cked back into a time-consuming MMO rabbit hole.

It isn't always World of Warcraft. I've spent time playing other MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV, but WoW and I have the most history and when I need some familiarity back in my gaming I find it hard to resist the?? siren's son?g. 

This time, in particular, I find myself running a Draenei Paladin from scratch. I couldn't tell you how I managed to download the game and resubscribe without talking myself out of it, but here we are. I've checked in with each of my old characters and even tackled some ne?w content with my Goblin rogue?. 

World of Warcraft is?? a great ??game. It's also a sickness I need to purge from my body. Send help!

I enjoy mulling around Azeroth as much as the next guy, but it's alarming how quickly you can lose track of yourself when playing games with simple loops like this. I've lost e?ntire days to running dungeons before and I'm doing my best to avoid it this time around.

For now, I'll probably run my new Draenei Paladin when I need to unwind, but I honestly doubt I'll stick with my return to World of Warcraft for very long. As I'm writing this Monster Hunter World has launched and a whole lot more i??s on the horizon. 

With more games to play, I'm sure I'll be canceling my subscription very soon, however, in the meantime I'd love to hear what games you simply can't quit, whether it's resubbing to a subscription-based game or if it's the seventh copy of Resident Evil 4 you've purcha??sed. Share your gaming addiction in the comments. 

The post Send help, I’m playing WoW again appeared first on Destructoid.

Work(?) hard, Play harder

A paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research proposes that video games are the reason why men ages 21-30 are working fewer hours than the previous generation. The paper also suggests that the improving technology and quality of video games since 2004 have had a hand in capturing the leisure time of young men. (You can read the latest non-final draft here.)

An article by the New York Times on the paper cites a government time use survey asks how people spend their time, which indicates an increase of young men's gaming time in the ??period of 2004-2007 compared to 2012-2015 from 2 percent to 3.4 percent. The analysis excludes full-time students.

According to a speech made last year by one of the authors of the paper, Erik Hurst, young men are choosing to work less and play more, if work at all. This speech was based on the preliminary findings for the paper in question and Hurst also brings ?up an anecdote about his young teenage son who wouldn't eat or shower if they didn't ration his gaming time.

Hurst's speech also mentions the trend of working less or even choosing to not work is more prevalent in men that have less than a bachelor's degree. Hurst even goes into the good old "basement dweller" standby, which totally doesn't apply to me ??because my house doesn't even have a basement.

I'm sure not everyone is agreeing with these claims, with many other factors in today's world such as the economy, employability, hiring practices, and other shifts in industries. It has also been pointed out that this isn't happening in Japan, where most people play do video games, but is happening in South Korea.

Now this all sounds like the "millennials are doing this and that" thing that happens to grab headlines lately, but the statistics do say a little bit of something about how young men spend most of their time these days (besides killing Applebee's). Video games do provide more valu?e in hours of entertainment by the dollar compared to films and TV shows.

Attitudes about video gaming have definitely changed now, with the rapidly growing audience (just look at all those millions of Minecraft vide??os on YouTube) and industry landscape ?drastically changing so much in the last half decade alone with the rise of eSports and social game streaming.

So what do you think? Are you playing more ??and working less?

Why Some Men Don't Work: V?ideo Games Have Gotten Really Good [New York Times]

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Never log off

I am a longtime proponent of having fun posting online with friends, but new research led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that posting online may help mitigate the depression-like symptoms typically seen in teens who game for mor??e than four hours a day (you kno?w who you are).

Just tell your p??arents: "while heavy gaming, particularly in boys, can be viewed as a warning signal for parents, not everyone who plays many hours a day is at risk for developing problems related to gaming." If you also have a vibrant social life -- including online, perhaps as a frequent poster here on Destructoid dot com -- it "may mitigate symptoms of game addiction."

The data comes from 2009-2012 school surveys of nearly 10,000 Dutch teens,? but study leader Michelle Colder Carras, PhD and com??pany believe the results would be similar in the US and other developed nations.

"While playing video games for four hours a day can be worrisome behavior, not everyone who doe??s so is at risk of developing symptoms of addiction or depression," Carras said. "If these adolescents are sitting around playing games together with their friends or chatting regularly with their friends online as they play, this could be part of a perfectly normal developmental pattern. We ??shouldn't assume all of them have a problem."

You hear??d i?t, folks. Either find some real-world friends or just never stop posting.

