Video Game Addiction

Well those of you who have been reading my blog for a few months know all about my small business Rj Systems.  What many of you don't know is that I also participate with a local Kansas City lan party group called Extreme Lan KC (ELKC).  My main job for ELKC is as the official ELKC dj (I used to be a rave/nightclub dj and now just do it for fun) and I also help with lan party sponsorships.  A couple months ago I was on the hunt for a new venue to host our monthly lan party's at when I stumbled across a little place in North Kansas City that I thought might work.  I contacted the owner and after a long phone conversation that lasted about an hour I learned a few things about gaming that I had never heard of before. 

Before I get into the conversation I had with the owner of the venue I should also point out that just over a year ago I built a new gaming rig for a customer of mine.  The customer told me that he wanted a high end gaming rig that would play all the best games of the time on full settings.  He spent over $3000 on this new gaming rig that I decked out with all the trimmings for him.  In May of 2007 there wasn't a game out there that wouldn't run in this rig.  However, it wasn't until after I delivered it to him that I learned that he really only wanted it for one single game, World of Warcraft (WOW). 

I play video games.  My current favorites are Call of Duty 4 (COD4, Battlefield 2 (BF2), Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) and a little Battlefield 2142 (BF2142), Half Life 2 and Alien Arena.  Just in case you are not a gamer and you don't know, all the games I play are first person shooters.  What that means is, in the game, every thing appears in first person mode, looking down the barrel of my weapon. 

I spend about 2 hours a week playing video games (right now some avid gamers are looking at this in disbelief) because honestly that is all I can stand.  But my kids, my kids can spend their entire day playing video games.  They have gaming pc's, and an XBox 360 with Halo 3.  My eldest kid in particular can play all day and into the night and not get tired of it.  In fact, this last weekend was beautiful in Kansas City.  It was our first real good weekend weather wise this year.  The sun was out, temperatures were in the lower 70's, it was just awesome.  But what did my eldest son do all weekend?  He played COD4.  But he does that.  When he gets a hold of a new game, he will play it and play it and play it and play it.  This can go on for two or three months, and then one day he will just stop.  This happened recently with him and BF2.  He kept playing it and was getting his online ranking really far up and then one day he just stopped.  I asked him why he stopped and he told me that he was getting tired of it.  He then started reading a book and doing other things.  You see, that's what he does.  He will play and play a game until he either beats it, or gets tired of it.  When that happens he finds other things to keep him entertained. 

People who know us and know my son try to tell me that he is addicted to video games.  When I try to tell them he isn't, they don't believe me.  But I know my son better then they do.  I have seen this before.  My son is like me.  He loves technology and he loves entertainment.  Like I said before, he will play a new video game like COD4 or BF2 for two or three months straight and then one day just stop.  And during those two or three months he will still get straight A's on his report card.   

Now let's go back to the guy I built the gaming rig for.  Like I said he purchased that rig for World of Warcraft.  He told me he wanted to play all the latest games with it on high settings (keep in mind in in May of 07, Crysis and UT3 were not released yet).  Sometimes he will call me with a problem that he can't figure out, and most recently it was so he could learn how to "Hot Box" (I think that was what he said) World of Warcraft.  I asked him what that meant and he told me it was a way for him to play two characters on one computer.  This same guy has been up late at night playing WOW and has been late to work numerous times because of it.  When we talk he is always on a "raid" in WOW and usually can't speak to me. 

Another guy I know is the Computer Lab Teacher at my kids school.  Last summer both my boys and I volunteered to go into the school and help him get the lab and school network ready for the upcoming school year.  We called him numerous times over the summer,  but we didn't actually hear from him until about 3 days before the start of school.  We arranged to meet him at the school at 8am only two days before school was supposed to start.  We got the the school that morning and he wasn't there.  I called him and he didn't answer the phone.  We waited, and we waited, and eventually he showed up.  His excuse for being late, he was up all night playing WOW. 

Going back to the guy who owns the venue where we were thinking about having a lan party, he told me a story about gaming.  You see the venue we wanted to have the lan party at is sort of a lan center for big business.  It has meeting spaces fully networked.  It has large LCD TV's/Monitors for video conferencing, and is hooked up to North Kansas City's fiber optic network where they get REALLY fast internet speeds.  I asked him how he came about starting a business like that and he told me it was originally supposed to be a gaming lan center.  He saw a market for gaming lan centers when his son was still a teenager and thought he should open a place where kids and young adults could get together to do some gaming.  Well that idea eventually died and was replaced with the idea for his business lan center (which I must say seems to be doing really really well). 

He then went on to ask me about gaming, what kinds of games ELKC plays, and how long I have been doing it.  After giving him some basic information he began to tell me more about his son.  His son from what I gather is still in his early 20's and loves to play WOW. However his son doesn't just play WOW, he lives it.  From what this man said, his son will spend any and all free time he has playing the game, and he hasn't just been doing this for a few months, but for a few years.  His son's playing of WOW, according to the venue owner has caused his son to drop out of college twice, and loose several jobs.  He says he never goes out, doe's not show any interest in girls, and when I asked about it, he said he doesn't show any interest in guy's either.  According to the man, all his son does is eat, sleep and play WOW. 

