I’ll start with myself.

I played games casually until I got into a wolfenstein clan – pretty soon after that I was spending 3-4 hours on most evenings involved in gaming (playing, on irc, forums etc).

This only lasted a few months until it got so bad my only escape was to quit my job & go back to college. This got me away from the internet & gaming for quite a while – just recently Im online again but not actually playing anymore.

I don’t regret any of it tho, I LOVE gaming & the community aspect. I always will.

But I just couldn’t help feeling guilty when I began to prioritise trivial online problems over real life.

no, but i've quit drug habits thanks to being distracted by computer games.

it's how i quit smoking when i'm feeling healthy, etc.

how is this supposed to fit into a film? shouldn't this kinda of subject best be addressed by a documentary?

wow , games makes me likes drugs more and more... :(

Nowdays I don't think games themself are addictive, but the community, happenings, mandatory praccs and training and the will to achieve something are...

15-20 years back people got addicted to play alone on some console, almost like a compulsive disorder of some kind though, but that has changed imo....

I don't know if I am addicted to gaming or if it has just become a part of my everyday life. I think that, at least in my case, it's the second situation.

It's like being used to rice and beans everyday in lunch. And if someday you don't get these 2 things, it's different for you, maybe even uncomfortable. The lack of rice and beans won't kill a person, as long as he gets something else to eat.

If I don't play games for a certain period of time, I of course miss it. But I won't die because of the lack of gaming. I just need something else to be distracted with.

Now also don't get me wrong. I do like to play games. It's not just something I do to kill time. I guess I learned how to balance things. Or maybe the fact that I own a TNT2 which doesn't allow me to play some games and, in the games I manage to run in my PC, the FPS are terrible, that helped me to get rid of the addiction. Who knows? ;\

you need to find a ballance between gaming and real life

i spend alot of time on the PC at night maybe from 3:30 - 6:00 or even later, sometimes i go out n come in at 10 or sommet and go on for couple of hours,
you just gotta find a ballance as ive said,
to many people play to much all the time 24/7 and dont ever actually get good some of this could be because you have problems in your life or something and you result to just sitting on ur pc all day this is wrong
All my friends and family know about my gaming and support me, my friends ripp piss ocassionaly but there not perfect try and pick something out about them thats gay or what ever rest of your mates might think is gay
but there mature and know its what i wanna do

gaming isnt a way of life its something to enjoy in your life wherther you win or lose dont really matter , people say fun comes with winning but i tend to enjoy learning a game watching demos etc learning about different gaming communitys

You should really use more punctuation ;)

Gaming is an addiction that, in my opinion, is quite easy to break free of.

Simply uninstall the game and find at least 1 friend to hang out with during that time

*

Uhm. I found myself addicted to Fallout 2, Max Payne, Full Throttle and CS (Yeah, I was one of those idiot kids addicted to CS a long time ago in a galaxy far away. nowadays I'm just a simple idiot kid).

But I don't know if it's really an addiction. I mean, after you finish the game, it's all over.

mmmm fallout2

You know what they say: War never changes, dude. :)

~~oh give me, a kiss to build a dream on
~~and my imagination, will make that moment live

great game ! i'd like to play it as a fps. hope stalker will come close to this.

I think I'm addicted to gaming, or at least the competitive aspect of it.

I don't think this is a bad thing though, it's really helped temper my competitive nature when I deal with other people - I don't get into arguments as often, and when I do, I don't aim to make the other guy feel bad about it.

I've given up before - I can't play a game for too long without being bored, and frequently have month or two breaks. The problem is that I don't have a great deal else to do with the time, so I ended up spending much more money getting drunk with friends instead (which I'd rather do in moderation than four times a week).

I reckon it wouldn't be impossible to give it up completely, but I'd need something to replace it with. And I wouldn't really want to, I have met so many good friends via playing games, I've kept out of trouble by and large, and it entertains me far better than TV, most people's substitute.

It's also indirectly helped me develop my writing skills, woefully absent from this comma infested post.

someone mentioned monkey island! LUCASARTS OWNS MY SOUL! i NEED REHAB!!!!

it's been over 10 years and they monkey STILL HAS ME!

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP

You never forget your first monkeh :>

I think its addicting

i use to sneak out of the house to play computer games at lans... although i would say im very good. I havent won anything of real value in the last 3 years of my life playing them exept for respect.

respect is what i think the core "addiction" factor is. Thats waht keeps people coming back really in my opinion... If no one ever saw you play or knew who you where would you really want to play online games? I would not :/

i also think that talking on irc and conversing on the internet in general when your younger takes away from your real life social skillz. High school is the social incubator of any young persons life. if you spend all that time playing a computer game and talking to people online more then the people in real life. you begin to feel more comfortable around the electronic friends because you can relate to them more. (there like you...). I think this begins to hurt you.

shy around people... girls especially (from a guys point of view. im not a chick so i wouldnt know about chicks). And i find that most people who start at an early age some times suffer grade wise. cause they want to play ALL the time.