In Te??ens, Strong Friendships May Mitigate Depression Associated with Excessive Video Gaming [Newswise]

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In science news, did you know that if you play Call of Duty for four days straight without drinking, you're ten times more likely to be hospitalized?? with dehydration? A teenager in Columbus, Ohio found that out just this week!

The 15-year-old boy collapsed after the four-day gaming binge, and had to be taken t?o hospital after getting himself severely dehydrated. His mother reported that the teen only briefly emerged from his room during the session in order to obtain the occasional snack or use the bathroom.?? 

Dr. Mike Patrick has issued some helpful advice to kids around the world -- don't do this shit. He put it a bit more eloquently than that, but it was more or less the gist of things. If you don't want videogames to kill you, don't do this shit. 

The mother, for her part, has confiscated the Xbox. A sound idea in theory, but now the ki?d'll probably just go back to wanking for days on end.

Ohio teen collapses after 4-day Xbox marathon [Chron, thanks Junebug!]

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I spend a lot of time sitting down, as typing would probably be a bit uncomfortable if I was standing up. Sometimes, just to mix?? things up, I cross my legs. I'm a maverick. I never once thought that I was putting my big ol' hairy feet in danger. I was wrong.

Roxanne Myers was studying gaming addiction for her senior thesis. She went on a two day gaming binge for research (that's what I call it too) but she ended up falling asleep with her legs still crossed. This caused her to lose circulation in her feet. She also had an undiagnosed blood clotting disease. Due to this she unfortunately lost her feet. Here's some pictures of the damage, probably NSFW. Apparently her injuries were the "aftermath of video game addiction," rather than the aftermath of falling asleep with your legs cro??ssed when you have a blood disease.

So remember, if you're going on a two day gaming binge, don't skimp on the energy drinks. Get the expensive stuff, you know, ?the ones made from bull tes??ticles.

The post The importance of sitting properly while gaming appeared first on Destructoid.

Ladies and gentelmen as the Royal wedding is upon us here in t??he glorious Untied Kingdom w??e decided this was the perfect time to further celebrate our Britishness by bringing you episode 9 of BritToid: Destructoids British gaming focused podcast.

We start with games of the week where Germany has another delightful indie rant while Seto tells us he can't play half-life because it makes him vomit. Chris browns penis makes another 'appearance' and Seto explains why he bought a 3DS and A DSi XL despite having a DSlite and Jim isn't the only Dynasty Warriors fan on staff. 

The news this episode looks at the console launches and how GAME staff were being told to purchase brand new consoles to sell them as second-hand and how Apple own our souls. GAME also de?ci?de to launch a gaming expo this year -- not to everyones excitement and we give a salute and farewell to the now deceased gaming website UK Resistance who brought us the Blue Skies in Gaming campaign. 

BritToid is available on iTunes and via direct download. You can also follow us on twitter! 

The post BritToid Ep 9: Keep calm and have UK resistance appeared first on Destructoid.

Readers with a memory for bullshit might recall Steve Pope, a former drug addict and psychologist who said that two hours of gaming was comparable to doing a line of cocaine. Now he's back, claiming once aga?in that your "Game Station" is like coke and that it will destroy your children.

"Spending two hours on a game?? station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces in the brain," said in a Pope BBC Radio 5Live interview. "It's the silent ki??ller of our generation."

He said that ... he called gaming the silent killer. I just ... I have no words.

"We're now onto second generation game station players who have always grown up with it," he added. "Computer game addiction can also spiral into violence -- as after playing violent games, they may turn their fantasy games into reality. It is the fastest growing addiction in the country and this is affecting young people mentally ??and physically"

I think the truly dismaying thing is how the anti-game "experts" are always allowed to say what they say without ever being required to bring evidence. Pope himself has said in the past that he has no statistics for his claims, and yet he's considered an authority on the social dangers of gaming. He doesn't even know what the game consoles are called.

Yet no radio station? will let me talk about my solid researc?h that shows Jeff Dunham causes ball cancer. Where's the justice?

Two hours gaming = a line of cocaine [MCV]

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A fifteen-year-old Korean boy murdered ??his mothe?r, then killed himself, following a dispute over Internet games.

The mother scolded the boy after playing too many games this past Monday night. The fight escalated, with the son strangling his mother to death. He th?en hanged himself. Apparently, the boy's younge??r sister says he's been playing "violent" games for around three years. 

