By John Walker on December 6th, 2010 at 11:52 pm.
Timed to coincide with tonight’s release of World Of Warcraft’s Cataclysm, BBC 1′s Panorama tonight covered the topic of videogame addiction. I have always approached the subject of gaming addiction with great seriousness, because it’s my belief that if gaming is inherently harmful, I want to know about it, and I want to warn others who game. And I want to approach the subject with appropriate scrutiny, and with evidence-based understanding. It’s something I expect of others when they approach the subject. It was not present tonight. It was astonishing. An openly ignorant series of anecdotes and half-truths, forming a dangerous, lazy treatment of a serious subject.
I want to repeat this already. I do not possess the evidence that gaming does not cause addiction. What I do know, from an enormous amount of time spent researching the subject, and interviewing those researching the subject at an academic level on both sides of the argument, is that there is no evidence that games do cause addiction. Should other evidence come to light, should (substantial, scientifically organised) studies demonstrate new data, then I think it should be taken very seriously. I am not arguing that games are great, and any who say otherwise are wrong. No such thing. But when I see others who are acting that way, on either side of the fence, I believe it should be loudly highlighted. I believe that there is a real risk for those who use gaming to compensate for other negative factors in their lives, and for those whose gaming becomes problematic for any reason. I believe that these matters deserve to be taken seriously. It is to be treated with severity. This sort of scaremongering endangers such people by mis-labelling.
For the first seven minutes of the programme, reporter Raphael Rowe brings us many references to people being “addicts”, people who suffer from “addiction”. It’s stated as fact, unambiguous. Seven minutes in it’s admitted that there’s no evidence that gaming can cause addiction, but long after they’ve made their position completely clear. In fact, it clearly reminded me of that classic Brass Eye moment where DJ Neil Fox explains to camera that there’s no evidence that paedophiles share most of their DNA with crabs, but it’s still scientific fact. Never mind the facts, the data, the proof; we have an agenda here, and we’re going to demonstrate it through unresearched, unevidenced, anecdotal stories.
The level to which gaming addiction as a reality is assumed is so absolute that at one point the reporter, bringing the episode’s theme of anecdotes home, explains that while his son plays games, he “isn’t addicted”. He can tell. He, unlike any addictionologists or reputable addiction treatment centres, can tell when someone is addicted to gaming, and fortunately amongst their numbers are not his own children.
One individual, Joe, is labelled as an addict, the proof being that he played games for two or three days without sleep, and, he explained, “that, to me, sounds like an addiction.” He was thrown out of university, left thousands in debt, “partly from buying games.”
“Partly from buying games.”
Beyond being gibberish on a comprehension level, one can either understand that he’s in thousands of pounds of debt partly because he spent his money on games, or that the cause of his having lost his investment in university was partly caused by games. The lack of clarity betrays how carelessly this programme is written. The “partly” betrays that the programme is deliberately deceiving the viewer, concealing information that fully explains his story. Joe then wearily sighs.
Another person, “Leo”, believes he was addicted to World Of Warcraft. He’s extremely angry about it. It has a “derogatory effect”, he explains. “I would never inflict this game on anyone. This game is a disease. It’s horrible.” But Leo has decided to go cold turkey.
Both have stopped playing the games to which they were so seriously addicted. Both were filmed playing the games that had so harmed them. Joe played Call Of Duty on his 360 for the cameras, while Leo ran around the worlds of Warcraft. Which, if the dangers this programme warns about are real, is the direct equivalent of producing a documentary about alcoholism in which the participants are asked to get drunk for the audience at home. Once more, it’s a clear lack of seriousness, and complete disdain for its subjects.
Further proof of addiction in games comes from a scientist who has been studying the subject for many yea… oh wait, no, sorry. An artist who takes pictures of kids playing games, and finds that their faces are different when they watch television. No one ventures the notion that there may be physical differences in how one responds to the passive activity of watching TV and the active participation in gaming. But one kid didn’t blink, so there’s danger.
Each time a new subject is introduced, dark, menacing music swells in. We then see this addict sat before their addiction, accompanied by personal explanations of why it’s a danger for them to be playing it. Then relatives or friends tut.
Dr Richard Graham is our first person with any qualifications in the episode, after 11 minutes. He’s treating an increasing number of kids with behavioural disorders, kids who also game. Then, seemingly as an aside, the episode explains that 66% of children and teenagers have a console. That most kids are gaming, and yet most kids aren’t suffering from behavioural disorders, is not mentioned in this context. No, instead it’s: “Could this be a hidden problem building up in homes across the country?”
Professor Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University says that he sees much in common with what he believes is gaming addiction and that of other addictions. But then adds that there isn’t enough research. No evidence is given. He says that gaming addiction is “so new” that people don’t think it’s an important enough area into which they should invest money. Which is the most utterly extraordinary claim, since there is abundant research in the subject going on all around the world, including massive-scale ongoing projects such as the appropriately named Project Massive. As a “world authority” on the subject, it terrifies me that he’s unaware of this.
We then head to South Korea, where super-fast broadband is already the norm. Here, even on the underground, our presenter explains that they can “play online games”, accompanied by a shot of someone playing a match-3 game on their mobile phone. Their economic growth “has come at a price.” Not “may have”, but “has”. The price is gaming addiction. We are told that since 2005, 12 people have died with “links” to excessive gaming. Then the bemusing sentence, “There were extreme cases of an estimated three million Koreans thought to be addicted to games.”
