Slashdot Mirror
Defining Video Game Addiction
1Up has a feature discussing where the line should be drawn when it comes to game addiction. The author speaks to researcher Neils Clark about some of the common characteristics of addiction, and how the high level of immersion in many modern games contributes to the mind's ability to drown out mundane tasks. We've discussed game addiction many times over the past several years. Quoting:
"If we're not all dribbling addicts, then why are we playing so much? Clark puts this down to a theory proposed by The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien — primary and secondary worlds. The primary world is our own real life. The secondary is the fictional world: literature, film, videogames, and so on. 'It used to be that the imagery and artistic intent had to be fully available before you could really "find" yourself in a written story,' Clark says. 'Immersion has progressed to the point where entering a world [inside a game] is almost automatic. At the point we're at, playing healthy not only means understanding immersion but [also] recognizing that these secondary worlds are designed to be more fulfilling than the primary. Learning to balance them is its own technology. It's something that humankind is in a process of developing, even if on a subconscious level for most gamers.'"
addiction is an over used term these days, and it vastly over simplifies why some people spend their life in front of a video game.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I'm not sure if addiction is quite the right word in most cases. I think stupidity does. If you are on food stamps and spending most of your time on WOW. You have a problem. And your problem is your own stupidity.
Most of our parents are addicted to television; I don't see any hysteria or treatment programs for them. In fact politicians and advertisers actively exploit that addiction.
Some argue that refined sugar is addictive, too, and most Westerners are in fact addicted.
It seems obvious that the only people who think MMORPGs are addictive are the people who haven't played them.
Alright that's just not true, I've met several MMORPG players who consider themselves addicted and are not happy about the amount of time they've spent on their games.
Personally I never got into the MMORPG thing, but I remember back when I used to MUD there were periods where I definitely exhibited the signs of addiction. That endorphin rush I got when I first logged in for the day is scary in retrospect.
While I'm sure we all first think of those people who can't tear themselves away from wow, MMOs aren't the only culprit. As a teen, my friend and I definitely spent more time than we should playing fpses and rtses. We would probably play 4 - 6 hours a day, to the point where my friend's school work suffered. I would definitely consider myself addicted. You're still in a second world, be it one of trebuchet's and woad raders, or .44s and rocket launchers. (but, for the love of god, please don't let that world be second life). There are definitely high school students who suffer, like my friend did, because of an addiction to video games. They're fulfilling, and parents might not know how to deal with it since it's a newer problem.
If you draw the line where the only way to get addicted is to chemically alter your brain (alcohol, tobacco, hard drugs, etc) then sure, there is no way to become addicted to video games. But if you believe that someone can become addicted to an activity that stimulated pleasure release in the brain (gambling, sex, shopping) then you have to make an entry for video games too.
Me? I believe that it's possible to become 'addicted' to video games, but the actual cases are probably so small that it shouldn't receive any more attention than gambling.
No, in all likelyhood labels like 'addicted to video games' are the previous generations ways of trying to understand our modern entertainment cycle. I'm sure their parents were worried they were 'addicted to comic books' or 'rock music'. I just cry a little cry for little Johnny who's mom will take away his Xbox 360 because she's afraid of him being 'addicted'. Parents need to stop guarding their children like pets and teach them to make smart decisions so that when Johnny is 20 and moves out (we're being optimistic here folks), he won't turn into an obsessed World of Warcraft fiend because he can finally access everything his parents never taught him how to deal with on his own.
It's the same as dad's who are sexually overprotective of their daughters, just as it's the same as parents who teach their kids that tobacco and drugs are bad-evil-horrible without giving them reasoning to justify that position, etc.
Teach kids to make smart decisions if you want them to be truly well off.
If it wasn't fun there wouldn't be a risk of addiction. Nobody ever got addicted to filling out time sheets, for example.
My wife freely admits to being addicted.. she sometimes looks back and wonders where the last 5 years went, tries to stop for a couple of days then back to raiding - she plays 18-20 hours a day, never leaves the house, or even the desk for that matter.. Not a lot you can do about it, except wait for the victim to get their act together and come out of it.
I refuse to play MMORPGs any longer. To be honest, I think that they encourage and reward "addiction." I refused to play MMORPGs .. until FFXI. As a Final Fantasy nut (I've played and finished every US-Released version of every FF game on the console it was released on) .. I wanted to skip it .. but thought .. "eh .. what the hell."
