Gaming addiction being added to the ICD11.

[Vanilla ISIS]

Wow, gamers sure get defensive when someone says something negative about gaming.

Now, if they combined all current media together, and called it an escapism addiction

Too much of anything is bad, why single out gaming? Or are movie and music addiction already a thing?

gaming is different than music or movies.
Those media aren't interactive. You can walk away from it and it will still play out the same way. You can do other stuff while you digest those media.
Gaming is interactive, your full participation is required so it's harder to stop a session after you've been sucked in.
Movies and music have a specific time as well. They end.
Some gaming sessions can last forever if you want them to (especially with MMOs).

Also, how many cases of people dying from listening to too much music have you heard of?
Because gaming has claimed many lives, it seems:
https://www.ranker.com/list/8-people-who-died-playing-video-games/autumn-spragg

 

[Drathnoxis]

are you the same Baffle that used to post here, just with different account for some reason, or are you a new Baffle?

I am Baffle2, spiritual son of Baffle1. Mrs B. is still with us, in our hearts. And in the chair on the other side of the room.

Oh you are the same! Why did you switch accounts then? And change the name of your old account?

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I play games because im bored. Though with the mobile games and micro transactions i can see how people can be addicted to them. Quick rewards with paying. Bit like putting money in a cash machine. I also think it depends on the game. Labelling all gaming as addictive is wrong as its only certain games that are addictive. An a percentage of those are made to be that way to make money.

 

[Chewster]

Doesn't seem that controversial, though given some of the kneejerk but sadly not entirely unpredictable responses here, you could almost be lead to believe the opposite. Relax kiddies, no one is coming to take away your precious games .

Let the psychologists sort it out, says I.

 

[Baffle]

I'm sure this is something that has been a known thing for a while. People with addictive personalities and/or problems they often feel they need to escape from can grow overly attached to, and it even distinguishes in the OP the difference between people who are just enthusiasts and the people who become enveloped in it so much so that it affects other parts of their lives to the point where those parts are marginalised to an unhealthy degree. It's supposed to be there to help those who feel they want and need it, any awareness forwards self-awareness and further ideas on how to provide help and support instead of sticking heads in the sand yet again. The gambling issue is mostly unrelated, it's best to not mix up people's ticks just for convenience.

There is no need to panic, it's not an attack an 'the gamerz' for crying out loud. I guess it was inevitable that those with a predisposition to the victim-complex nature of gg-rs would see this as specifically that. But read the damn OP first at the very least before hand-wringing into paranoid delusion.
Everything in moderation and all that. I been thinking I need to cut down this year a lot for it is a thing that has been in the mind for a while in how it feels like it's an attempt to substitute something else, and not with much success. [small] an addictive personality with other factors makes one keenly aware of the downsides of various coping mechanisms[/small]

...On uhh, what...eating people? No, salmon! Cutting back on eating salmon, yes. Low in mercury but excessive amounts can still have adverse effects. It helps that the berries are ripening earlier as well.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Wow, gamers sure get defensive when someone says something negative about gaming.

Now, if they combined all current media together, and called it an escapism addiction

Too much of anything is bad, why single out gaming? Or are movie and music addiction already a thing?

gaming is different than music or movies.
Those media aren't interactive. You can walk away from it and it will still play out the same way. You can do other stuff while you digest those media.
Gaming is interactive, your full participation is required so it's harder to stop a session after you've been sucked in.
Movies and music have a specific time as well. They end.
Some gaming sessions can last forever if you want them to (especially with MMOs).

Also, how many cases of people dying from listening to too much music have you heard of?
Because gaming has claimed many lives, it seems:
https://www.ranker.com/list/8-people-who-died-playing-video-games/autumn-spragg

If you think like that you're already no longer a gamer but an addict. To a gamer there's no difference. You get up and carry on with something else you need to do.
The problem is somewhat different. Companies creating this medium started purposely toying with abusing known addictive stimuli to get more money out of their sales. In addition, more and more started to push in enforced social media elements because these too allow to manipulate people and market to them more goods and services.