“There were extreme cases of an estimated three million Koreans thought to be addicted to games.”
We move on to the tragic story of the Korean couple who let their baby die through neglect, as they spent their time gaming. We get told that they both had “low IQs” and that both suffered from “depression”, but both those factors are ignored because as a result of their circumstances they spent too much time playing Prius Online. “She was mentally not that stable to begin with,” explains a doctor at the clinic that treated the mother. But this isn’t an episode about mental illness leading to the deaths of babies. It’s about gaming causing it. Gaming caused it.
Early in the segment in Korea we see some children at a special camp for dealing with gaming addiction. One child in particular is described as having spent a worrying amount of his time gaming, his mother expressing her fear for him. Later, after plenty of other subjects to make sure there’s no context, we come back to the camp, and the mother explains that she used to hit her son “a lot”. She says she didn’t know she needed to show him love and affection. The camp is teaching her this. And yet the enemy here is the game.
The internet’s to blame too, of course. The spread of broadband is shown on a map of Britain like a rapidly spreading virus, endangering us all.
One “award winning games designer” wants the subject to be taken more seriously. That is Adrian Hon of SixToStart. A company whose only game of note is a Channel 4 education project designed to highlight the dangers of being online. There’s not time to mention this in the episode. Panorama tells us that the incentives in games to keep us playing include games “randomly giving us extra lives”. We then get a lovely bit of Eisensteinian montage editing of people playing games and rats pressing levers.
Rowe then quite astonishingly says, “I took our findings to UKIE.” “Findings”? But they’ve given no findings at any point in the episode. They’ve collected some anecdotes from uninformed parents, and a few soundbites from a single university professor who keeps stressing most people have no problems, and that there’s not enough evidence to say that others do. They didn’t have any findings!
I believe there are reasons why children and teenagers may spend an inappropriate amount of their time playing games. They are complex, multifarious and multifactorial. Young people grow up in difficult circumstances, a significant proportion suffering some form of abuse. Gaming, it seems, can provide an escape from depression, misery, loneliness, or fear. It becomes somewhere to hide, and then it may become problematic. The issues are not dealt with, but ignored, and as such relationships with others are harmed, jobs can be lost, and school work can suffer. The circumstances continue, but the withdrawal lessens the chances of there being resolution or improvement. These are tragic stories that deserve to be responded to with individual care, and not looking for a scapegoat.
It is my opinion, and only my opinion, that problematic use of gaming is a reality. People can spent too much time playing games, and this can lead to their and their loved ones suffering. It is also my opinion that people can spend too much time riding bikes, playing bingo, and building model railways. I’m not being facetious. And each of these can lead to their personal lives suffering, and those of their loved ones. Until there is some evidence that gaming can create an addiction in someone otherwise undisposed to addictive behaviour, then it must be understood as a consequence of addiction, not a cause. To do otherwise is ignorant, dangerous, and harmful to the individuals. Blame it on gaming, and you’ll take away the games, leaving the person to continue suffering.
This episode of Panorama was upsetting. Seeing young people who are clearly suffering, struggling socially and within their own families, it scares me to see their serious situations trivialised in this way. This episode genuinely contains someone advising people who game too much to go out and get drunk (“smashed”) instead. It’s insulting to those who for whatever specific reasons struggle to control their gaming, and dangerous for misinforming the public.
06/12/2010 at 23:59 Andreas says:
I’m watching it right now, and it’s strange how the gaming addicts have horrible taste in games.
How the hell do you get addicted to Modern Warfare?
07/12/2010 at 00:03 iLag says:
must be those random extra lives. uh huh.
07/12/2010 at 01:04 ScubaMonster says:
I’m addicted to Donkey Kong Country Returns.
07/12/2010 at 05:09 psyk says:
Online play. If it’s single player then the guy has a serious problem and should seek professional help.
07/12/2010 at 05:26 spinks says:
People get addicted to /Farmville/,
07/12/2010 at 08:56 DJ Phantoon says:
Farmville is the opiate of the masses.
07/12/2010 at 09:56 battles_atlas says:
Farmville is a gateway game. I started a year ago, and quickly found that the buzz wasn’t enough: I needed more. Desperate for a hit, I searched high and low for a harder Farm simulator. It was a neverending cycle downwards.
I’ve now hit rock bottom. I bought a 800 acre dairy farm in Norfolk and now play it 24/7. In calfing season I stay up all night on it, grinding on through the endless miracles of newborn life. I constantly battle with my demons – Tescos and Morrisons, always trying to push me to 8p a pint.
The impact on my life is devasting – I now use baler twine to hold up my trousers. All I have to show for this is a £2m annual turnover and a fucking nice red Massey Ferg.
07/12/2010 at 10:17 Dozer says:
Battles_Atlas, you made me laugh so hard I coughed up my trachea. I’ve had to use Microsoft Sam to call the ambulance. If I survive I’ll have to be fitted with a synthetic voicebox and I’ll sound like Darth Vader forever. Thanks very much.
07/12/2010 at 12:37 Nesetalis says:
that.. was truly wonderful to read XD
07/12/2010 at 12:56 The Tupper says:
Yeah, top marks, Battles_Atlas. And remember – don’t milk the bulls: for all the effort involved, you rarely ever get more than a tea cup’s worth.
07/12/2010 at 15:13 Shimavak says:
Actually The Tupper, he may indeed wish to milk the bulls. At about 720,000p a pint for even the cheapest of bull ‘milk’ he’d be doing quite a fair deal better than with the cow.