Also on a last note i think the bad grades are due to laziness because all they want to do is play computer games... since most of the people i talk to say that the school work is fairly easy ... it just takes time.

after a hard 3 years... im starting to gain what i lost during those years, but its a very slow process for me. soon ill probably have it down :P But if any one asked me if i would go back with the knowledge i have now. Yes id start over and do it differently... not only do i think i would have had a better more forfilling life in highschool i prolly would have been one of the best gamers on the planet.

if your young and you play games... do more then just play games :/ try to be social and enjoy life to the fullest. it will pay off.

Ofcourse gaming is addictive.. :)

Ill write a few lines about me and my life with gaming..

This extreme amount of gaming started out when i got my first "0wnage computer". I could play Quake 3, Cstrike and everything without any problems. I also got cable broadband. I had som trouble in school, and the computer was a great escape from reality.

I laid my hand on Diablo 2 and that was a seriously bad mistake.. My problems in school were less then before, had some friends and I'd jsut began drinking, partying etc like anyone else :).

But Diablo 2.. omg.. It was like an evil force surroinding this darn game.. I didnt went to school anymore.. Just played Diablo 2 over and over again, 24/7, didnt sleep much, didnt eat much.. Thats seriously fucked up =Pp..

And well.. Ive been playing like that for some years now.. Until august-september last year.. I'd finally released Diablo 2 from my mind and I'd found balance between real life and gaming.

Eh,sorry for my bad spelling etc.. Im quite tired atm.. hard day @ school :o..

BruttO, m8...U have enlightend me dude...

You've made me realize that I'm now doing bad things (the not going to school part) more and more often, now that i have an '0wnage computer' i.e.: I don't want to go to school anymore, start to get more problems at my school, when I'm for once not staying at home, I come back from school then I would of dumped my backpack in the corner just to pick it up the next day after a sleepless night because I'm thinking about new strategys for the game I play (America's Army:Operations).

My friends did tell me to lay down on the game and join them by going to the movies and stuff like that. But I always ignored them, so that this no-good friend could play his game. And now that i think of it: I've been a real jurk to all of my friends since i got this comp.

So you see BruttO, you made me think about all this and made me realize that I've got a serious gamin addiction, I think the stuff that happend to me reflects an addiction, right?

Oh and BruttO...
THX AGAIN DUDE, I'm off now then...
I've got allot of friendship and school to catchup.

Grts 'n Rspct,
...A (since today)EX-GAMING ADDICT...

n1 dude, I hope u really mean what u say, cuse yes, it do sounds like a real addiction, and yes, it hurts your 'real' life, badly. But dont stop the gaming ;).. Just dont keep this "gaming goes first attitude", do your homework, meet your friends, and play games when u got nothing else to do ;).

gl hf ^^

brutus, to me happened almost the same than to you... i first got a new computer (january '02), and played until may different games, ranging from cs, quake 3, c&c renegade, BPF mod to astonia 3 and tibia, none of them satisfying me
in may i bought diablo 2 and the expansion, and from that time i spent the whole summer (3 months, 24/7 ALWAYS) playing the game, when school started i cared way more about what i would do when back to diablo in the evening then in school
now im not addicted anymore to diablo 2 or any other game, that stopped in january this year, i still play different games, singleplayer, mmorpgs and fps games but i dont care that much about them anymore, and even more important, after a few hours of the same game i get very bored

For me quake1 was my addiction. I would do all that stuff. Drop the backpack off in the corner and just play all night till school the next day, turn down freinds offers to get out and do something, Skip dinner most nights. It was serious. Ontop of gaming i was seing counsellors for anger issues becuase i would get out of hand mad when my parents would "take away" the computer when i did something wrong. i would break stuff and whatnot. my mom would talk to me and i litterally could not hear what she was saying even though i would be glancing at her. kinda like what you hear when your asleep. Then one day i was in the middle of a match and she wanted me to do the dishes or something. She unplugged the computer and i just blew up. Lets just say i got a little physical. I didnt hurt her but i pushed her kindof and then just left. It was a real addiction and i traded it later on for alcaholism which runs in my family. Now because of my mom being such a good mom and never giving up, I am sober from alcahol for 3 years and i play games but try to look around and see whats going on in real life still. real life over games is just something you always need to keep in mind.