MMORPGs require a high level of investment in order to produce rewards. Oh .. I have to grind for 5-6 hours a day to level, and then I get a sub-job, but in order to level my main job I have to grind levels for my sub-job, and I have to quest/craft for equipment to level the main job, or camp NMs, etc. etc. Plus, they're social: you're making friends, a virtual lifestyle, that is SO much more rewarding (discrete/measurable awards at that), and appealing than the Real World.
I literally spent 6 months in game. That's actively playing the game, logged in, leveling, crafting, etc. Not sitting idle on 'bazaar' or anything of that nature. The only times that I was logged in and not holding a controller or typing on the keyboard was when I was in the kitchen whipping something up, or (maybe) outside having a cigarette (but still eyes on the TV).
That was over a calendar period of 9 months. I spent 2/3rds of my life for the better part of a year plugged in to that game, sacrificing school, social life, and the only reason why I didn't explode was I barely ate enough to keep me alive.
'Addiction' can be a very abused term, however, in the case of MMORPGs, that's a lot of what drives them. You need to be 'addicted' in order to be successful.
The worst part is, I managed to keep my character well-equipped, and leveled up, and I never managed to make it to level 75 RDM. Burned out @ 73. Even had most all of the other jobs leveled up (every job to 10, lot of jobs to 20/25, and NIN, WHM, BLM, DRK, SMN all up to 40). Finally stepped back and said "Can't do this anymore."
Lot of my (then) non-gaming friends didn't understand, then started playing WoW. I still get hassled about not playing WoW with them (and now Age of Conan), but I know I have a problem and like any other addict (be it alcohol, or drugs), I know better than to tempt fate, because it will just suck me right back in.
The difference is, "normal" games have an END, and a "save state." I can mess with Gears, or Dead Rising, or almost any other game for a few hours, maybe even upwards of 16-20. I can knock Halo out 24 hours after launch, and it's done. It's finished. Or play through a 6-hour session of Blue Dragon and walk away, come back later. MMORPGs are persisting, you're missing out when you're not plugged in, and on top of that, they do NOT end.
Here's the line-broken version of that rant, because I screwed up and can't find the 'edit' button.
.. until FFXI.
As a Final Fantasy nut (I've played and finished every US-Released version of every FF game on the console it was released on) .. I wanted to skip it .. but thought .. "eh .. what the hell."
.. I have to grind for 5-6 hours a day to level, and then I get a sub-job, but in order to level my main job I have to grind levels for my sub-job, and I have to quest/craft for equipment to level the main job, or camp NMs, etc. etc.
I refuse to play MMORPGs any longer. To be honest, I think that they encourage and reward "addiction." I refused to play MMORPGs
MMORPGs require a high level of investment in order to produce rewards. Oh
Plus, they're social: you're making friends, a virtual lifestyle, that is SO much more rewarding (discrete/measurable awards at that), and appealing than the Real World.
I literally spent 6 months in game. That's actively playing the game, logged in, leveling, crafting, etc. Not sitting idle on 'bazaar' or anything of that nature. The only times that I was logged in and not holding a controller or typing on the keyboard was when I was in the kitchen whipping something up, or (maybe) outside having a cigarette (but still eyes on the TV). That was over a calendar period of 9 months.
I spent 2/3rds of my life for the better part of a year plugged in to that game, sacrificing school, social life, and the only reason why I didn't explode was I barely ate enough to keep me alive. 'Addiction' can be a very abused term, however, in the case of MMORPGs, that's a lot of what drives them. You need to be 'addicted' in order to be successful.
The worst part is, I managed to keep my character well-equipped, and leveled up, and I never managed to make it to level 75 RDM. Burned out @ 73. Even had most all of the other jobs leveled up (every job to 10, lot of jobs to 20/25, and NIN, WHM, BLM, DRK, SMN all up to 40). Finally stepped back and said "Can't do this anymore."
A lot of my (then) non-gaming friends didn't understand, then started playing WoW. I still get hassled about not playing WoW with them (and now Age of Conan), but I know I have a problem and like any other addict (be it alcohol, or drugs), I know better than to tempt fate, because it will just suck me right back in.
The difference is, "normal" games have an END, and a "save state." I can mess with Gears, or Dead Rising, or almost any other game for a few hours, maybe even upwards of 16-20. I can knock Halo out 24 hours after launch, and it's done. It's finished. Or play through a 6-hour session of Blue Dragon and walk away, come back later. MMORPGs are persisting, you're missing out when you're not plugged in, and on top of that, they do NOT end.