07/12/2010 at 20:35 Tweetiti says:
I love it, the solution for Panorama to game addiction: getting smashed (once told by Joe, the other when mentionning Korea). It’s well known that alcohol doesn’t create addiction.
07/12/2010 at 20:38 Yargh says:
Must have been a slow week for Panorama, they had nothing else to talk about.
07/12/2010 at 22:47 9squirrels says:
Battles_Atlas needs an award for that, honestly, I think it’s the funniest comment I’ve read all year.
07/12/2010 at 00:00 President Weasel says:
Sadly this is exactly the evidenceless scaremongerathon that the vast majority of people who share our hobby expected when we heard about the program.
(nitpicking deleted)
07/12/2010 at 00:07 John Walker says:
I’m fairly certain that’s correct, although I’m tired.
07/12/2010 at 00:13 President Weasel says:
(nitpicking deleted)
07/12/2010 at 00:30 John Walker says:
Thanks, fixed.
07/12/2010 at 03:04 Devan says:
@President Weasel
Yes, but at least the show didn’t feature Kieth Vaz, so it’s not quite as bad as expected. Am I the first to call you on that wager?
Back on topic, I think that the only way to disarm this kind of misinformation and scaremongering is through education. People need the willingness to think critically about everything they see on TV, whether or not it agrees with their existing ideas. You don’t need to know anything about gaming to know that this show was very sparse in facts and sketchy in its reasoning. But people who don’t have an interest in the subject (like we do) perhaps don’t know that it’s important to be critical, or perhaps don’t care. It’s easier to just swallow the sensationalism and go with the flow, so until TV subscribers start calling BS when they see it, the producers will keep doing whatever gets attention.
07/12/2010 at 09:31 President Weasel says:
You’re the first person to call me on it. You win that spare steam copy of Ruse – give me a pm with an email address I can send it to. Just be careful not to get addicted… if it’s not already too late.
/cue scary music.
07/12/2010 at 13:06 Archonsod says:
“I think that the only way to disarm this kind of misinformation and scaremongering is through education”
Or you just force a more stricter approach to journalism and insist on opinion pieces and editorials being clearly marked as such throughout the program.
07/12/2010 at 00:01 Novotny says:
Gah. How typical.
07/12/2010 at 00:01 evilbobthebob says:
Well this is just excellent. I can only hope my parents don’t watch this :|
07/12/2010 at 00:13 Blackberries says:
If they do, you could link them to this very article. Or to another of what I hope will be several informed rebuttals to come from other places.
07/12/2010 at 08:38 EndelNurk says:
@evilbobthebob Here are another couple of rebuttals: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/42126/OPINION-Panorama; http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/dec/06/bbc-panorama-games-addiction-review.
The best argument for your parents would be the same as discussed in The Guardian piece. Don’t hide what you’re doing from your parents, perhaps ask them to join in on something fun and simple like a PopCap game. Likewise reassure them that you’re not playing anything rated above your age-range. Presumably you’re not playing for 16 hours a day like the person reported in the TV programme, or at least if you are then presumably your parents have already noticed and discussed this with you, so you’re likely not in any danger zone whatsoever.
08/12/2010 at 14:10 Art Vandelay says:
You do realize that a PopCap game like Peggle is basically a Skinner Box, right?
07/12/2010 at 00:01 a.nye.123 says:
A perfect example of deciding on the conclusion and forcing the facts to fit it.
07/12/2010 at 07:08 Urael says:
Welcome to modern journalism. “Gaming: the hidden menace” is the story into which facts are twisted until they fit. Until that changes we’ll see this travesty repeated ad nauseum.
07/12/2010 at 00:02 kit89 says:
I expected more from the BBC.
07/12/2010 at 00:18 Tetragrammaton says:
Very droll.
07/12/2010 at 09:05 DJ Phantoon says:
This is right around the exact amount of fearmongering you should’ve expected. It’s not like they’re Fox! Sheesh.
07/12/2010 at 11:56 Garg says:
In fairness it is Panorama; they haven’t done a serious, non-tabloidal scaremongering story in years. Frankly it should be scrapped.
07/12/2010 at 00:02 pilouuuu says:
I read RPS many times everyday. Maybe I’m addicted. Shame on you, Rock Paper Shotgun! You’re even worse than videogames. And videogames are worse than drugs.
07/12/2010 at 12:00 Latterman says:
I would never inflict this site on anyone. This site is a disease. It’s horrible.
07/12/2010 at 00:03 Stephen Roberts says:
I’m really pleased with the speed at which this post came up. Literally between me looking for the post earlier warning us about this and posting what I did there, did this gem get written. You missed a few rediculous things but the show was so full of them I don’t blame you. My favourite phrase was ‘the next generation of so-called addicts’. Six extreme cases extrapolated to a generation; shit, with an imagination that powerful he doesn’t need to play games!
Posted this in the other thread, meanwhile this one went live so copy/paste:
I’ll tell you what happened to me: I come home to find my mum terrified that I’m a gaming addict, saying that I was ‘exactly like’ the extreme cases exhibited on this show (that I hadn’t see yet). I rallied for my cause and made the dangerous assumption that the show would be peddling stupid amounts of fear. I used reason and cogent argument to hold back this panic my mum was going through. I explained how I wasn’t anything like the examples used in the show and there were practically no parallels to be drawn other than ‘I also play games’. And then I watched the show.