This isn't the first Korean death in which Internet gaming was implicated. Around 90% of Korean homes are online?, and two million c??itizens are estimated to be addicts. At least the streets are safe. 

SKorean police: Gamer, 15, kills himself, mother [Associated Writers Of Functional Headlines]

The post Korean Internet gamer kills mother, then himself appeared first on Destructoid.

An absurd little article has been spewed up by the Lancashire Evening Post, where two?? hours of videogame playing has been directly compared to doing a line of cocaine. The story claims that a young boy was "tormented" by his crippling game addiction and that children around the world are being destroyed by evil videogames. Another day, another "journalist" trying to terrify his readers.

"Young addicts are skipping meals, playing truant from school and are even stealing money from their parents to buy the latest games," claims the report, doing its utmost to make games sound like drugs. "Alarming figures reveal three out of five under 16-years-old plays video games to such an extent that it is a cause for concern for health care profes??sionals."

It's therapist Steve Pope's com?ments, however, that manage to be the most stupid and irresponsible: "Spending two hours on a game station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces."

Games, they are exactly like cocaine. Amazing.

The cloying, scaremongering joke of an article really is worth reading for a laugh. It's not even worth getting upset over, because the one-sided and deliberately alarmist tone of the article is almost to the point of ??self p??arody. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to shove an ecstasy pill up my arse BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT GAMES ARE LIKE ACTUALLY!

Game addiction grips youngsters [crappy paper]

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A man and a woman have been arrested for letting their infant daughter starve to death while they raised a virtual child in the online game PRIUS. The Korean?? couple, known only as the Kims, returned home after a 12-hour? gaming session at a "PC Bang" Internet parlor to find their baby dead. Tests confirmed the child had died of malnutrition. 

The father, 41 and mother, 25, met online and in 2008 and had a baby together. However, they regularly mistreated the three-month-old, admitting to police that they fed her rotten, powdered milk and spanked her when she was crying. Remember, the kid was three months old. All the while, they were working on being good parents to a digital daughter in PRIUS. Simply amazing.

Really don't know what else to say to that. Perhaps one of the more grotesq??ue stories I've heard concerning parent neglect. It's terrifying to think that simply any??body is allowed to have a child, no matter how f*cked up they are.

Game Addicts Arrested For Staring Baby To Death [ABC]

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One of the long-standing organizations fighting the good fight for righteousness, decency and protecting our children from those evil videogames has fallen. The National Institute for Media and the Family (NIMF), whose annual report card has been pushing the games industry towards stricter self-regulation for over a decade, has announced that they will be closing their doors on December 31st, 2009. A lack of donations due to the curr?ent economy was cited as the reason.

There will be no 2009 MediaWise Video Game Report Card. Kind of a pity, really, as the group was finally starting to warm up to the games industry. The ESRB was rated very highly, getting an "A" in each of its two categories. Even retailers were getting a thumbs up for bringing incidents of children succes??sfully purchasing M-Rated titles down to 20%. And it seemed like the group was finally digging that hip, new theory that maybe parents ought to pay a little friggin' attention to what their little monsters are up to instead of blaming other people for their socially stunted, violent and/or undereducated children.

So, I'll put it on the Destructoid readership. If you were going to assign letter grades to the industry this year, what would your categories be and how would ??they score? Don't limit yourselves to questions of prot??ecting children, either. Much as I may regret it, I'm interested to hear how you think this year has gone.

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Where there is a trendy new affliction, there is an expert with the answer. Thus it is that Britain is now host to its very first "game addiction" clinic in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

Broadway Lodge treats about four hundred patients every year for drug abuse, alcoholism and gambling problems,? but has recently extended its reach to videogames, adopting the Minnesota Method Twelve-Step program to ween youngs??ters off those crazy videogames.

"... I would stick my neck out and say between five and ten per cent of parents or partners would say they know of someone addicted to an online game," says chief executive Brian Dudley. "However, you can't simply say to a 23-year-old male 'you should never use the Internet again'. It's just not practical. So we go through all the issues surro??unding gaming use and ensure there are triggers through which an addict recognizes their usage has become a problem.

''Behavioural shifts include users becoming agressive, with chaotic lifestyles that result in irregular eating and sleeping patterns as well as social exclusion. I don't know anybody else who is treating such cases in ?this country. There's no helpline.''