I find the Primary and Secondary worlds thing fascinating. Even more so, I find it fascinating that as humankind advances there will probably be a merger of the two. For instance, if you've read Alastair Reynolds' The Prefectyou probably know what I mean. In this story a huge community of habitats orbit a central planet. This community is called the Glitterband. Within it, each habitat is different. And I don't mean different in that one is painted grey and the other is blue. Every habitat has an abstraction core, which when combined with the right wetware and advanced technology in the citizens bodies allows them to live in virtually any sort of environment they please. Similar to being able to queue up anything on the Holodeck, even including changing your basic body type, or having no body and being a floating wisp of energy, or whatever you can imagine.
The cool part here, to me, is that this was originally a Secondary world as taken from Tolkein's theory. But for these people their Secondary world has become integrated with a democracy and a community of other Secondary worlds, all of which participate in this democracy (if they choose to). So in effect, their Secondary and Primary worlds have merged, and if they want... for good.
This is where I see games starting to take hold of this possibility of a merger. You can almost pay for your bills by playing WoW, if you choose to sell gold. What am I say, almost. People do. Lots of them. They literally live off of WoW. I'd even wager that for some of them their Primary world is WoW and their Secondary world is having to feed themselves and sleep, because they probably don't do much else outside of WoW.
No, things aren't nearly to the point where I'd say there can be a true merger. But when it happens, are you going to call these people addicts? What if they are richer, happier, and live longer than you? At what point does it stop being an addiction to WoW, and become YOUR addiction to the 'old ways'?
Just food for thought..
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Considering computer games are essentially a simulated world what component of the game is the addiction? And wouldn't that component be the addiction not the game itself?
Some games allow gambling within the game for example. If someone gambles in the game obsessively isn't that a gambling addiction rather than an addiction to the game?
What about item hording that many MMORPG players suffer from? Isn't that obsessive compulsive disorder rather than game addiction?
And the people who compulsively dress up as Furries and Cyber in Second Life. Isn't that just sex addiction?
Sounds like you've got your self a real winner.
Most of the cases I've run into of "death by gaming" boil down to extreme lack of self care. Which is often present in addicts - ie, your typical malnourished junkie - but not in and of itself a sign of addiction. To draw an analogy, it's like how drinking and driving can kill you, but doesn't always indicate alcoholism (or even heavy habitual drinking - there are cases of DUI accidents occurring simply because the individual lacked the experience to judge their own level of intoxication). OTOH, it would be irresponsible to claim a lack of correlation between drunk driving and alcohol dependency - the correlation is there, but you can't assume one equals the other without examining each case in detail first.
A better rule of thumb for determining whether somebody is addicted to something is to ask them if they still enjoy it. Most people don't realize that your average addict has long since passed the stage where they want to quit, but are no longer able to. Your average sex addict doesn't enjoy boinking, your average alcoholic doesn't want to drink anymore, and your average smoker would love to quit (and probably has tried to at least once). This is one of the reasons why intoxicating substance use has a high rate of addiction - the brain chemistry gets literally rewired, to the point where stopping is traumatic. People have died from withdrawal, while others have developed psychosis, suffered from hallucinations, attempted suicide, and generally been miserable as hell.
"Addiction" gets applied far to frequently to abuse or overuse of any kind. Human stupidity and lack of common sense must be given their due, as must simple hedonism and self destructiveness. Real addiction is pathological. It might very well be purely psychological, with no chemical basis (or at least no external chemical basis), but on some level it's become a disease upon the affected person, and often times they'll be the first to admit it. Take the bottle away from a problem drinker, and the problem goes away; take the bottle away from an alcoholic and all hell breaks loose.
So, to get back on topic, I would define a gaming addict as a gamer who continues to play to great excess, despite a desire to quit. Somebody for whom turning it off, taking a break or unplugging is traumatic enough to make them jump right back in.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
"civilization iv"
it's the only game i ever played where i would blink once, and it wuld be 6 am, blink again, and it would 6 pm. i had to bend and break the disc in order to have a life
"just one more turn" always turns into 500 more turns
that's some serious video crack right there that game
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Nobody ever got addicted to filling out time sheets, for example." I dont know if i'd define it as addiction, but there is obsessive compulsive disorder.