It was thirty minutes of one sided bullshit. The reporter used language to belittle gaming as a medium, he only pulled on extreme cases and decided to interview them while they were playing games. He ignored all statements in defence of games and clarifying clauses that exonerate games as the problem and he extrapolated from the extreme cases to apply them to all gamers. It was fear-peddling for the daily mail classes and the BBC have lost a great deal of my respect from producing such a research-thin, one sided shockumentary just in time for the christmas hysteria.
Sending a letter of complaint.
07/12/2010 at 00:04 Gabe Kotick says:
More games need item stores that sell us the unlockables without doing anything. Less time spent playing games. Problem solved. If only we could buy achievements.
07/12/2010 at 00:32 noobnob says:
Purchasing achievements? You should look at your own store more often, Gabe.
07/12/2010 at 00:37 Gabe Kotick says:
“NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void where prohibited by law.”
07/12/2010 at 00:46 noobnob says:
Who needs to read the small print? All that the consumer needs to know is that he’ll have more chances if he plays the listed games and attains the achievements tied to them. Note how two of the three games, Chime and Poker Night at the Hat Inventory are dirt cheap, much like purchasing a ticket for a raffle, and you get a free game with it!
07/12/2010 at 01:26 DrGonzo says:
Some of that money from Chime will go to charity as well. What an evil cunt Gabe really is.
07/12/2010 at 02:00 Gabe Kotick says:
@DrGonzo – you said it – “and Zoe Mode will continue to donate a proportion of its royalties (equivalent to 5% of purchase price) for sales of the Steam version.”
07/12/2010 at 00:04 Tei says:
” If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth” – Joseph Goebbels
That work even for words. Hacker use to be the word for “good with software” and “people that build fourniture with a axe”… Hollywood distorted the word to use it for fantasy science fiction movies about magic childrens and computers, and spys, and holographics tools, and stuff. Fantasy replacing reality.
People do religion, and drink and play games for the same reason: to avoid reality. Wen our lives are too harsh, we need a escape, even if his temporal or artificial. These things are a need, because life is imperfect, so people need these ilusions, ilusions of a heavenly heaven, or a eartly heaven, or a secret island of peace. Religion and alcohol are accepted heavens, but games are not, so we are here talking about this.
07/12/2010 at 01:39 DrGonzo says:
People use religion to avoid reality. That’s a really good way of putting it!
07/12/2010 at 09:06 Bob Bobson says:
In my, fairly extensive, experience of UK christians very few use religion to avoid reality. Christianity (and I believe other religions too but I can’t be as confident) encourages adherents to engage fully and completely in the real world, to avoid escapism and to face up to how the world is. True, there is a belief in an unseen world beyond the one with all the physics in, and equally true at times of berievment that is a comfort based on faith not evidence. But there is more to any religion that the answer to the question “What happens when we die?”
07/12/2010 at 09:09 Lightbulb says:
I would probably replace “avoid” with with “cope” but I agree with the sentiment.
07/12/2010 at 09:40 snv says:
If your subjective perspective on the world is based on interpreting it using religious beliefs, then i would not agree that you take part in the same “real world” as i do.
07/12/2010 at 12:18 BarneyL says:
It’s sad that in a discussion around a television program that jumps to biased assumptions with no reference to the reality of most of those involved we’ve rapidly descended to treating another group in the same way.
Bob Bobson’s experience of religious people matches the reality far more than the nonsense that’s usually spouted about them. Say what you like about their beliefs but they’ve been at the centre of campaigns for fairer trade, environmental protection, third world debt cancellation and if you’re willing to go back a little further American civil rights movement or the abolition of slavery.
Sadly you can’t get a decent debate about religion on the internet because there’s always a hard line atheist out there who’s willing to completely ignore the likes of Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Desmond Tutu or William Wilberforce and keep telling the lie that the religious do nothing but hide from reality until they believe it.
07/12/2010 at 13:11 Archonsod says:
“In my, fairly extensive, experience of UK christians very few use religion to avoid reality.”
That’s because most are Anglicans, and the Anglican church already called bagsy on avoiding reality. Thus adherents are encouraged to bother the church as little as possible, particularly if they’re wanting a number of messy divorces.
07/12/2010 at 17:12 bob_d says:
@Bob Bobson: I only wish that was true in the US. The majority of Christians here have become disconnected from reality thanks to religion – or at least religion becomes a justification for rejecting reality. (E.g.: gay people choose their sexual orientation, the Earth is thousands, rather than billions of years old, there’s no global warming… heck, they basically don’t accept science or any rational, evidence-based arguments that counter their preconceptions.) Politics becomes ridiculous – how do you move forward as a society if you have members of the Texas legislature who think that all of modern physics and astronomy are actually a Jewish conspiracy perpetrated by NASA to confuse Christians, and modern biology is an atheist conspiracy perpetrated by people who worship Charles Darwin.
07/12/2010 at 00:04 kwyjibo says:
OK, I’ve not watched the show – so I may come across more of a dickwad than I do usually.
But can we stop calling all compulsive behaviour “addiction”? It doesn’t mean anything.
Let’s keep addiction to mean dependency. If you are an alcoholic, then withdrawal symptoms include death. Actual death. In that case, you are an addict.
If you play games too much, there are no withdrawal symptoms. At no point are you dependent on games. You’re just a bit of a social retard, not an addict.
07/12/2010 at 01:43 DrGonzo says:
Dependency and addiction are quite different. I think that’s what you were getting at, but it read a little confusing. Sorry if that was just me reading it wrong though.
