It seems to be the standard rather than the exception that MMO players spend more of their time than may be healthy online; most people familiar with online games can tell you stories of friends or family members who spend too much time battling for a higher level or better loot. A new study suggests that while such play may be unhealthy, less people than reported elsewhere may be addicted.
At the moment the methodology for diagnosing game addiction uses many of the same symptoms as the diagnosis for gambling addiction, even though the diseases may be very different. It's this lack of clear standards for game addiction that bothers Dr. John Charlton and led him to his own research in the area. "This is my second research project in this field to confirm this outcome; that several symptoms researchers had thought were important in diagnosing computing-related addictions were actually only indicative of high, but non-addictive, involvement. This means that taking them into account when conducting research gives an incorrect result - 10% higher than is correct." While this research may make the line between high-use and the addicting nature of the games clearer, it may be a cold comfort to friends and family who are concerned by the amount of time loved ones spend in their virtual worlds.
In his survey of 400 Asheron's Call players the average respondent played for 18.5 hours a week. The survey also shows what Dr. Charlton considers to be addictive behavior: the suffering of social lives, interference with work, arguments over play-time at home, as well as lack of sleep and missed meals. 35 to 50 percent of respondents fell into this category, which is an impressively high number for the relatively low number of respondents.
We've previously reported that some experts blame the game more than the players for this pattern of behavior. "This isn't about willpower or restraint. These games are very elaborately designed to ease you in gently, entice you, and keep you there. And it's a cycle: people begin to spend too much time playing and their careers and personal relationships begin to deteriorate," stated Dr. Orzack, who is the founder of the Computer Addiction Service. The kind of variable ratio enforcement online games use to reward players is a well-known psychological trick to create compulsive behavior. Even if the numbers are inflated as Dr. Charlton claims, the number of affected players may be high: a recovery center for gaming addiction has opened in Amsterdam, and the government of South Korea has also looked into the problem.
The behavior and symptoms of players who are addicted to the games they play seems to remain unclear, and until a concrete set of standards for diagnosis is agreed on it may be hard to find funding for research or to provide concrete numbers of afflicted individuals.