these guys deal with gaming addiction

http://www.wowdetox.com/

so you may be asking yourself what exactly gaming addiction is? some people like to liken MMO's to a drug. to me this approach is wrong. the truth is the abuse of something that is originally designed to be fun, and later can become more sinister. its the way you abuse yourself whilst you play the game. how many hours do you force yourself through before you allow yourself a break. the truth is that nobody should be sitting on a game for hours and hours for consecutive days. there's too many things to do in life to force yourself to do way too much of one thing.

another thing to remember is there's alot of people out there who like to get "nerdy" about things. that means they look for hidden meanings, perhaps they weave it into their identity, so that tey no longer play WoW, but they ARE a WoW player now. they identify as a person as a participant in the persistant online world of Azeroth. some people try to say the quest design is addictive. or the addition of rare items. these are just game mechanics to create an interesting world to play in. the problem is not the game, but the player. players abuse themselves and perhaps dont have enough information out there for the potential for abuse in these games. perhaps too many hours indoors, also perhaps isolating oneself from REAL people whilst playing around in EQ or WoW.

Its about finding a balance. play less hardcore. dont get way into a deep hardcore raiding guild. you should start to look at these so-called hardcore guilds as houses for addiction. also, the group game should be seen as the main draw. the raid game is more the bastion of the addicts. it gets updated alot because addicts move through content fast. but they stay with it for the long haul if they keep getting their new content. so Blizzard, Sony & the rest of the gang churns out material for them to play in. this gives them reason to go to their nightly raid, held-too-long and perhaps with people who aren't quite functional.

my intersection with gaming was a positive and necessary one. i was in a hostile household and a hostile town. my only way to be myself was pc, tv, and music. through the tv i got video games, dvd's, tv shows (dvr'd) and through the pc games, reading material, things to watch & listen to. then through the pc games i got guilds, interaction with other people, strategy, lore storylines loosely based on real life folklore, the challenge of learning an in depth class, something to occupy my mind and keep me sharp whilst i was at home doing nothing, and these sorts. for me, EQ helped me get through my friends death. i felt badly about it and EQ gave me a positive place to be and people to interact with. the task at hand of completing the content of the day and moving along to bigger & better things was a great way to keep my mind working but not in negative ways.

eventually i learned a great deal about people, about leadership, about teamwork, about being humble enough to work with somebody. how ot help people, how to support people, and where to go if you felt down yourself.

i feel like i should toss out there that OCD people probably could have a field day with WoW. lots of fast clicks, ways ot sit there and just satisfy your need for twitch-gaming. the idea is that gaming as a twitch puts pressure on you. that pressure can be addictive & also harmful. this is the core of gaming addiction's potential destructive ability. people get sucked in and basically dont have any chance to stop. everyone needs help sometimes, and as children we need the view of an adult to give us the counterpoint to make the informed decision. children aren't informed and can't make such decisions. an adult world will often overwhelm children. gaming is part of that adult world. it takes an adult mind to play these games the way they were meant to be played.

i sould emphasize the need for many people to scapegoat something as THE CAUSE, that which deserved to be blamed, and perhaps even to be made ashamed. but i view these attempts and activeities as wrong, harmful, abusive, hateful, and destroying the peace. this is a grievance in and of itself and should be policed against, perhaps by oneself. the point is harming the harmer doesnt help the victim and instead makes a victim of the harmer. shock tactics are never desirable, paramount to applying pressure to blanket innocent poulations for merely the satisfaction of a lone mans whim. its tyrannical and destructive and shouldn't be allowed and people shouldn't stand by idly while its dont. we see it all too often, anytime something bad happens to a gamer ( perhaps the worst word for someone who spends some of their living-time playing games ) that those who don't game immediately point to the factors in their life that seem immediately apparent and different: it's the games! witch-hunt tactics trying to point the finger of blame find a target of shame and notoriety, something that deserves to haveits head hang low and be immersed in a pool of blackness for their terrible deeds. thats essentially the point of view of a person whose trying to just admit somethiing to a club of shame. shame itself is a useless thing, but many people dont realize this. it causes pain and doesnt solve problems, so these folks thinking shame is the right thing, well shame is just a veiled eye for an eye, so these people are more or less going to the ancient and bloody way of the world to solve their grievance with this game company or perhaps industry; certainly are not going through the established modern and current means to pursue justice.