Dependency is what games should be classed as, you need it to feel good for example but without it you will not die. Where as without a substance your addicted to, as you say, you may have some serious side effects possibly including death.
One becomes dependent on Marijuana, one becomes addicted to Heroin.
07/12/2010 at 08:45 EndelNurk says:
@kwyjibo I think your definitions are a little clumsy. Addiction to games, if such a thing existed, would definitely be classifiable as a ‘behavioural addiction.’ The behavioural addictions are separate from chemical addictions as you say but all behavioural addictions are defined as being problematic. Therefore if you gambled for 20 hours a day but it had no negative effect upon your personal life (such an example is difficult to comprehend) then you would not be addicted whereas somebody who gambled for one hour a week but due to this was having terrible problems with their life would be addicted. I refer to gambling here rather than anything else as gambling is the only behavioural addiction that is generally recognised although arguments have been made for the inclusion of sex addiction and internet (note, not internet gaming) addiction.
07/12/2010 at 10:26 Xercies says:
The thing is though, this is the problem with the whole thing, how do we class addiction. Do you call it a chemical dependency so that includes drugs but not physical activity like gambling but we all know that gambling can be addictive and you can kind of get withdrawal symptoms if your an addict not gambling.
07/12/2010 at 13:13 Archonsod says:
Chemical addiction is the only sane way. Anything else is determined by psychologists, and quite frankly the field of psychology has about the same scientific credentials as Panorama.
07/12/2010 at 14:42 Nesetalis says:
i think behavioral addiction is a bit of a misnomer. Honestly, a learned pattern is how the brain works.. these so called behavior addictions are simply very ingrained learned patterns.. an addiction implies that you cant stop for one reason or another.. these people can, and do.. they just either dont want to, or dont have the willpower to control their own damn life.
implying that they are helpless and without the ability to stop.. makes them in to victims, and feeds it. its not an addiction.
I think the best line to sum it up is from bob saget :p “I used to suck dick for coke, you ever suck dick for marijuana?”
07/12/2010 at 15:45 EndelNurk says:
@Archonsod how would you define scientific credentials? And how would you define psychology? I dare suggest that neither of your definitions would have much to do with what goes on in research in any subject.
@Nesetalis addiction has nothing to do with whether you can willfully stop or not. Willpower alone is all that’s required to stop smoking, it’s hard but it’s been done many many times over. Are you going to suggest that nicotine isn’t addictive? In fact most chemical addictions become behavioural addictions. At later stages of heroin or cocaine usage it is not the heroin or cocaine that provides a dopamine high, instead the drug-seeking behaviour beforehand stimulates dopamine release.
07/12/2010 at 00:09 Moutikz says:
Every time this topic gets handled by the bbc it is complete nauseating rubbish. The worst part is that parents all over the country will be absorbing this taking it all as fact at face value and start thinking there is something wrong with their child/ children.
07/12/2010 at 09:46 snv says:
Not really surprising.
The more people game, the less they watch TV.
BBC might not be impartial here
07/12/2010 at 14:43 Nesetalis says:
i was thinking the exact same thing.
07/12/2010 at 00:09 Blackberries says:
Were Panorama really ever any good? I often found their programmes getting uncomfortably close to being a thirty-minute re-hashing, re-heating and partial validation of tabloid screeching and pearl clutching. Just two weeks ago we had the complete tosh that was”British Schools, Islamic Rules.”
I could honestly barely bring myself to even read your account of the episode. It’s soul-draining to have to even think about this sort of misinformed, agenda-driven and horrendously flawed scaremongering. It’s obviously laughably paper-thin in its “finding” that games might be dangerous addictive terrors, but I have no doubt many, many people are going to have watched this and had the scary dramatic message effectively beaten into them through constant assertion and disgusting editing.
Yes, I’m upset.
07/12/2010 at 00:32 Tetragrammaton says:
Panorama was, once apon a time, well respected. However, the past decade has seen it morph into the stinky sensationalist bilge in the bbc porridge. They have become famous for getting their facts wrong and /or downright lying to produce their tabloid mumbo-jumbo.
The tragedy is, as you pointed out, that most take this nonsense to heart.
07/12/2010 at 00:37 Blackberries says:
It was probably unfair of me to dismiss a journalistic institution as venerable as Panorama based merely on the last few years.
07/12/2010 at 12:58 Starky says:
No it was utterly fair, Panorama has fallen so low there is nothing worth saving – like much of the BBCs output for the past decade.
The BBC when facing mass TV bilge for the masses from the ever expanding commercial channels didn’t decide to rise above it, but sink to the same level.
The BBC styill puts out some amazing high quality television, but you have to try hard to find it, and it’s never aired primetime.
07/12/2010 at 00:13 outoffeelinsobad says:
I would have read this article, but I’m addicted to words and have decided not to neglect my well-being for the sake of knowledge.
07/12/2010 at 00:13 Andreas says:
Mind you, it’s also worth noting that while Panorama may be polarised, it’s also worth admitting that gaming clearly CAN be addictive. Sure, it’s in the same way as gambling, but a lot of people aren’t even aware of that.
Sure, it’s not completely unbiased, BUT, it’s not entirely bad to make people aware of it. You have to realise that a lot of parents don’t see anything wrong with their kids playing WoW 6 hours a day. There’s nothing wrong with making parents aware that if your kid is playing that much, you should check up on him.
07/12/2010 at 00:16 Andreas says:
But comparing the UK to Korea is an utterly mad comparison. It’s an entirely different landscape, played in different ways by a different demographic.