After his son dropped out of college a second time the man sought professional help for him.  He thought for sure that there must be some kind of program like AA but for video game addictions.  But try as he might, he couldn't find anything.  He spoke to counselors, psychologist, and other various sorts of doctors and every time he was met with the same response "I don't know that there is such a thing as video game addictions and even if there was I don't know how to treat it nor do I know anybody else who does".  The father was so concerned that he resorted to calling a local news station who actually came out to his place of business to do a story on the subject. 

I don't know about any of you, but in the last two years whenever i have seen an issue with video games and people playing them to much it has been with WOW.  But lately I have noticed another game that seems to have the same effect.  The game is called Runescape.  From what I can tell with my little knowledge of these sort of games, it plays and acts very similar to WOW, but it is designed for kids.  The majority of players on Runescape are under age 14.  Now going back to my eldest son, he played Runescape.  He talked his mother into paying the $5/month charge it took to play the game and for at least 6 months that was all he did.  He would have continued to play the game most likely except that I began to notice a problem with him and the game.  My son was starting to be reclusive, less sociable, and didn't want to do anything at all except play Runescape.  But instead of removing him from the game or the game from him I used reverse psychology on him.  I would say around him how the graphics and game play of Runescape were childish and meant for nothing more then little kids, and after I said this to him enough, I introduced him to BF2.  Upon his introduction to BF2 his play time with Runescape started to go down and down and down until it got to the point where he no longer played it at all. 

Now those of us who are into video games have heard all the stuff about how video games can make people more violent and such, and we have seen all the positive stuff about video games like how they really help hand and ey cordination.  And we have also most likely all heard that for every study on video games there is another that disproves it.  But this whole thing with video game addiction is new to me.  I have never personally played WOW and I can't say that I know anything about it.  However it does seem similar to The Sims or other online role playing type games.  But that actually reminds me, I have seen some news stories lately regarding these so called "virtual worlds" where people supposedly live double lives inside the game, again much like The Sims. 

Again I must admit, my knowledge of those types of games is not very good.  But I did do a little research on WOW after hearing the story about the mans son.  It seems that WOW is the most popular MMORPG game ever created with millions of people subscribing to it's monthly fees.  Yes that's right, MILLIONS!!!!

I personally have witnessed two cases where WOW has had an effect on people and have heard one very compelling story about another man.  Three of the four possible cases I presented above had to do with WOW while the fourth had to do with Runescape.  Knowing that there are other games out there that try to take their users into a virtual world I can't imagine that WOW and Runescape are the only ones that may have these sort of problems.

But what really are these problems?  Is it a true addiction?  If so, who does it affect?  Is it more susceptible to people who are more prone to other addictions?  For example I once had a roommate who won a thousand dollars one night down at the riverboat casino.  Soon after he was going back there three or four times a week, and soon after that he started to loose his rent money and bill money, and then my rent money and bill money started to disappear.  Yup, you guess it, he had a gambling problem.  Would somebody like him be more inclined to become addicted to WOW or The Sims? 

What about those with drug addictions?  Would they have instead gotten addicted to a video game instead of drugs had it been presented to them? And what is it about these games that is addicting?  What does the player feel when they are playing these games for hours and hours on end?  What are they trying to achieve?  I mean I can understand a gambling addiction, and I can even understand a drug addiction as they both have the potential to deliver something to the user like money or a sweet "high".  But we all know where both of those lead so let's not even go there.  

What about people who don't have addicting personalities?  Just as I told you those four stories about different people who play WOW and Runescape, I also know several people who play WOW for a couple hours a week and it doesn't impact their normal lives whatsoever.  I myself happen to love playing video games, but my whole life doesn't revolve around them. 

Yesterday (03-12-08) a story came out about a kid who shot and killed his dad because his dad grounded him from the internet.  Now I realise that the internet is a completely different thing, well errr sort, but really, when we have people dropping out of school, loosing jobs, and killing people over this stuff we really have to step back and ask, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? 

Now, the critics of video game will say "those video games are evil" blah blah blah.  Yes we have heard it all before.  There's always some nut job who wants to blame the video game makers.  But I have to be pretty honest here, as bad as I think WOW has become, if I were the CEO of Blizzard (the makers of WOW) I wouldn't change a damn thing.  They are making some seriously crazy money. 

But now that I think about it, drug dealers make seriously crazy money as well, hmmmmmm.

Anyways, going back to the four earlier stories I presented to you, looking at those cases, and if you are a gamer or know avid gamers, look at yourself or them, and then think about it.  Is video game addiction real?  Is it something that for some people should be treated like a drug or gambling addiction?  Being a gamer myself, this actually concerns me.  If video game addictions are real, don't we owe it to our fellow gamers who may be addicted to get them help?  Are interventions necessary? 

As the owner of the venue discovered, most professionals in addiction don't think a video game addiction is real, and even if they did, they don't have any idea who would treat such a thing.  So even if we come to find out it's real, and we set off to help a friend or family member of ours, where do we bring them?  Where do we get help? 

I am very interested in hearing other opinions for or against video game addictions.  I would really like to know what you all think.  And if you know of a way that somebody with a possible addiction could get some help, please share it.