gaming addiction

1st

hmmmm wasn't really that entertaining.

i don't play nearly as much as i used to back in the days of no school/uni/job.

now i have uni, 2 jobs, 3rd if you include the girlfriend and the girlfriend that doesn't really know the full extent of my gaming.

Spare time ? I need to practice practice practice

cant read gotta play a 3v3

2long2read need to play QL

no spare time for me, i have to win the internetz

it's mostly about WoW-nerds I asume? I see FPS gamers everywere, but you'll never find a WoW player in real life.

computers only leads to a close sociaty

Also, in online games the social aspect plays a great role. You usuaully will get to know people and start to see them as friends. Together with the human nature of wanting to be socially accepted you will feel pressurized or you feel good if you spend more time with those people.

Besides that, everytime you play a cool game for the first time you get an adrenaline rush of the excitement, everythings new, you want to play it, learn it and do that the whole day. After that first rush of excitement about the game is gone, most people still go on and on to greater lenghts to achieve that first adrenaline rush of excitement again, while that's almost not possible.
Thanks to those things most people stay hooked and play more more, at least, so have I seen in my own enviroment (including my own life)

Fable 2 !!! I want it <3

"[..] I would trawl forums looking for the next nugget of information, or read 40-page online guides that contained little more than I knew already."

Quite ironic seeing as I just read through your 870 word article without being told anything I didn't already know.

This 'issue' isn't just for gamers, any and everything has addictive qualities to it in the right hands. Societies (especially a city) cater for unhealthy lifestyles under the guise of giving customers 'freedom'. If I'm an insomniac it doesn't matter, I can go to the 24-hour shop and get my food. I become increasingly unsociable and games become a window to satisfy any desire for social interaction. If you're still in education then you're more or less likely to be troubled about missing classes and work.

Just for reference though, you're more likely to be terminally addicted to an FPS since there's no 'route' for achievement or advancement unlike in most RTS and MMORPG's. You could be playing hours every day and still be shit, whereas in WoW you'd be a level 70 and have some relative achievement and power over other players.

I can still remember the time when a college tutor challenged me when she heard I was playing ET' 70 hours a week.