07/12/2010 at 00:34 John Walker says:
According to all evidence, gaming and gambling being the same isn’t the case. And since my appeal is to deal with evidence here, could you provide any to back up your certainty?
Those who were trying to equate gambling and gaming were shown to be incorrect. The key difference being the lack of immediate, tangible financial risk, loss or gain when gaming. It seems the only thing they have in common is a similar spelling.
If gaming is addictive, the evidence suggests it will not be in a way that matches gambling.
So no, there is no suggestion at all that it “clearly CAN be addictive.” That would be the point.
07/12/2010 at 00:42 MadTinkerer says:
There are specific elements in gambling games which cause them to be addictive. Some videogames also have some of these elements, but most do not and those that do are fairly obvious about it. Claiming “videogames are generally addictive” is exactly the same as claiming “sports are generally addictive” because some people gamble on the outcome of football games.
Look up “Skinner box” on Wikipedia. Many games have no Skinner Box-type mechanics at all, and such mechanics don’t necessarily mean the game is inherently addictive.
07/12/2010 at 00:48 Andreas says:
Fine, clearly can be addictive is a dangerous turn of phrase to use. But I’d argue that excessive gaming can be dangerous, or at least be a sign of an underlying problem. That’s worth highlighting.
But yes, I agree that it was completely unscientific scaremongering.
07/12/2010 at 01:24 bob_d says:
+1 to what MadTinkerer said. I think even those games that utilize the exact same (Skinner-ian reenforcement) mechanisms that make gambling compelling still aren’t in the same league as actual gambling, either. The rewards and dynamics are different.
As for saying “excessive X can be dangerous,” well, sure, you can say that about anything, including drinking water, exercising or washing your hands. In fact, by definition to be “excessive” is to be in an abnormal and undesirable state. (So, yes, bad things are bad.) The question is, is something inherently more likely to be problematic (like with gambling) or is a compulsive behavior just a symptom of an existing problem (like with compulsive hand-washing). The evidence on gaming seems to lean towards the latter rather than the former.
07/12/2010 at 02:57 ezekiel2517 says:
I am unsure if excessive gaming should be highlighted. Excessive drinking of water, running, jumping, talking, thinking, etc. can all be dangerous, but no one is going to make a show about it.
Would parents who think a kid playing a game for 6 hours is in less danger than one watching TV for the same time? Perhaps a show on general parenting would be more appropriate, then.
07/12/2010 at 03:17 DJ Phantoon says:
Watch it, now- they’re trying to make thinking too much illegal.
Well, they are here in the US, anyways.
07/12/2010 at 00:14 Owen C says:
I liked the point (~14:50) where he says:
“It is Saturday evening and, instead of going out for a drink or going to a night club, young Koreans come to PC bangs to play games.”
So getting drunk is okay then. Nothing wrong with alcohol and loud music I guess.
For those who missed the show, PC bangs are basically big internet cafes.
07/12/2010 at 00:57 Paul B says:
I wish we had PC Bangs in the UK. When I visited Malaysia in my youth, they had them on nearly every street corner, and much fun was had playing Counter-strike in them. To be honest, it’s better then playing on your own, you can have a drink, meet some friends and play your favourite games. There should be nothing negative about them.
07/12/2010 at 03:19 DJ Phantoon says:
Did… did he seriously imply possible drunkeness and casual sex with a chance of STDs and pregnancy is worse than a chance of (metaphorically) getting your ass beaten by some aimbotting jackass?
Note these are all chances, but what is really negative about the cafes?
07/12/2010 at 08:44 sonofsanta says:
Damn you, and damn my need to sleep, this post wasn’t up when I went to bed last night for me to make the same point and now you have beaten me to it :/
The reporter in question must be the single most irony-free individual in the English-speaking world if he couldn’t realise he was advocating a physically-addicting and often lethal substance alongside participation in a culture mired in drugs as a healthy alternative to playing games with friends.
On a more general note: the experts they brought in were generally not too bad, i.e. the NT Uni guy repeatedly stating that “most people do not have a problem”, the Korean doctor discussing the mental problems suffered by the couple etc. The problem was that the editing was incredibly transparent in its cherry picking, at least to those of us watching who anticipated it.
The biggest problem really is that Panorama used to be an in-depth, reliable program that took the full hour to explain arguments and treat them in a balanced way. Unfortunately now that it’s a half-hour scare-fest that genuinely shares an agenda with the Daily Star, its former glory still gives it more weight in people’s minds than the red tops despite being in no way superior, or even journalistic in its approach.
And as ever, a thoroughly superb dissection of the topic John – thank you.
07/12/2010 at 00:16 pilouuuu says:
Why don’t journalists talk about addiction to movies or books? What makes videogames so different? Is the interactivity? Are they afraid of interacting with their entertainment forms?
I don’t get it. Entertainment is all the same and just like other medias, it can be bad in excess, but it is in no way bad per se.
07/12/2010 at 00:40 John Walker says:
It’s the zeitgeist.
I remember in the 1980s such programmes were about watching television. Our children’s lives and livelihoods were being endangered because they were being “couch potatoes”.
The fear remains the same, but the subject matter changes every decade or so.
07/12/2010 at 00:44 DrugCrazed says:
They made programs about the dangers of watching television?
Something in there seems wrong to me.
Also, did it include the danger of “Picking up sensationalist bullshit?”