http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/home.html

I´d just like to say that some people are indeed bashing me for playing games too much..but those people usually havent looked at themselves and realised that they sit just as long in front of a tv-screen - which I dont do. So in a sense I believe that gaming just isnt as accepted as watching tv....I mean these people dont watch the news and the discovery channel all the time....they watch crap. This isnt just a TV vs Gaming topic Im touching here , its a way of valuing things in your life. Gaming provides me with hours of fun like no other activity can actually compare to , its a unique way of entertaining yourself. I cant really say why gaming isnt socialy acceptable , people seem to think its just for small children maybe . Honestly - if I met a girl I liked I wouldnt tell her that one of my biggest interests was gaming straight away , bacause I know what kind of reaction people have towards this.

I totally agree with u :)

it destroys my social life, and my back :D

I became hooked on playing Quake 2 online whilst at university. I think the addiction factors were the thrill of easy recognition and respect from the online community, and the fact that you can be who you want, say what you want, etc, but there are never any true repercussions for what you do. At the same time, you can really get drawn in to the community - I almost felt I *had* to be on certain public servers every night to play with my "friends", and I missed being there when I wasn't. It got so bad that I would be up till 3 or 4am playing, until the server was empty, with my work for the next morning waiting in the corner. I screwed up my degree big time as a result, and I seriously regret that now. Since leaving uni and getting an extremely low-paying job thanks to my crappy degree result, I can't afford broadband anymore - which is good, as I can no longer live with 56k access, so now I don't play online anymore. I still play games, but in a healthy, couple of hours a week, kind of way. And now I have a life. 8-|

thnx for posting man, its good that this is finally being talked about.

I am online since new years day, so basically you can count from january the 1st this year on. i am 20 years old and i got my own computer when i had my 18th birthday. that followed by about 2 years of offline computer gaming and a few lans. can you speak of addicted when you are offline ? nobody said that to me back then and i didnt reflect about it.

however i played A LOT quake3 and began mapping, i was mapping all the time because i'm kind of a creative person and when i get hooked on a "theme" or a topic or plainly on a game like quake3 i push it as far as i can. but again nobody talked to me about computer addiction, it was even more about console addiction, metal gear solid still has me :P can't beat the monkeys (1 and 2, 3 is bs) though.
When i finally went online with dsl i observed that i went through the "noob" "experienced" "addicted" phases very very quickly in a matter of a few months. then i woke up. i switched off irc for two weeks and real life got less blurry and regained shape. starting a few things with girls, didnt work out (15 year olds.. i fall for them all the time). the main addiction for me was IRC, the refuge for the lonely, thats purely what it is if you spend more than 1-2 hours active in it daily. met some great ppl there though, running #cpma.na with maertz is absolutely fantastic. however i quit being on IRC and playing cpm tpm pickups 24/7.

the outcome of all this? i am finishing my mapping projects b0 (promode trickjumps) and another tdm map im working on and i help ppl on IRC from time to time working out their movement. i was addicted to the community (IRC, Forums, "Communication vs loneliness") and not really the game itself. was. realize that you are free and switch off the thing you like most for two weeks. you will notice how much you are addicted or not.

Well I have to say, online gaming addiction does begin with an '0wnage computah'. For my first year, and first month in high school I was bought a pretty decent computer (for the time). 2 weeks later quake was introduced to me, previously I had a snes and before that an atari and at school my friends would often take the piss about my playing. Quake actually bored me after a bit (only did single player), and then they decided to show me the Romero-Killcreek demos along with handing me some bots for DM. Well, a week later I would do nothing but play for hours when I got back from school - I was getting good, without even being online. About 6 months after I was loaned a modem (14.4 w00) and my playing went even further into addiction, my beloved snes was sold (worst mistake I ever made btw, I regret not keeping it now). Even with 8 second lag and a ping that didn't go below 400, not to mention 7-8 fps from having to play in 800x600 in sw (on a p133).

I guess the thing that kept me playing is that I'd been given a taste of janet before I got a taste of modem, so I knew that it was just a phase. Better modems / computers fueled this addiction - and for a while I got addicted to irc, but I found that period REALLY dull :)

Hmm, here we are a few months of 8 years addiction to FPS... At the end of the day, I can turn round and say I'm addicted.

TFC was a strange one, being a sniper I was never asked into any clans - yet something kept pulling me back, there wasn't any people I would regard as friends, none of them I've ever spoken to irl. Hours and hours have been spent playing - I've emptied servers, get called a cheat almost daily. Until last wednesday I hadn't been beaten in a sniper duel since the new year, however it's bored me now.