If you live in Britain and can't stop playing Evony Online, then ??you ca??n breathe a sigh of relief because help has finally arrived. Thank Christ.

[Thanks, Pew]

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Where there are World of Warcraft players, there are people with dollar signs in their eyes lining up to take advantage. Cue Washington State's ReSTART clinic, a rehab center that aims to help WoW players be??at their addiction and break the hold that Blizzard has over them. The best part is that it on?ly costs $14,000!

"We've been doing this for years on an outpatient basis," aptly-named ReSTART director Hilarie Cash tells the AP. "Up until now, we had no place to send them."

I love how so-called experts try their best to take money from WoW players. ?I guess they feel that if someone's prepared to pay a monthly subscription for a computer game, they're gullible enough to pay for anything. If this venture ??has been going on for years, perhaps the con-merchants behind this scheme are actually right.

The post Kick your World of Warcr?aft habit for just $14,000! appeared first on Destructoid.

British tabloid and glorified comic book The Daily Mail loves to attack videogames, probably because Grand Theft Auto IV has more journalistic integrity than the average Mail writer. The latest in its long line of attempts to make Britain fear technology is a doozy, with The Fail claimi?ng that Britain's youth has become a race of "screenagers" -- videogame and TV addicts that pour ten hou?rs of their daily life into electronic entertainment.

"Youngsters have turned into 'screenagers' who spend nearly ten hours a day glued to TVs, computers, phones and videogames," states The Fail, which I refuse to li?nk on principle. "Much of the time they are texting, playing games consoles, surfing the Internet, scrolling through their iPods or stari??ng at screens during school lessons."

I often wonder what makes a so-called "real" journalist write these things. I've read and watched roughly eight billion reports on how teenagers are TV/game addicts over the past ten years, none of them saying anything of value or substance. I'm guessing this time around, some bright-eyed journalist came up with the term "screenager" in the shower one morning, then pulled a story out of his arse just for an excuse to use it.

Either that, o?r the stupid hack's just been listening to too much? Muse.

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MMO addiction is a hot topic these days, and there are plenty of "experts" out there who want to "help." British Psychiatrist Dr. Richard Graham is among these brave few heroes, and he's so concerned about the wellbeing of so-called game addicts that he wants to provide therapy within the game itself.

"We will be launching this project by the end of the year. I think it’s already clear that psychiatrists will have to stay within the parameters of the game," explains Dr. Graham. "They certainly wouldn’t be wandering around the game in white coats and would have to use the same characters available to other players. Of course one problem we’re going to have to overcome is that while a psychiatrist may excel in what they do in the real world, they’re probably not going to be very good at playing World of Warcraft.

"We may have to work ??at that if we are going to get through to those wh?o play this game for hours at end."

Graham has already contacted Blizzard, asking them to let him play World of Warcraft for free. I'm sure that, since it's totally in the name of science and selfless dedication to mental wellbeing, nobody will dare accuse this man of simply trying to score a free WoW account like a dirty cheapskate.

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Did you know that China has been introducing game-loving children to the wacky world of electric shock therapy? That's right -- parents have been willingly signing their children up for a course of jolts in order to stop them playing online videogames and surfing the 'net. Fortunately, the news today is that Chinese officials have officialy ordered it to stop ... but why was it happening in the first place?

"More than 3,000 young peopl??e were tricked or forced into the four-month long course," reports China Daily. "To enroll their children, parents or guardians had to sign a contract acknowledging that they would be given electric shocks of up to 200 milliamperes. The treatment cost 6,000 yuan ($878) per monthv...

"Shocks were given if patients broke any of the center’s 86 rules, which included prohibitions on eating chocolate, locking the bath??room door, taking pills before a meal, and sitting in Dr. Yang's chair wit??hout permission. Details of the treatment first became public when former patients wrote about their experiences online."

In an almost cult-lik?e move, the children were considered "r??eborn" when they finally admitted their addiction.

That is just ... wow. Rarely am I at a loss for words, but that's absolutely screwed up. I'm glad ?it's been stopped, but that kind of thing really, really shouldn't be happening these days. Frankly, any parent willing to sign their kid up to something so cruel should be had up on charges o?f child abuse.

