Firetop

With four gamers reported to have died as a result of mammoth gaming sessions over the past four years, a clinic in the Netherlands (the Flying Horses Center) has started to treat addicted video gamers. This is probably long overdue, especially with millions of gamers hooked on the virtual world instead of real life. Apparently, being addicted to gaming is a lot like being addicted to gambling, with addicts having the ‘Just one more win and then I’ll stop’ mentality. What I found worrying there was that I’ve had that thought many times whilst playing Star Wars Battlefront on Xbox Live and put off going to bed until 4am as a result. What other symptoms are there?

It seems that compulsive gamers demonstrate an addiction that leads to them neglecting the following areas of their lives:

> Family
> Romance / personal relationships
> Education, jobs / careers
> Eating and exercise
> Personal hygiene (washing)

Now I have to say there have been times where I have demonstrated all of those to some degree, so I think I’ve teetered on the edge of serious gaming addiction. I’ve also definitely lost time and not listened to things that have been said to me whilst I was in the zone (despite apparently communicating back at the time). Usually this has been with games in arcade mode which have an end (eventually) like Kessen II, Max Payne or Bounty Hunter after a day or two the problems are resolved - no more game to play. However, with Xbox live there is no end, the drive to be number one in the leaderboard is immense and has to be maintained on a daily basis. This means there are some serious addicts out there now and I’m expecting to see a rise in gaming related deaths over the next two years.

If you’re concerned about a fellow gamer the Smith and Jones Wild Horses Center is running a special survival camp from July 10 - July 24 in Holland and the forests of Germany. This camp is apparently the first of its kind in the world… (I’d only consider attending if they held it in the forests of Yavin 4 instead).

Reported gaming deaths:
> 27 year-old Taiwanese man: 32 hours non-stop
> 24 year-old South Korean man: 86 hours non-stop
> 13 year old Russian boy: 12 hours non-stop
> 28 year-old South Korean man: 50 hours non-stop

Next up I suspect is blogging addiction which I’m monitoring carefully.

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