Sadly constant media ads barrage on tv, radio and intertnet indeed produces a lot of drones that will keep on consuming, sharing etc. mindlessly even at the cost of their health and livelihood.
Singling out games and gamers? Yeah, like blaming gays for population growth decline (look they don't procrate! it's a fact! it's their fault!).
It is ever 'no, no you're fine, it's all ok BUT...' justification.
Even the OP has the same dichotomy. Yeah we're setting this up just in case people who might have a problem would have a classification. Yeah we know this will be abused to harass innocent people BUT... you know just trust us, ok? Well how about a no and identify and classify actual source of the problem instead of singling out people's preferences as potential indicative source...
I can help, start with investigating Activision, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. Look at mmos market, look at mobile free-games market. Last I checked there were no instances of people killing themselves or liquidating all of their property to support their drive of playing Witcher 3... You know, an actual GAME not one of Skinner box traps sold as video games.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Oh good lord, it's the gaming equivalent of gambling addiction, not an attack on video games.

Fuck's sake, get a grip.

 

[Kyrian007]

This could be a good thing. An official designation could help out if say...

An 'addicted' gamer spends a ruinous amount of money on lootboxes for a game. Then the gamer or their family lawyers up and sues the publisher of the game for exploiting addiction for profit. The decision reimburses the gamer plus legal fees and damages...

And suddenly lootboxes are poison to publishers. At that point anyone who buys a lootbox could just purposfully overspend and get all their money back plus more. It would quickly be no longer profitable. And lootboxes die without anyone having to legislate anything. Publishers will move on to some other exploitative scheme to profit off of their 'whales and dolphins...' but short term, win-win, lootboxes die.

Of course the "official" designation isn't necessary in this scenario, but it would be a good tool for a lawyer to use in making the case. Maybe this could expand to in-game currencies and any gambling model. Maybe some good could come from this.

 

[Baffle]

Oh you are the same! Why did you switch accounts then? And change the name of your old account?

I just forgot the password to the old account and haven't the faintest idea what email address I signed up with, probably not one I use any more. I fancied a change of name, then realised I'd made a terrible mistake. Like the helicopter scene in Kong: Skull Island.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Oh good lord, it's the gaming equivalent of gambling addiction, not an attack on video games.

Fuck's sake, get a grip.

My favorite one in this thread is a comparison to the systematic discrimination and oppression of LGBTs throughout the centuries, as if that and this are in any way equivalent.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Oh good lord, it's the gaming equivalent of gambling addiction, not an attack on video games.

Fuck's sake, get a grip.

My favorite one in this thread is a comparison to the systematic discrimination and oppression of LGBTs throughout the centuries, as if that and this are in any way equivalent.

That's a good joke mate. Throoooughout centuries! Piiiigs in spaaaace! Oooopressiooooon!

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

This could be a good thing. An official designation could help out if say...

An 'addicted' gamer spends a ruinous amount of money on lootboxes for a game. Then the gamer or their family lawyers up and sues the publisher of the game for exploiting addiction for profit. The decision reimburses the gamer plus legal fees and damages...

And suddenly lootboxes are poison to publishers. At that point anyone who buys a lootbox could just purposfully overspend and get all their money back plus more. It would quickly be no longer profitable. And lootboxes die without anyone having to legislate anything. Publishers will move on to some other exploitative scheme to profit off of their 'whales and dolphins...' but short term, win-win, lootboxes die.

Of course the "official" designation isn't necessary in this scenario, but it would be a good tool for a lawyer to use in making the case. Maybe this could expand to in-game currencies and any gambling model. Maybe some good could come from this.

It would be a great thing if that wasn't approached backwards. It will just be used to deflect with well he knew what he was doing when he went into gaming. That is classified even as separate ICD by WHO. Other words it will bolster predatory practices not shelter from them.

Had they actually added various stimuli used in sales schemes, marketing, social media based customer base engineering etc. as a risk and point that even risk averse people may have their mental health eroded to a point where they become addicted to whatever medium is used to push it through to them it would be a good start for legislators to use that as justification for regulations, access restriction, proper customer / consumer precaution information etc.

Right now they came to glorious conclusion that some people drinking liquids are getting drunk and their recommendation is to put drinking liquids as source of getting drunk. With an advice that we should be wary of people drinking a lot, cause you know they could be these damn drunkards or well just someone who is thirsty cause he does a lot of running daily. But hey potential honest mistakes may happen. It's not like we can tell exactly what is the cause here, right?
Great for producers pushing booze (they can use it to alleviate all responsibility), not so much for these selling non-alcoholic beverages.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Oh good lord, it's the gaming equivalent of gambling addiction, not an attack on video games.