Not a lot you can do about it, except wait for the victim to get their act together and come out of it.
I thought part of being an addiction is that you don't get out of it unless "something" happens. Most of the destructive ones it's crashing hard or running out of money or something like that - if they're just compulsive say like compulsive washers they can practicly ruin the rest of their lifes, and yours too if you wait around for it to change. I don't mean to be an insensitive clod and it's your life, but I'd fight or bail. Five years... what's to say it's not five more? Ten? You want to grow old like that? And if she comes about, expect it to be nasty either as in cracking up and for you to pick up the pieces or flipping out with OMG all she's been missing. Then again maybe you're enjoying it with a part time wife, but I doubt it...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The standard for addiction is when people give up on healthy developmental goals, understood however makes sense for that person, and opts instead for the addictive behavior or substance.
In other words, when you start to lose thing that matter to you, but carry on with the addictive behavior, that's addiction.
I have seen marriages dissolve because people played MMOs instead of spending time with their family. I've known people who have failed out of college and graduate school, because they became obsessed with MMOs. I play MMOs myself, and I can see it at work. The "secondary world" aspect misses the main addictive element of MMOs - which moves it from obsession to addiction. That's the reward structure: you can play and predictably get rewards.
One can be obsessed with Tolkien or Star Trek, in that the secondary world becomes more important than the real one. Since films, books and television don't offer an ongoing, unclosed reward structure that works to the extent that you put time into the activity, those obsessions don't become addictions.
That's why I think it makes sense to call MMO's addictive. They are always there - they never "satisfy" but promise the next reward, and then the next, and then the next. There is a social reinforcement element to it (which is an aspect of other addictions as well - alcoholism can certainly have a social aspect to it.)
The research observed that while people were playing, they identified the relationships with other players in-game as meaningful, but when they stopped playing, they ceased to describe it as such. To me, that is a lot like a heavy drinker's "bar friendships" - when they stop drinking, those friendships mean a lot less.
The defensiveness by gamers when confronted with this sort of analysis is depressingly predictable, as well.
Most non chemical addictions aren't really addictions but simply obsessive behavior. After a time people get bored, that is why we aren't all playing space invaders on our 2600. Most people who play WoW or any other video game have a goal of some kind, be it to get to the highest level, to have all the greatest weapons and armor, to join a certain guild, etc. Once that goal is met and the player experiences it, usually they don't care much for the game anymore.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
.. Not a lot you can do about it, except wait for the victim to get their act together and come out of it.
You sir are an enabler. You most likely provide the power, the subscription, the food and probably don't care as long as she puts out every so often. If you've watched _any_ of the tv shows featuring the morbidly and often house bound obese, you usually find a loved one or close friend who is enabling them to get that overweight. If you're stuck in your house or even a chair/bed, some one has to bring you the food.
As long as you just put up with it and enable her to just sit around the house playing all day, she will so STOP it. Stop putting up with it and force the issue, is she truely satisfied with the state of her life being tied to the game?
I know I wasn't while I was addicted to a MUD for over a year.
There's something I do that takes up a huge part of my waking life. It involves sitting in front of a computer for long stretches, doing things that, while they differ from day to day in the details, are pretty repetitive in the long run. I don't particularly like to be doing this. Yet when I couldn't do this for a time, I got anxious. Further withdrawal symptoms would have included depression, malnutrition, the loss of my house, my bank accounts, other assets, and eventually, perhaps death. Yet no one thinks I'm addicted to this activity... because it's "WORK".
"A lot of people say games are addictive. Well, they're addictive in the sense that anything you like doing you repeat endlessly. But no one would say, 'Mr Kasparov, you have a chess problem,' or 'Tiger Woods, you have a golf addiction.'"
To escape.. that's the reason.
Life is tough, games are fun. But, like anything else, gaming can be addictive, and if we don't learn to balance our play time with other activities. Well, it's not called addictive for nothing.
In the end, I suspect most people who are addicted to games, are also running away from something about themselves, who knows, low self-esteem, frustrations, etc..., so, really, just like drugs and alcoholism, in the end, addictive gaming isn't going to make things better, it just postpone the day you need to truly deal with the issues which you don't want to face.
But there are actually a few out there, who are hardcore gamers, and have no issues, they are just having plain ol' fun. I've seen actual couples who are both into gaming, and they love it.