07/12/2010 at 00:53 Andreas says:
That’s not really a powerful argument though – I know tens of people who will say that at some point, their excessive gaming actively detrimented their real life – me, for starters. I don’t know anybody who’d say excessive reading had the same effect.
Again, yes, entirely anecdotal. But anybody who argues that television is as compelling as WoW clearly hasn’t played endgame WoW.
07/12/2010 at 01:13 DevilSShadoW says:
Addiction to books you say! Ah but there’s this really informative documentary on the subject entitled “Read Or Die” it’s even depicted as a cartoon so that the young ones will understand it better! What a wonderful world we live in, don’t we?
07/12/2010 at 01:34 Wulf says:
In my case, I’d say that an X-Factor marathon would be exceedingly more compelling than an end-game WoW raid. I only did a few of those, and I actually fell asleep in one of them after a short period due to how mind-numbingly monotonous it was. My brain essentially went ‘Eff this, we’re off to dream land, that’s far more interesting!’, and switched off. I woke up with people complaining at me, which was rather entertaining.
07/12/2010 at 03:41 Lacero says:
You’ve never read a book and stayed up too late because “It’s impossible to put down!” ?
I don’t buy book because of this, it’s too dangerous. Games I can stop, books I can take to bed :D
07/12/2010 at 05:38 Nick says:
‘Video nasties’, rock and roll, comic books, jazz.
The list goes on.
07/12/2010 at 09:56 Koozer says:
I was late nearly every day at school because of late-night reading.
07/12/2010 at 09:57 President Weasel says:
The novel was one of the first villains in these scare stories. Back in the 18th century when the art form was new there were various proclamations of the doom that would be caused by people spending too much time in these imaginary worlds and not enough time in reality.
We’ve also has scares about television, jazz, rock and roll, video nasties, and gangster rap.
07/12/2010 at 16:34 Josh W says:
I still think TV is dodgy! People spend too much time sitting next to each other not interacting at all, when they could be playing multi-player games!
07/12/2010 at 00:17 DevilSShadoW says:
Who do we have to pay to get a REAL show about gaming addiction recorded? I’m talking about a show that bring together to a table some of the greatest minds of the decade along with ACCREDITED scientists not “i gots me a paper thingie from sum online college” scientists that base their theories on nothing but junk and filth. Hell, it’s the YouTube era. Is it so hard to get a skype videochat going and just talking about it for a bit. I mean, common, I’m willing to bet that if (somehow) you manage to get through to Gabe Newell and tel him what’s at stake here he wouldn’t mind giving a 30 second opinion on the matter. He’s in the business of SELLING games, he’d probably want to defend what he sells. There’s many more respected games journalists and writers/developers/etc. (like the 2 DOCTORS over at BioWare). The industry is filled with wonderful people with no doubt wonderfull opinions on the matter, opinions that if spoken might actually cure the masses of all this “gaming addiction” bullshit.
07/12/2010 at 01:54 RQH says:
The two doctors at Bioware, smart as they are, have never conducted a study on gaming addiction and are no more qualified to comment on this issue than these scaremongers. No less, either.
07/12/2010 at 00:19 Handsome Dead says:
Anecdotal evidence is the best evidence.
07/12/2010 at 00:35 Mister Adequate says:
Says you!
07/12/2010 at 00:44 Auspex says:
Says Dogbert!
“Dogbert: I have discovered a heretofore undiagnosed condition.
Dilbert: There is no such thing as Chronic Cubicle Syndrome.
Dogbert: Initially victims exhibit denial.
Dilbert: But you have no proof.
Dogbert: Oh, I have something much better than proof. Anecdotal evidence!
Dogbert: Who do you think would be dumb enough to believe anecdotal evidence?
Dogbert: I’ve narrowed my target market to… PEOPLE!”
07/12/2010 at 00:20 Lambchops says:
A good piece John, but i do have one bit of nit picking to do.
“Young people grow up in difficult circumstances, one in three suffering some form of abuse.”
I would like to see a source for this. Partly because I’m initially a bit skeptical as to the accuracy of that statement and partly because when you’re lambasting someone for not clearly showing evidence for claims they make you should really go out of the way to back up your own claims. Although I do agree with your main point in that section that the reasons people may spend too much time playing games are multifaceted.
07/12/2010 at 00:30 Lambchops says:
Actually reading again I’m not so sceptical about the accuracy, I more feel there’s a lack of definition. Is this abuse in the home or bullying at school? Does smacking count? But then if anything I’d reckon that the stat is too low as pretty much every kid gets bullied at some point. Does the abuse then have to be systemic and not a one off? The whole thing is just a bit wooly.
07/12/2010 at 00:44 John Walker says:
You are correct. While the 1 in 3 statistic is widely quoted, and used by many charities who aim to protect children, I can’t adequately evidence it immediately, so I’ve removed the claim.
07/12/2010 at 01:00 Lilliput King says:
“It is difficult to state an overall single figure of maltreatment. This is because each form of maltreatment may not happen in isolation from other forms, for example physical abuse might be experienced alongside emotional abuse. The closest thing we have to an aggregate prevalence figure is from the second volume of the NSPCC Child Maltreatment study (Cawson, 2002), which examined abuse and neglect within the family. It found that 16% of children (1 in 6) experienced serious maltreatment by parents, of whom one third experienced more than one type of maltreatment . If we add in those children who experienced intermediate levels of maltreatment, the total percentage of children experiencing some degree of maltreatment (ie. serious or intermediate) by parents at some time in their childhood rises to 38%.”
