my life is awesome.  i am turning 30 in 9 nine days, i am engaged to a wonderful woman, my diet is phenomemal and fun, i have a fufilling exercise routine,  i am half way through a 3 year registered massage therapy college course with several employment connections already lined up.  i just bought a cabin in the woods 45 minutes from downtown over looking an ocean inlet and mountains beyond.

when i started playing MMO's (2001? i think) i was overweight, a smoker, a constant pot head, i had an abusive girlfriend, a terrible job in a cramped kitchen as a minimum wage prep cook, no concern about my diet of health, no direction or any hope of making into post secondary education.

life never stops changing.  my love of MMO's was never escapism, nor is it now.  it is a perfectly legitimate form of human relation and competition.  life is to be enjoyed, and MMO's will be as healthy as the players are.

if i could make any request of the community, in terms of player health and wellness, it would be to begin making a concerted effort to start treating eachother with more candor and respect.  Solidarity and partnership is what we owe eachother, not the usual pseudo intellectualized contempt we reserve for every and anyone who disagrees with or questions us. 

I am as guilty as anyone treating people like slugs when they challenge me, but i am wrong to do so.  i am thankful for all of you and for the community you support, in anyway you are able to.

Great article. 

I make MMOs for a living and I love them and all other games.  Are games an addiction?  Well I can tell you that having designed an items system I designed it with addiction in mind. 

I often jokingly say my job is to "design Skinnerian reward scheduling to manipulate humens for

Great article. 

I make MMOs for a living and I love them and all other games.  Are games an addiction?  Well I can tell you that having designed an items system I designed it with addiction in mind. 

I often jokingly say my job is to "design Skinnerian reward scheduling to manipulate humens for finacial gain.

Ask yourself,  Have you ever gone on a quest not because it was fun, not to hang out with a freinds, but only to get an item?  if so you where at least momentaraly addicted to artifical advancment and manipulated by Skinnerian reward scheduling.

On the other side of things I enjoy getting items in games but I think their is a line crossed.  If you take the item rewards out of a game is it still worth playing?  If not you have a game designed purly to addict the players.

I love MMOs, RPGs, and other games.  I have no problem with great games including addictive systems but think some games today are designed purly to addict the player.  Lets recognize these games and stay away!

I think we should take the advice of the article.  Lets stay hardcore and play games while we are having fun, but stop when we are not.  Lets keep in shape, keep our heart pumping, and feed the kids.  Kids need food too.

I know, I want to make the retirement home, think of all those good years of uninterupted gaming!  Lets stay healthy for our golden years of gaming ;)

(Sorry About double post 2nd half got cut and I don't know how to delete :) )

This reminds me of the article I read about Europe's first treatment facility dedicated to treating and studying Gaming and internet addiction. This was after the place was open 2 or 3 years, had treated tonnes of people and had a backlog of patients over a year deep.

The interviewer talking to one of the lead psychologists asked about their success rate.

The Psychologist gave highly positve numbers in percent successfully rehabilitated, as far as he could tell.

The interviewer, who had set up this interview as the opposing side to some big game news a fellow reporter was reporting on then asked a loaded question: How many intakes were genuine addicts to gaming.

The Psychologist answered "not a single one, all suffered either OCD, Impulse control, pathological shyness, or some other issue." but they had not  found a single addict.

Shortly afterwards the website of the treatment centre explained this but lost so many customers that couldn't tell the difference and were convinced that their loved one was an addict, that they had to go back to reffering to them as addicts both for their bottom line and the good of the patients that were not getting the help they needed.