So, unlike booze and drugs, gaming isn't always addictive in a bad way.
It is a question of defining one's quality of life and happiness.
Can they be happy, have a normal life and a gaming life at the same time? Do they still go to work, pay the bills, etc...
If yes to both questions, then, clearly, it's not addictive to these folks, they are just doing what they like to do and are obviously able to function well in what is most important for them, without shying from their responsibilities and duties.
and even neglected my classes in university because of it, a lot of other things and whatnot.
now when i look back, i can understand that it wasnt the games that got me addicted. i was passing time with them - as if i was perpetually in waiting.
later observation of other people seemed to nail that idea, i saw many people taking to gaming to great extent when they were in a waiting period in their life - waiting for military service, marriage, between jobs, wake of big decisions about their life etc.
especially in school era, this 'waiting' concept climaxes, because the individual is actually passive, taking in information but not producing anything on his/her OWN initiative and planning. subconscious knows any homework, project, intermediary goal that is set are just temporary, therefore is still aware of the passivity of the individuals willpower.
once the individual is out of school and at the control of his/her own life for real, and when s/he sets a real objective, one soon discovers that all gaming habits change. first it lessens to the extent that it becomes a stress outlet, a relaxation, then some way to rest the mind, then, at some point, the struggle for reaching the objective that is set becomes a game in itself, and the person resorts to gaming less and less.
im at that point in my life. games bore me out of my mind now. and by games, i mean everything. i played everything from defender of crown in 1986 to crysis, from fate of atlantis, star control 2 to europa universalis 3.
then again i dropped out of college and set out to establish myself as an entrepreneur on the new world that is internet. that IS a game in itself.
Read radical news here
Fun isn't the right word. I was addicted to WoW for a long time, and while the game starts out fun, by the time I was raiding seven nights a week (five nights on mains; two alt nights on weekends), it wasn't usually any fun at all. What drives people to keep playing, in my opinion, is a complex and unending stream of carrots and sticks. I've heard guildmates say hundreds of times, "I just need that last piece of gear, and then I can quit happily," or "once this last boss goes down, I'm done with this game." But WoW is set up in a way that that seldom happens. You just can't acquire loot fast enough to be "done." (Raid bosses are generally once-a-week deals.) There's always something else on the horizon, and just before you can get that last piece of Tier X armor or whatever, a whole new dungeon is released with more purple pixels to acquire. This grind is bad enough on a single character, but most WoW junkies I know maintain several. There's always something to waste your life doing in that game. I think that's the crux of most WoW addictions: that phantom sense of accomplishment. The feeling that you've done something to progress your character over the course of that night. To most reasonable outside observers, the whole thing seems insane--and it is--but it's that sense that you're doing something with lasting effect that seems to keep most people coming back.
This "addiction" subject is really fascinating. Aren't we all addicted to food? If you take food away from me, wouldn't I go nuts too? What about money, women, and cattles? What about life?
Actually, it is possible to be pathologically addicted to sex, food or money. Well, the money one's debatable, but there's some pretty compelling evidence for it. For the food one, you don't have to look that far - you've probably seen such people if you frequent fast food restaurants, even if they didn't stand out from the rest of the clientele. Eating disorders can run either way after all - vast overeating, or self-starvation, and the overeating behavior is classic addict.
The tricky part is that everyone needs to eat. Everyone in modern society needs at least some money to get by. (Almost) everyone needs to screw. That isn't addiction, that's biology, social necessity and plain old hormones.
When you stop eating to live, and start living to eat, then you start calling it addiction.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
So what do you say that being addicted to MMORPGs is like? What do you count as "addicted"? Because I'm sure that you can replace MMORPGs with any other activity (studying, reading, sleeping, work) and count it as an addiction. MMORPGs are no more addictive than any other thing you can do.
If you think being addicted to MMO's is anything like studying, reading or work you really don't understand just how far people get sucked in. All of the things you list, bar sleeping (which is a physical addiction of sorts) are generally classed as things you can do but feel no effects of withdrawal
People (such as myself) who have been addicted felt true panic at the thought of missing time in the game. We skipped meals, we blew off commitments, we made these games the primary thing we do in the day. Our need to play the game transcended simple "desire" or obligation and became a physical necessity for our mental well being. We no longer had the ability to say NO to the game. Many people who played WoW around me at the time had a love/hate relationship with the game.. they loved it but they knew they were powerless and it was screwing with their real life.
