Originally posted by LachyFTW
Dyeing your hair blue could be another one.

Anime? Maybe this would make sense. Video mames? No.

Punk music. Yes.

Originally posted by Pokket

Originally posted by LachyFTW
Dyeing your hair blue could be another one.

Anime? Maybe this would make sense. Video mames? No.

 

Punk music. Yes.

I'm a bit lost in the 'indie' humour.. Was that a typo or some kind of awkward "bend" at Video "games"?

I'm not getting it..

EDIT: Oh wait, as to have been emulating a video game? Ohh.. Like the anime girls in video games, or the constant strange blue hair color choice we have in so many mmo's.. Oh, I think I get it..

I have actually tried to dream about a  game but have never been able to. Been playing since the old BBS days, before UO came out. Always wanted to have a  UO dream lol.

My first "mood swing" came  from UO.  Friends and I pitched in all our  gold to buy a small house and form  a guild. I got scammed out  of the small house and  ended up with a rune to a  tiny isle lol. I felt so sad and guilty that I spent $300 real dollars buying a  replacement house hehe.  I had never dreamed of anyone  scamming until  then :)

Sadly, that first scam also changed the way I interact with ingame  folks forever. Always leary when it  comes to unsecured trades, sharing  emails...etc. I did  get my revenge after a couple  years of being the scammers best pk buddy...but that's a long story.

Looks like if you're passionate about something these days, you're "addicted" to it.

Too bad, and I thought facebook gaming made gaming in general a more acceptable form of entertainment.

11. You become depressed when there are no good games to play

Honestly this is one of the worst symptoms I have noticed in myself. My mood swings related to quality and interest for a games i am playing. If i dont have nothing to play at given period I become depressed.

7 - Might have been an issue when I was new to mmorpgs and the whole social aspect. Not so much these days.

6 - That would only happen if I was playing in US prime schedule (I'm EU based). Most mmorpgs are region segregated these days with very few exceptions (apart from EVE and TSW I can't think of any other atm).

5 - Actually mmorpgs are money savers. My steam spending grows bigger when I'm in an mmorpg transition phase.

4 - That's true for any competitive activity though, won't you say? I'm talking about feeling bad about the loss etc, I've never raged about a loss nor I know of anyone that did.

3 - Haven't lost my job even on my heavy early Lineage 2 days with 1-3 hours sleep and 10 hours gaming along with 8-10 hours of work. Of course I couldn't keep that up for long, eventually I grew so tired that I switched to more relaxed games.

2 - I've lost more friends after they got married (what's with all the married people disappear from the radar after the act?) than gaming. Maybe if one day I'll do it myself I'll understand, haha.

1 - I don't understand this. Games can certainly become an escape, a haven, a place where we can be what we can't be IRL. To actually become reality though? Well, the first Matrix movie could apply, but in that case I wouldn't blame people picking either pill.

Anyway ... why so serious? hehe

Not too bad, only saw one of those in myself, and it didn't result in my wife leaving me so I guess I'm OK.

I used to play a lot more back in my early MMO years, but not so much these days, mostly because I traded game playing for 12 hour work days. 

and to not let it become our second life

I see what you did there.

Originally posted by Pokket

Originally posted by LachyFTW
Dyeing your hair blue could be another one.

Anime? Maybe this would make sense. Video mames? No.

 

Punk music. Yes.

Misfits!!

Originally posted by Betaguy
I called into work the last two days so I could stay home and play Skyrim V. Was a nice relaxing time...oh and I am deffienently addicted to video games.  I have lost jobs, spouses, money, everything to video games. Hey! I am happy though.

You know, there is varying levels of addiction as well.

1) You can have a very strong attachment to something, not wanting to let it go at the cost of your social life. It can have impacts on varying degrees of your life, but ultimately you still maintain control.

2) Then there are guys like this. You let it control your life, and you prioritize it above all aspects of your life, wherein it starts to affect not only your own, but those around you as well. Your day to day life starts deteriorating, and without some kind of help, you probably wouldn't be able to support yourself. (ie: living with parents)

Number one is merely a lifestyle choice in my opinion. I've long since given up games, but I come here often to scan articles and things because gaming was a large part of my life. And it may one day be again. At least with nuber one you can still be a part of society, even if its a reclusive part.

Number two on the other hand, you are a social outcast. You think only of yourself eventually, most of the time spending your days wallowing in self-pity, the little time you spend not gaming, wondering how you got where you are. You blindly immerse yourself in video games to escape reality, rather than trying to do something to fix it. These kind of people rationalize what they are doing, siting that they could be out doing drugs, or drinking, etc, rather than playing video games, which is "better". What they don't realize, is that their lives are getting destroyed just the same as if they were out doing something illegal. These are the people that need someone to step into their lives and jerk them back to reality.

Why do I know so much? I was #2 for a year and a half until my g/f (who was also a heavy gamer) snapped me back to reality. I still played video games for years afterwards, and it was kind of a gradual downslope as I slowly played them less and less, but eventually I stopped playing completely because I realized something important.

Games are great for entertainment. You can't let entertainment control your life, there is a lot more to life than that. Its fun every now and then, but shouldn't take up the majority of your waking hours.

Reality: All activity that causes the release of Dopamine (the body's reward hormone), can become an addiction.

Wether or not you become addicted depends largely on how reward driven you are. ie, how much dopamine activity is required for continual action.

How this addiction affects you socially is very dependant on how much the other actions in your life reward you.

Originally posted by halflife25

Originally posted by Mors.Magne
Technically, computer games are more of an escapism than an addiction (addiction normally requires a psychoactive drug). Nevertheless, serious consequences are very possible with computer games, so I'm not belittling this issue.

People are also addicted to gambling. So nope one doesn't need to be on some ^sychoactive drug.

Gaming addiction is serious issue. I have been through this when i was in college. Now i have much better control of my life and gaming hours.

With gambling, shopping, etc there IS a psychoactive drug invovled, it is just made inside the body of the addicted individual.

Gaming addicition is a problem if it gets in the way of doing RL work, etc.