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Bitching about MTV is pretty much something everyone loves to do except for tween girls, but to be honest ever since Singled Out there's been a show on there that I'd watch, and now that there are practically no music videos the 24-hour reality television network has some decent stuff on there. True Life is one of those series. T??h??ough melodramatic and staged for dramatic effect more often than not it does do a good job of presenting real life issues that confront its viewing audience.

Next up will be videogame addiction (along with dating cougars, dating outside your social circle and issues with digital bullying). MTV is looking for people that look like they are between the ages of 17 and 29 and answer yes to the following questions: "Have video games totally taken over your life? Is your game play increasingly getting out of control? Have your friends or family confronted you about your gaming habit? How about your marriage or personal relationships -- are they being affected? Is it difficult to balance work and gaming time? Do you sometimes skip doing homework or house??hold responsibilities to play? Have you played video games as a way of escaping your problems? Has your game playing habit become so encompassing that you may need to go to rehab to kick it?"

So who wants to get on MTV and do the entire thing in a Dtoid helmet and t-shirt? ??I'm sure Niero would len?d it to you.

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Yesterday there was a bit of a stir over Dr. Tanya Byron's new TV show Am I Normal? in which videogame "addiction" was compared to heroin abuse, and WoW w??as written off as "childish fantasy." I didn't want to comment too much, but I felt some of the quotes laid it on a bit thick ?for a woman who'd just become seen as a games industry ally.

Interestingly, it turns out that the show was actually recorded last year, before Byron published her report and before, one could assume??, she had fully researched the issue. Indeed, the Byron report goes some way to dispelling the myth of game addiction -- perhaps this show would have been different if Byron had worked on the report before it was made.

With the tone of the TV show and the Byron report being considered quite different, it might be a case, as some suggest, of B??yron learning more about videogames over the past year and changing her a?ttitudes, which is a good thing indeed. More people need to do that. 

I am very glad that Dr. Brown's attitudes haven't changed fr??om positive to negative so soon. Hopefully she will continue to help bring ??sense to the games debate.

The post Gentlemen, res?ume Byron love! Game deriding sh?ow recorded last year appeared first on Destructoid.

I love the smell of years of experiential evidence finally gaining validity in the morning! Today, two researchers from Middlesex University are presenting the findings of a study involving 292 World of Warcraft players, ranging in age from 12 to 83, at the British Psychological Society&rsqu??o;s Annual Conference. Just what did ??they seek to determine with their study? Whether or not violence in games has a positive or negative effect on players.

Turns out that what gamers have been saying for years is actually true, and that playing a violent game not only doesn't turn you into a rampaging sociopath, but has a demonstrably relaxing effect on players. Granted, the test was run with World of Warcraft, so whether the test subjects were relaxed from having spent two hours gaming or simply from having gotten a fix of that sweet, sweet WoW golden brown isn't clear.

Sadly, while the results of the study are a brief public triumph for gamers, a comment by one of the researchers is cause for ?a bit of eyebrow raising. 

“This will help us to develop a emotion and gaming questionnaire to help distinguish the ?type ??of gamer who is likely to transfer their online aggression into everyday life.”

I'm definitely all for removing the psyche-shattered nutters that can't distinguish?? the diff?erence between fictional violence and real violence from the general population, but the creation of a profile to single out individuals like this, while a really swell idea in theory, is a horrifying thought.  The range of personalities that play games, especially violent ones, is incredibly broad, and it's unlikely that with our current technologies a reasonable profile to weed out psychotic morons could even be approached.

[Via MCV -- Thanks, Adam] 

The post Chicken Soup for the homicida???l soul: Gaming is good for you appeared first on Destructoid.

Doctors are big on relying on their pedigrees to weigh their opinions as somehow more significant than those of the general public, but there are occasions in which their thoughts can hold some merit, no matter how depressing that merit may be. In this case, Dr. Jerald Block, a Portland psychiatrist, raises the issue in a recent editorial in this month's issue of T??he American Journal of Psychiatry, in which he says he feels online addictions such as gaming, the internet and MySpace should be treated seriously by the psychatric community.

From the source:

"Like other addicts, users experience cravings, urges, withdrawal and tolerance, requiring more and better equipment and software, or more and more hours online... people can lose all track of ti?me or neglect "basic drives," like eating or sleeping. Relapse rates are high and some people may need psychoactive medications or hospitalization."