In truth I would assume that there is a small amount of people who truly do feel withdrawal symptoms from the other pursuits you mentioned. Particularly studying or working, where panic might arise from falling behind. The difference being nobody feels "calm" by the simple act studying/working if they are in academic/financial trouble, they feel the calm when they have achieved their goal of being knowledgable enough to "pass" (or pay the bills). They are not addicted to the act of studying or working, they are "addicted" to the concept of being in a stable comfortable situation in life - which is something we all share
I recognise there are many who play these games for fun, they play them too much and they think they should cut down. I don't slap the addict label on them just because of this. There is a line and I think only the beholder is truly able to make that distinction for themselves.
I record my sleeptalking
Do "football super fans" get an endorphin rush when their favorite player on their team? I've seen people get livid if they miss their favorite games. Why aren't these same people concerned for them? Oh yeah...being obsessed about football is "healthy" but a computer game is not.
I've played MMORPGs. I played for 3 years. I almost lost my job to playing. I wouldn't go to sleep at night, I would try to get in a few hours at work. I used to dream about the game.
I also set aside my IRL goals to accomplish in-game goals. I quit building my IRL business so I could build my in-game business because it was easier.
Maybe it's not addiction, but the results are basically the same.
You may call me names or whatever because of the extremes I went to. There is a great deal of substance abuse in my family and I believe that my game playing was just an offshoot of that genetic predisposition.
To my credit (I think), I recognized the problem and I canceled my account. My life is back on track after a 3 year hiatus and my business is doing well enough, I may be able to leave my "day job" soon.
If I was still playing, i don't think I could say that.
One side of the issue is this (and it may piss some people off for me to say it), but in-game, it's easy to become "successful". it takes a trivial amount of real talent (intelligence, reflexes, strength, memory, etc) and a trivial amount of time in comparison to real-world pursuits, to accomplish any goal.
To imiprove your standing in the real world takes YEARS of work, day in and day out. I can level (or whatever your game mechanics allow) in just hours. In just a few months of really dedicated playing, I could be near the top of the heap in terms of skills. What real-world activity can you master in a non-trivial way, with a low degree of inborn talent, in just a few months? that's the allure.
It doesn't always stem from addiction. I notice the majority of MMO players are teens and college students who have a lot of free time. There's nothing wrong with wasting a little spare time (hello Slashdot), but there is a point at which it can impact your quality of life.
But that's just my story... fwiw.
For humors sake, let me add...
OMGWTFBBQPWNAGE!!
Oh.. sorry... flashback. :-)
Also depends on the person's habits. Some gamers snack at their machines, some don't. Some people who do snack will eat right, some won't. I'll guarantee that that alone will make a huge difference.
The likeliest outcomes are going to be somewhere between scrawny and obese. A sedentary lifestyle, gaming motivated or otherwise, isn't going to do good things for muscle tone and endurance, but it won't affect weight the same way for everyone.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Actually, that's not how (real) addiction works. Addiction to a substance happens when your brain chemistry starts adjusting in the other direction. Biology is largely about self-tuning feedback loops like that. If you have too little oxygen in your arm, e.g., because you do a lot of physical effort, your body grows more blood vessels. And if the brain has to work while disrupted by alcohol, it compensates its chemistry in the other direction.
Addiction is that compensation in the other direction. And when you are properly addicted, it's not as much that your drug is fun, as that life without it is not much fun.
E.g., Nicotine inhibits MAO-B, which breaks down Dopamine and Phenethylamine. It's part of a chemical equilibrium in the brain. When you're happy about something, you get a shot of dopamine, but almost immediately MAO-B is released to make that signal decay back to baseline. Nicotine perturbs that mechanism, so it originally makes you feel better. But soon your body adjusts its equilibrium in the other direction, so now you feel shitty without a cigarette. Eventually those cigarettes do nothing except bring you briefly to the point where a non-smoker is naturally all the time. That's addiction.
E.g., Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, which doesn't actually mean it makes you depressed, just that it makes certain individual synapses and pathways less responsive. But again, the body immediately starts to compensate in the other direction, and those synapses gradually become hyperexcitable. If you keep doing that, essentially to the point where they fire erratically on their own. See, delirium tremens. So essentially after a while you notice that without alcohol you're nervous, have less motor coordination, have hearth rhythm problems, and the like. Essentially your body just started telling you, "man, I really could use a drink." And again, gradually you need more and more of it, and eventually the first sixpack just gets you back to the normal "sober" point. (Alcohol tolerance really is just the road to delirium tremens, sadly.)