So now I'm in limbo, without a game to interest me - I suppose it's only a matter of time. In between all this was a mild cannabis addiction, and a period where I would drink nearly every day. At one point there was a period where I would go out and see my friends nearly every night.

I think we should set up a Gamers Anonymous. How about a LAN party for the first meeting :P

rock on!

Hmm... I could say that possibly I am addicted, by that I mean I would play games rather than do anything else. Unlike many people who have replied to this thread I never had an 'Ownage Computer'. My parents have always been very anti-gaming. This has prevented me from really getting into the online scene, which is probably a good thing. Sometimes I think of what I would be doing if my mum had never bought me that 8-Bit Nintendo...

i am a student of software engineering in GIKI institute,Pakistan. it is considered as one of the best institute in the country and the only problem i find here is the addiction of students to gaming(particularly CS) on the LAN. i myself am mildly addicted and find it hard to reduce the time i spend on gaming to one hr per day. further more in my experience, a LAN game exhaust your mind renders you in efficient at study after the game. so its not just the hours you spend at gaming that are wasted but the recovery time of you brain also counts.
-Ali Iqbal

no doubt gaming and particularly online gaming is addictive..

my oline gaming addiction isn' t destroying my life.. it destroys my education xDD
I spend all my free time @ the pc or with friends
my week consists of playing games and going out with friends about 4 times a week.. a bit onesided innit? - weekend is bestest!
I play cpma till ~ 22 CET go out and the next morning I sleep till ~ 14 CET at ~ 14:30 CET i have breakfast with my gril ( who slept at my home ), then i drive my girl home at 15:30 CET and when i m back its 16 CET then i play till 20 - 23 ( with breaks ofc ) to go out again xDD

well my social life is quite intact i have many friends and a girl since im 15 xD ( a cute one!11 )

the only problem is that i dont spend any time for education i dont read books.. dont watch usefull broadcasts or research at the internet!!
all my education comes from irc, friends and parents xDD
DONT COMMENT MY EDUCATION!!!11

ill stop excessive gaming when i go to university

2003 :/

2003 ?

gaming addiction... your thoughts (51 comments, 15 unread: Threaded, Flat)
(Article: Gaming)Posted by simonb @ 08:26 GMT, 16 May 2003 - iMsg*

sif i would care about the date :D:D:D
lol see how fast u get your barred post in da spotlight again :D
ALL ALI' S FAULT!!!!111

I'll keep it short and simple; I am addicted. But that doesn't mean it destroys my life.

A recent study, concluded that playing games is a fundamental factor to keep your brain young and agile. In spite of having a life with work, wife and recently a daughter im proud to said im an addict, gaming must be the only activity that is near to the time i spend sleeping, and i sleep a lot. Sometimes you do things without aparent reason, and years later a study appears and say, if youre gamer addict and bilingual you are teh rlz! Maybe in a few years they will discover that sleeping well keeps your body young :)

LINK http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1009474

Edit:typo

Don't forget the "Beer makes you smart" study.


Science rocks \o/

Link? <o/

was trying to find a somewhat authentic looking post, but couldn't.

So here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the+buffalo+theory

;)

Excelent stuff ;)

lol sciences is bestestst..
what would u find out if u got your money from CPL?

That after so many years of playing im pro \o/

I havn't played a computer game for nearly a year. I can't wait to get back and start playing again. I miss the jokes, the people, the competition and of course the games themselves. I've just managed to learn to balance social life and my "virtual" life.

I will say now, though, that for a long time i was addicted (and i guess i am in some ways still) to games. It certainly didn't help my grades or social skills. I'm sure they have a large part to play in the fact that i'm a shy person, even though i don't come across like that through my online persona.

If you've realised you're truely addicted, the best thing is to try to take one day off per week (this doesnt HAVE to include IRC and general net usage) and then build it from there. It's especially hard to do this if you're at home bored. Without trying to sound like a parent figure going outside to walk the dog (or just yourself with an mp3 player) is a great way to take your mind elsewhere. It not only gets you fit but as a bonus it does genuinely help your skills and awareness in game.

I'm addicted to playing a little bit each day.. At least those days that i can be at home; i tend to play around 45min a day, more or less, mostly just jump on a ra3 server with some music late at night if i'm not up to 1v1.. After those 45min i usually can't be assed to play more that day unless there are some tourneys or something coming up.