Now, allow me to clarify that by feeling some agreement towards Dr. Block's statement, I am not in any way suggesting I agree that gaming as a whole should be instantly regarded as a direct source of mental illness. However, as recently evidenced by some disturbing footage floating around the net, some doctors feel that online and gaming addiction are? a very real problem, and should be treated with as much care?? as a drug or food addiction would be.

Dr. Block hopes to see online addiction added into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which will be published in 2012. Surely after the recent tragedies in parts of Asia where kids died after spending obsessive amounts of time online, it's sure that people are keeping a close eye on the trend. Of course, people who prefer to blame games rather than ?the mental illness t?hat was likely alive and well before the games were even discovered by the users are likely to trumpet about the topic, which is why this is always a problematic discussion no matter what the source.

[Via Canada.com - thanks, Jonathan]

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A short while ago, I reported that gaming addiction could well be classified as a mental disorder if certain misguided folks had their way. Today however, Reuters relays that not only is ?the American Psychiatric Association sensibly calling for more research to be don??e before labels are handed out, experts in the field of addiction flat-out oppose the idea.

Dr. Stuart Gitlow from New York's American Society of Addiction Medicine and Mount Sinai School of Medicine remains highly skeptical of the theory that gaming ad??diction is damaging enough to warrant psychiatric tagging. "There is nothin??g here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn't get to have the word addiction attached to it," Gitlow quite adamantly stated. 

As I said before, while there's no harm in exploring the idea, it will do little to ultimately tackle the root cause of any mental issue, that is, what's within someone's mind to make them addicted to games. Isolating games as something more than ??a variable catalyst seems like a bit of time wasting in the ?wrong direction to me. But then, I'm no expert. I'm just pleased that the AMA is motivated by actual research, rather than sensationalistic political hot potatoes.

[Via Slashdot] 

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Usually when a reviewer calls a game addictive, that's a compliment, but to some psychologists, addictive games are a crippling menace, on par with drugs and alcohol. In a new report, presented to the world via Game Life, the Ame???rican Medical Association is being pressed to officially recognize videogame addiction as an actual disorder. 

The report, which bears the oh-so concise title of "Report Of The Council On Science And Public Health: Emotional and Behavioral Effects, Including Addictive Potential, of Video Games" not only pushes for gaming addiction to be an official term, but also wishes for the definition of 'gamer' to have a legitimate medical meaning. How awesome is that, for us all to be medically recognised by real life doctors? There is also a call for the AMA to provide family support on the 'appropriate' use of videogames (don't stick the disc??s up your ass??) and the recommended daily amount that a person should spend with their beloved consoles and PCs (1 to 2 hours apparently ... yeah, right).

So far, the reactions I've seen have been skeptical at best, but there's no denying that for the mentally incapable, certain games, especially MMORPGs, can have a damaging effect. We all remember the guy who became obsessed with Everquest, leading him to make the logical jump from becoming 'an hero' to 'an twit with rifle in an face'. Could mental help aimed at one's videogame addiction help people like that? Possibly, but you'd already have to be pretty messed up to let something like gaming affect you that badly and in that case, you should be getting mental help regardless of whether you're a? gamer or n??ot. 

Essentially, while it certainly wouldn't hurt anybody, I'm doubtful that there's anything to be gained from labeling game addiction as a medical disorder. People who require psychological help don't need it because they're addicted to videogames, they need it because they're already damaged enough to seek refuge in games in the first place. I'd be surprised if gaming was ever the root cause for mental or emotional problems and existed as more than a catalyst ?or sol?ace for what was already there. Pretty much like most other addictions, then.

[Picked up via Techdirt]

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Via IGN's "Ultimate Setup" series, Nate Polston has revealed to the world his 900+ game collection, and 30+ console collection. Aww Dark Wizard and Sonic CD... You remind me of a time when life was easier and games were harder. The collector claims Panzer Dragoon Saga is the pride of his collection. Nate is 23 years old and lives in Arkansas (probably with this guy).

I make fun, but only because on the inside I'm wishing I had all this guy's stuff. I wouldn't even do anything with it, I'd just like to have it in my basement, locked away like some sort of horrible secret that the kid across the street knows about but no one will believe him because "Timmy, I already told you monsters don't exist! You're just acting out because y??our father died." But Timmy isn't going to listen, is he?

[Thanks to Cody Skidmore for the tip. I don't have a joke for this one, the kid's name is "Skidmore", hasn't he been through enough?]

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