Video Game Addiction: Mental Illness?

[Bojack]

Workaholics that suffer from ulcers, family trouble, etc. are great examples of your argument. But people that bury themselves in their career and come out the other side financially secure and in good health? There is nothing wrong with that. We all can go on marathon gaming sessions and come out the other end prepared to do other, more constructive things, so there is nothing wrong with that either. But someone that comes out on the other end socially inept/dead, I have a problem with that.

The difference between a job and a game however, is that a game yields false progress. Other than Second Life, where you can buy and sell virtual real estate, gaming leagues, or leveling characters on MMOs for cash, they don't give you anything to show for it. Someone can prove me wrong, but I find that to be the case. Which is fine, unless you do it too much. Just like drinking, which can be fun until you do it too much.

I don't know how many more analogies I can make here. <.< Doug just proved my point saying that MMOs are meant to be addictive, as did Greg. Sooooooo, what's the debate? I'm taking it a step further by saying that any game can be addictive, which I don't feel is so out there. Everybody keeps saying 'well what about this, or what about that? those are problems too!1!', well we aren't talking about anything else. We are talking about video game addiction, which is real. It has been real for quite some time.