Addiction to something fun isn't an addiction at all. There is no external chemicals perturbing the brain balance. It's just the normal way the brain works. There is no, say, nicotine inhibiting MAO-B so you get artificially elevated doses of dopamine, and forcing the brain to adjust. It's just the normal "this is fun" signal in your brain.
So at best it's just lack of willpower, but not an addiction.
And people get pseudo-"addicted" like that all the time. The village gossip who goes around bad-mouthing the local WoW "addict", is, funnily enough, herself "addicted" to her own "hobby". She gets her brain signals out of that social interaction, to the point where she has to even poke into someone else's life to have a topic. The guy who obsessively watches football or soccer or baseball, to have something to talk about to his group of friends, essentially is again just doing something to feed a similar addiction. It's his way of getting his daily shot of "I'm happy and appreciated" brain mediator. The guy who's doing overtime all week and goes fishing every weekend, ok, he's probably more like keeping himself away from getting an "I'm unhappy" signal at home, but nevertheless that's the same pseudo-addiction. Etc.
There's really nothing special about WoW. If your wife was out gossiping with the neighbours 18 hours a day, well, you'd probably just think some stereotype about women instead. But it would be the same thing, essentially.
At any rate, addiction it ain't.
Except if it were real physiological addiction, that wouldn't happen.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well, it's that "a lot worse" that makes the big difference, really.
And basically there _is_ a dichotomy, in that one implies physiological modifications, the other doesn't. It's pretty binary. I'm not setting up a dichotomy between light grey and dark grey, but between something which either exists or it doesn't.
There's a difference between, basically:
A) I'd rather be doing something more fun, and it so happens that this virtual world is more fun than bickering with my spouse some more, and
B) I'm getting (physiologically and medically) depressed and nervous unless I light another cigarette.
In case A you're merely back to baseline if you don't, in case B you're genuinely a lot below baseline if you don't. That "going cold turkey from a hard drug is a lot worse" factor.
Case A is merely how the brain is wired to work. Your brain is wired to give you a "man, I'm bored" signal when nothing interesting happens, and a dopamine/serotonin/canbinoid/whatever-apropriate-signa shot when you do something fun. You're pre-programmed to seek pleasure and fun. If that's "addiction", we're all born addicts.
Your cat or dog is like that too. That's why you see the dog occasionally chasing his tail or begging to play fetch, or the cat pouncing on a stuffed toy. Because again there's that natural signal in the brain that says "go do something fun already."
The difference is that we humans built layers upon layers of culture, pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions about what you should be doing instead of that. And a society where you're supposed to, and have to, do something else to even survive. A cat just goes and hunts when it's hungry, and is free to sleep or play the rest of the time. You, by contrast have to go to work now so you can have something to eat next month. But you're not wired for that, you're still wired like the cat. That's where will power comes in. You must move your arse and do what you know you should be doing, instead of what your animal brain tells you to do.
And even before games, there still were people who ignored what they _should_ be doing and did what their brain signals told them instead. The village drunk or the bum living off begging are the same. They chose to go with the short term satisfaction (as in, "meh, it's better than ploughing") instead of long term planning ("but if I go plough, I'll have bread next year.")
Heck, over half the people out there are in their current job because of that. At some point they chose something like, "meh, playing prom queen / basketball jock is more immediately rewarding than learning maths", and now they flip burgers or man the gas pump instead of having a better paying job. Essentially they too did the same choice between (I) something immediately rewarding, and (II) something boring right now, but which pays off later. Or you see millions of fat people around you, because they chose the more fun activities (e.g., eating and sitting on the couch), instead of the boring and physically exerting ones (exercising and dieting.) There's no fundamental difference between that and the choice of a WoW "addict". They all essentially choose to go with the short-term rewarding things, i.e., with following the signals of that animal brain, instead of having the will power to do what they know they should be doing.
It's not a new factor. We're _wired_ like that, and have had people following their wiring for the past 200,000 years straight. All that's new is the hysteria of singling out games.
And at the end of the day, it doesn't change the fact that it's just some normal chemical reaction in the brains. Labeling it as the same thing as drug abuse only serves to obfuscate the real mechanisms and problems there.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.