Fuck's sake, get a grip.

My favorite one in this thread is a comparison to the systematic discrimination and oppression of LGBTs throughout the centuries, as if that and this are in any way equivalent.

That's a good joke mate. Throoooughout centuries! Piiiigs in spaaaace! Oooopressiooooon!

You're quite right, LGBTs have never suffered any harm just for being what they are and distasteful and discriminatory justifications have never been made for it.

You have also never alluded to that, nor made any veiled comparisons to it.

Yeah... sounds like 'we're not saying that gay sex is bad but it's just not natural and produces no offsprings, that's why we have it on ICD list. Now shut up and let us shock you with 220 volts until you are cured out of your compulsive anus addiction that ruins future of our society!'

Singling out games and gamers? Yeah, like blaming gays for population growth decline (look they don't procrate! it's a fact! it's their fault!).
It is ever 'no, no you're fine, it's all ok BUT...' justification.
Even the OP has the same dichotomy. Yeah we're setting this up just in case people who might have a problem would have a classification. Yeah we know this will be abused to harass innocent people BUT... you know just trust us, ok?

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I would appreciate it if the usual suspects could manage to refrain from victim-blaming gamers and stay on the topic of what makes "gaming addiction" so special that it needs to be singled out from other forms of gambling addictions?

Gaming has been used since it's beginnings as a scaremongering tactic, blamed for causing murders and rapes, school shootings and satanism. The next shift was to blame gaming for being sexist, reinforcing the "systemic patriarchy", racist and "transphobic". That the topic has now shifted to gaming causing addiction is just more insidious, because it doesn't require pointing out specific games AND it is "official", since it is backed up by the word of PhD's.

Identifying the vectors capitalistic entities use to feed the reward-center for profit and turning gamers into whales would be getting us closer to ending these practices instead.
Comparing those same vectors and finding the common traits with other pleasure-seeking and reckless behaviors would allow us to home in on the altered brain area and certain effects that are taken advantage off.
If the area is a natural, evolutionary, way to reward otherwise good behavior and progress, then the solution would be to nail the companies taking advantage of it.

I wouldn't say that some people are born rotten though, just with the propensity to lean to and act in certain ways.
You never call tell what someone are capable of until they go through with it, and screening or medicating everyone is both unfeasible and incredibly authoritarian.

 

[Baffle]

I really did not see this turning into an oppression olympics entry. Which was foolish of me, in retrospect.

Never have so few carried so many chips on their shoulders on behalf of so many, so unnecessarily.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Oh good lord, it's the gaming equivalent of gambling addiction, not an attack on video games.

Fuck's sake, get a grip.

My favorite one in this thread is a comparison to the systematic discrimination and oppression of LGBTs throughout the centuries, as if that and this are in any way equivalent.

That's a good joke mate. Throoooughout centuries! Piiiigs in spaaaace! Oooopressiooooon!

You're quite right, LGBTs have never suffered any harm just for being what they are and distasteful and discriminatory justifications have never been made for it.

You have also never alluded to that, nor made any veiled comparisons to it.

Yeah... sounds like 'we're not saying that gay sex is bad but it's just not natural and produces no offsprings, that's why we have it on ICD list. Now shut up and let us shock you with 220 volts until you are cured out of your compulsive anus addiction that ruins future of our society!'

Singling out games and gamers? Yeah, like blaming gays for population growth decline (look they don't procrate! it's a fact! it's their fault!).
It is ever 'no, no you're fine, it's all ok BUT...' justification.
Even the OP has the same dichotomy. Yeah we're setting this up just in case people who might have a problem would have a classification. Yeah we know this will be abused to harass innocent people BUT... you know just trust us, ok?

Wake up and stop being narrow minded label reader. I made exact comparison to exact fallacious resoning used against gays by the very same organisation in the past. Point were, just quoting related facts about something doesn't justify drawn conclusion or measures an institution proposes.

Yet you act like a zealot. Oh no someone mentioned gays without mandatory ceremony approved by my tribe, better do something about it.
You have a better example of WHO using preference of group of people to drive their classification of disease/disorder than this one? Shoot. I'll use it if this one hurts your feelings.