I guess i'm more addicted to internet than gaming; i probably have 100+ links that i saved in bookmark to read or look at. Everyday i check my mail on different accounts, post on forums, read the gaming news, read the real news and check if there are any downloads i want -- i guess i'm half addicted to watching movies and series aswell, and then there's msn and irc on top of that.. :]

Same here. After about 30 mins - 1 hour I'm kind of satisfied/bored. This is mainly with quake though. When I'm playing games like Deus Ex (shooter with storyline) or a RPG, I usually play more (if possible).
Even the days I was really addicted to quake 2, I always took a break after every hour at max. I guess not only the game was the addiction, but also the scene around it.
And I also check out this site (and others) multiple times a day, just because I think its interesting to read :p

Ontopic for simon:
Quake 2 had its effect on my results at school, but fortunately I managed to finish gymn. The first year at University I had a hard time, but since then (now in my 4th year) I know my priorities. Gaming is still one of my favorite past-times, but only after certain other things are taken care of. Every once in a while a two-week addiction grabs me, but thats nothing I cant handle ;)

School is too easy early on, that's the problem with it. You don't have to do anything until you're like, 15 -- and then you don't know what the hell to do or how to do it.

True true. In the last 2 grades I just lacked some fundamental knowledge for subjects like chemistry and physics/math. Later, at university, I learned things again, and then you're thinking 'wtf, why did I have problems with this??'.
It's not only the wrong distrubution in itself, but the first years make you lazy. I quit a study (IT) after 5 months because i didn't have to do anything and started feeling bad (useless in a way). Started working the rest of the year and a new study the next year that was much more demanding. I think that saved me, because lazy people should have something (usefull) to do or it will get worse.

Good to hear.. Still hope for me then, going to uni next year, lazy as fuck -- need to change my whole attitude on "studying" now i guess, grades have been dropping last 3-4 years :\

I blame the school for my lazyness! :(
Gaming keeps me sane!! :))

I fear you might just be a little late for simon's movie ;(


http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=404253

Oops ;)

Was hooked on UT. I started playing it late at night after i finished working on the doors, it was a good release after busy nights!
UT is an excellent game that took a lot of my time.
Main reason for stopping was the rediculous sequels that took many players from the original, yet were tbh, quite crap.

I dont play anywhere near as much as i used to, maybe a few hours a week if that, but then i work full time, have a wife and a 10 month old baby boy. Doesnt leave me much time for gaming!

I'd say i was addicted once to quake. I used to play it more during exam periods as i felt it the best way to escape. I had a shit connection so i used to just play bots on some duel levels with my piss poor pc that didn't even do 125. Fun times when i got adsl but i blamed ping and shit for losses. Clans add to the competitive edge and all i seek and many others was and is respect from fellow gamers.

Except i don't boast about it down the pub. My mates know i am okay at quake but they don't really care (teh noobz ;P)

I have grown out of games but do like the occasional binge on quake provided my pc isn't sitting smoking :( I can't sit for the extended periods like i used to be able to

When i get a replacement mobo i will play quake an hour a night if i have the time. maybe even dabble in quake 4

I have real world commitments now but i still check here and post nonsense

:))

I had a pretty bad gaming addiction from 2001-2005 (13-17). The damage it did to me was enormous, having to deal with it now. As someone said in a previous comment (one of the ones from 2003), the highschool years are key in cultivating your social development - having a "normal" social psychology. The first addiction for me was diablo2 for a year and a half, then quake 3 demo. Onwards from that I picked up every rts, rpg, and fps game as a break from quake.

Not only did it hurt me socially, (i moved a lot as a kid too which didn't help, it just made gaming seem more attractive as a form of escapism) it created a kind of loop - I gamed because the addiction hurt my social skills, I gained weight and became unfit, slowly worsening my confidence causing me to want to game more etc. I was never depressed but it always took me back to gaming again and again, why go out if you can have fun in front of your PC etc, is the kind of shit I thought.

Gaming for me was always about competition and being the best at the game I enjoyed, that's what kept me playing, and like an MMO game - the game can be shit, but the community (the links you have made) will keep you playing, feeding the addiction.

I'm 18 in 2months and the last 9months have been great as I broke the addiction. I've focused on fitness and kung-fu, became more social with friends and such. I lost 36pounds in 10months etc and my interest in education has just returned (good timing, final A level exams soon ;]). But the social scars take a lot longer to heal - i'm improving but still not amazing in social situations, but now my confidence is SO much better at least.

If i could go back, I wouldn't prevent the addiction, but instead I would do my best to manage it with a balance between social life, fitness and education. That balance is probably something that will take me many many years to achieve. It seems to me, when you're young and you have all that time, it's when you're most vulnerable, and so ignorant of the nice things in life like, girls, girls..and uh..yea..girls?

Something that will probably never leave me, as it probably will not leave a lot of gamers. The IRC addiction.