Just one more level, MOM!
This is going to be a doozy of a question this week. Our current poll asks this exact question, but I wanted to dive into it a bit more than what the poll does. In summery, the fine peeps at Extra Creditz recently posted a couple of videos on video game compulsion. These are great pieces that I would encourage all to go and watch. Now onto the question at hand.
I have lived in a lot of places and met an abundance of gamers. Everyone from the flash-based game lovers to the most hardened PC gamers have come and gone in my life. Yet, looking back I can clearly see a few cases where games compulsion took hold of our lives. I’d say this makes me sad, but we were all lucky, and it never destroyed out livelihoods like it has for so many others.
So what is games compulsion? It is when you take refuge in a virtual world to escape the, sometimes harsh, realities of the real world. Maybe you were recently laid off and you just don’t want to think about hunting for a new job in this current economy. Maybe video games are your 30-pack of Natty Ice. No matter the reason, finding solace in a virtual world can be compelling and detrimental.
Think about what you hear on the news, and keep in mind that the news agencies are fishing for ratings. So many of mainstream news stories are over sensationalized and over blown to pull in more hype. However, it seems ever few months we hear about someone sitting in an internet cafe, gaming their way to their deaths. While these are truly tragic stories, what possessed these people to turn to the comforts of a cyber world? Blaming developers, publishers, or distributors of video games is not the answer, but rather knowing the root of why this person wanted to escape is what we need to know. Video games DO NOT kill people.
Let me put this into a more personal light, like what James did in the videos. There was a time that I was addicted to a game, or to be specific, Dark Age of Camelot. I would come home from work, grab something quick to eat, and jump into the game. I would run around this world from 5:30 at night until two or three AM, consistently. I even called in “sick” a few times, all because I was up all night playing and wanted to sleep a few short hours before jumping into the game again. This went on for 2+ years. I gained 50 pounds, developed an ulcer, put a strain on my marriage, went on probation at work, and even lost a few friends due to me blowing them off in order to grind out that next level. It was bad news.
I eventually overcame this by realizing I was living in a fake world to escape from real-life issues. I faced those issues and found the necessity to sit in this game for hours less therapeutic. I still enjoyed the game, just not in the massive quantities I once played. Life got better, and I moved on.
This is just my one experience, however. There are still plenty of people out there are stuck to their avatar, running around a virtualized world try to hide from whatever ails them in the real world. Now this is where we turn to you. Tell us your stories on this ever hot topic. Do you, or anyone you know, suffer from video game compulsion? How did you break these gripping chains? Nobody will judge you here.
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