And I made fun of your, self-centered lamentation because no, anglo-saxon purytanism was not prevalent 'throughout the centuries'. It was pretty recent development and it died pretty fast (in the scope of human history) as it should. Too bad that N Amreica countries were built with it as their foundation but no, rest of the world is not gonna cry about it forever. Most countries (surprisingly eg. Poland) have never had 'systematic discrimination and oppression of LGBTs'. Throughout human history, that has been either accepted like in ancient era, treated like something exotic or ignored as something marginal, peculiar and not core to any large community (which scope's been survival and development). Unless you start to classify being ridiculed as being opressed. But then all I can offer to you is, welcome to Earth.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Waaaaah, they said something related to gaming that's negative. They're attacking me personally. No you don't get it, gaming is perfectly pure with no issues what so ever. I just want to play games. I just wanna vidya. Leave me alone.

Seriously guys, I saw this and thought "Eh, probably for the best." I've seen and read some real horror stories of what gaming addiction can do. Hell, a great example was when James from EC did a multi part video on how it affected him. I've been fortunate enough that it doesn't impact me, but it'd be pretty selfish to pretend that therefore everyone elses experiences are the same as mine.

To some gaming addiction can be a real life destroying activity, much in the same way gambling addiction can be. And given how our games are becoming increasingly monetized in a predatory fashion, it's probably worth actually taking note of it.

Also, to all those questioning their methodology. Sure, you, a person who found out about it today and have no experience in the field have absolutely got it right, and that they are wrong from the very beginning, because you know so much about how the ICD works, and how they classify things. If you want to do some research and actually find real issues in their methodology as opposed to vague "This sounds wrong to me I think" then sure, but otherwise you're guessing on a topic you have 0 understanding of.

 

[Kyrian007]

This could be a good thing. An official designation could help out if say...

An 'addicted' gamer spends a ruinous amount of money on lootboxes for a game. Then the gamer or their family lawyers up and sues the publisher of the game for exploiting addiction for profit. The decision reimburses the gamer plus legal fees and damages...

And suddenly lootboxes are poison to publishers. At that point anyone who buys a lootbox could just purposfully overspend and get all their money back plus more. It would quickly be no longer profitable. And lootboxes die without anyone having to legislate anything. Publishers will move on to some other exploitative scheme to profit off of their 'whales and dolphins...' but short term, win-win, lootboxes die.

Of course the "official" designation isn't necessary in this scenario, but it would be a good tool for a lawyer to use in making the case. Maybe this could expand to in-game currencies and any gambling model. Maybe some good could come from this.

It would be a great thing if that wasn't approached backwards. It will just be used to deflect with well he knew what he was doing when he went into gaming. That is classified even as separate ICD by WHO. Other words it will bolster predatory practices not shelter from them.

Had they actually added various stimuli used in sales schemes, marketing, social media based customer base engineering etc. as a risk and point that even risk averse people may have their mental health eroded to a point where they become addicted to whatever medium is used to push it through to them it would be a good start for legislators to use that as justification for regulations, access restriction, proper customer / consumer precaution information etc.

Right now they came to glorious conclusion that some people drinking liquids are getting drunk and their recommendation is to put drinking liquids as source of getting drunk. With an advice that we should be wary of people drinking a lot, cause you know they could be these damn drunkards or well just someone who is thirsty cause he does a lot of running daily. But hey potential honest mistakes may happen. It's not like we can tell exactly what is the cause here, right?
Great for producers pushing booze (they can use it to alleviate all responsibility), not so much for these selling non-alcoholic beverages.

It would all come down to the skill of the lawyers on either side. Admittedly a publisher will likely be able to afford the better one. And jurisdiction would play a part, they would have to try and keep the case out of that one court in Texas that corporations keep buying parks and civic projects for because juries there are pro-corporation. So yes, the publishers would have the advantage. Still you don't know until you try.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

It would all come down to the skill of the lawyers on either side. Admittedly a publisher will likely be able to afford the better one. And jurisdiction would play a part, they would have to try and keep the case out of that one court in Texas that corporations keep buying parks and civic projects for because juries there are pro-corporation. So yes, the publishers would have the advantage. Still you don't know until you try.

Yeah, it's a prelude, an actual outcome has yet to be seen. I don't get my hopes up for it though. Quite the contrary as you probably can easily tell.

 

[Mothro]

Why is gaming still being demonized in 2018?

..because people would rather be gaming than doing other traditional things that keep society going?

I see this as an attempt to get people back where (some think) they belong, working themselves to death.