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‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

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Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#151
I once had this problem. Especially when I used to work from home. The game was one click away from being opened. I used to play around 6 hours per day on weekdays and the whole day on weekends. I had to do treatment to get rid of the addiction, I really don't know how I didn't lose my job at that time. Although I ended up replacing it with other kinds of addictions, these new additions are way more subtle than the gaming and easy to manage.

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#153

This is made worse in my mind for games that are essentially single-player yet have some sort of online element that means you cant just hit pause or save & exit whenever you want. You have to keep on going for longer than you want until it is "safe" for you to stop. In the old days you could just exit out to the pause menu or save so you could go to the toilet or answer the phone or talk to your family and your in-g…

There are tens of thousands of games you could be playing, and only a fraction of single-player games have anything like this. If you don't like the small fraction that do, choose other games. I can't even think of any single-player game off the top of my head that I can't pause or save and quit progress at any time.

I think the only ones like that are the Dark Souls series. But I wonder if they'll add pause to the Switch version since it's a mobile version.

Every game in the 3DS pauses when the player closes the lid. It should be the same with the Switch.

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tens of thousands of games you could be playing, and only a fraction of single-player games have anything like this. If you don't like the small fraction that do, choose other games. I can't even think of any single-player game off the top of my head that I can't pause or save and quit progress at any time.

I think the only ones like that are the Dark Souls series. But I wonder if they'll add pause to the Switch version since it's a mobile version. Every game in the 3DS pauses when the player closes the lid. It should be the same with the Switch.

If you try to close your switch it will break.

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people that spend most of their available hours staring at screens of graphs while trading various tokens in order to achieve the highest score... but of course we call them professionals not addicts.

There are people that spend most of their available hours playing video games against other players to get the most kills, wins, ... but of course we call them esports athletes. For some people it's a job that generates income for others it's an addiction that impairs proper functioning.

This seems to be the point of the issue.

What I heard on the radio was "do you lose your job, lose your wife/family, yet continue to play?"

So what about the case where playing the game IS your job (which is a growing field?) What about the case where your wife/family is playing it with you?

I'm not denying there might be some underlying destructive problem, but to my layman ears it sounds more like something someone is interested in that contradicts what another believes to be "properly functional."

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#156
PSA: Playstation has a 'Family Management' feature where you can limit game time played on sub-accounts. You can set time limits per day and the action to take like auto-logout. It reminds the player as they get closer to being out of time.

I don't think we know the effects of modern video games on younger (aka developing) minds yet. Many of these games hire psychologists [0] to help engineer game play to keep people wanting to play because if they get bored and move onto another game it could be a loss. I don't think old school games like Zelda or Mario were engineered this way.

Think about a game like Tic-Tac-Toe and how after a certain age it becomes boring. Now add leaderboards, points for certain types of wins, customizable X's and O's, customizable game boards, avatars, seasons, etc. The game is the same but now you have multiple games encompassing the game of popular 'skins', points, 1-upping competitors, etc.

[0]http://theconversation.com/the-business-of-addiction-how-the...

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any examples of games like this? I know there are singleplayer games that require you to be online even when playing solo(i.e. Diablo 3), but when you're solo, you can still pause the game. Curious to know what developers don't allow such actions.

Elite Dangerous and Rust are two particular examples I had in mind when writing this.

both are actual multiplayer games, so it doesn't match parent's description

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're single-player in that you play on your own, but you play on your own with a lot of other people playing on their own. So you could be on a server doing your own thing, and if you see another character whilst playing, that could be a human person doing their own thing, or it could be a NPC doing their own thing (but with the option of interacting with other human players - chat/trade/fighting etc) It is essent…

Let's say your in a game with PVP, are you saying you should just be able to "safely despawn" to avoid a fight that you think you're going to lose? Just because you personally have a problem with the way some games work doesn't mean every single game designer needs to shape their programs to your preference. If you don't like it, play a different game.

> If you don't like it, play a different game.

It's not that I hate it or the developers for implementing the mechanic. It's that it's not always conducive to a person in a relationship or with children. You can always dismiss the person as the problem by telling them to play something else, but clearly those people don't want to play something else.

We understand why (in some cases) you can't just quit at any time. Like you said, that means someone can avoid a PvP fight or a lopsided ranked match by disconnecting without repercussion. It sucks sometimes when you can't help but disconnect at the drop of a hat, and I don't necessarily think that those types of mechanics are the fault of the developers.

For example, I was playing a ranked match when my partner fell ill. They were making it fine for a while, but I was asking if we should go to urgent care. They flip-flopped multiple times on going over the course of 10 minutes. Then I plainly asked, "Do you definitely think that you need to go? I don't mind disconnecting to take care of you, but if I do and you decline, I'll get penalized for no reason." It makes sense that I would incur a penalty for dropping the match, but it still sucks.

The point is that if the developing company can find a way for quick disconnect that doesn't interrupt the spirit of gameplay, it would be a boon for a lot of players. I know that competitive/ranked modes are pretty much off limits for me during most of my play time, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to play against people who are trying their best.

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think most people would advise "calling out" as an effective modality for approaching addicts in general.

Good point. But I think the reactions are pretty telling that there is a real problem.

Don’t draw conclusions about peoples aggregate behavior based on comment threads. I don’t disagree that this topic touches a nerve for some people, but those people are garunteed to be over-represented here.
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