Cawson (2002) Child maltreatment in the family: the experience of a national sample of young people. London: NSPCC. p.52.
38% is I suppose where the 1/3 figure comes from. Looks like ‘Abuse’ is a form of ‘Maltreatment’ in the jargon used sociologically here. According to the NSPCC there are four types of child abuse (which you can read up on here http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/trainingandconsultancy/consultancy/helpandadvice/definitions_and_signs_of_child_abuse_PDF_wdf65412.pdf). I think the ‘serious’ and ‘intermediate’ definitions are peculiar to the Cawson study, though there are some definitions given of ‘serious’ abuse that falls under one of those four headings:
“The study defined ‘serious physical abuse’ as one or more of the following violent treatments: hitting with implements; hitting with a fist or kicking hard; shaking; being thrown or knocked down; being beaten up/being hit over and over again; being grabbed around the neck and choked; burning or scalding on purpose; threatening with a knife or gun; or slapping, smacking and pinching that resulted in injuries lasting a day or longer on the majority of occasions.”
“The study defined sexual abuse as acts against the respondent’s wishes when aged under 16, or acts perpetrated by someone 5 or more years older when the child was aged 12 or under. Sexual acts were categorised as ‘contact’ (physical contact with genital, anal or other normally private areas of the body; and other physical contact such as sexual hugging and kissing) and ‘non-contact’ (exposure of genitals or other private areas of the body, voyeurism, exposing children to, or using them to make, pornography or to watch sexual acts). The study only included acts experienced by children aged up to 16.”
“In this study ‘serious absence of care’ included frequently going hungry; frequently having to go to school in dirty clothes; not being taken to the doctor when ill, all when under 12; regularly having to look after themselves because parents went away, or had problems such as drug or alcohol misuse; being allowed to go into dangerous places or situations; being abandoned or deserted; or living in a home with dangerous physical conditions.”
“In this study ‘serious absence of supervision’ included being allowed to stay at home overnight without adult supervision under the age of 10, or allowed out overnight without parents knowing their whereabouts, aged 14 or under.”
“In this study ‘emotional maltreatment’ included psychological control and domination; psycho/physical control and domination; humiliation/psychological attack on self-esteem; withdrawal of attention/affection; antipathy; terrorising/threatening; and proxy attacks. The study’s authors constructed a system to measure the severity and frequency of emotional maltreatment. Respondents were assigned a ‘score’ on seven dimensions of potentially emotionally damaging treatment, indicating how many of the treatments had been experienced. Scores ranged from 0 to 14; zero being no potentially damaging treatments experienced, and 14 indicating that a wide range of treatment with the potential for abusiveness had been experienced. The mid-point score of seven was established as the measure of emotional maltreatment because it represented that respondents recorded adverse treatment in at least four of the seven dimensions. The survey revealed that 6% of the sample had scores of seven or above, and these were assessed as experiencing emotional maltreatment.”
So there :P
07/12/2010 at 00:20 DarthBenedict says:
Nothing shows the competence of the press like seeing them report on something you know.
07/12/2010 at 00:20 realmenhuntinpacks says:
Oh Panorama you dick. Nice response John. I remember this line of argument from when I was still hacking my way through Goldenaxe.
07/12/2010 at 00:21 ohms says:
Panorama is just shite in general now.
07/12/2010 at 00:23 bob_d says:
I wish we could get past this nonsense, as the game industry does need to have an honest discussion about game designs that rely on inspiring compulsive behavior in players as its main play motivator. The discussion isn’t quite where it should be in part, I suspect, because no one wants to give the “games are addictive” crowd any more ammunition. Too many games are being designed as time-wasters, deliberately using psychological tricks* from gambling (and trying to re-create its compulsions), which seems both unethical and bad for the development of game design. There’s an interesting debate there and it’s too bad the BBC couldn’t be part of it.
*Of course, the psychological tricks used by advertising, trying to get people to “destroy their lives” by buying things they can’t afford puts all the shenanigans of game designs to shame. Perhaps BBC needs to do a show about that.
07/12/2010 at 11:40 Delusibeta says:
So, like the episode of Extra Credits about the Skinner Box? (For those who haven’t seen it: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2487-The-Skinner-Box )
07/12/2010 at 17:56 bob_d says:
@Delusibeta: Yep, that’s the stuff. Many designers have been using operant conditioning techniques gleaned from gambling (where they’ve been refined) and many have never even heard of Skinner. I see a few designers talking about this, but not enough.
07/12/2010 at 00:23 Blackberries says:
John:
I do not know if this is an odd suggestion, but I think you should consider getting this (or an edited version of it) posted on Enemies of Reason, as an excellent (terrible?) example of the media being horrendously distorting and agenda-driven. I don’t know the demography of his readership, but I imagine a lot of non-gamers would then see it.
07/12/2010 at 00:24 DrugCrazed says:
Sigh. I noticed that 15 minutes in that every sentence was following a new grammar rule, that its not a sentence unless it contains a verb and the word addict (or varients thereupon).
The WoW scene infuriated me.
“So, we want you playing the game and also want to interview you.”
[interview starts]
“Wait, you can’t do both? Maybe your addicted.”
…”Fine, I’ll stop playing”
“I notice you’re uncomfortable. Like I’m interupting you from your game”
“Well yeah, you are. I’m dying and playing terribly” (film stops here) “So my teammates are getting wasted on this raid you know?”
Notice how that last bit doesn’t make the edit?
07/12/2010 at 00:34 outoffeelinsobad says:
“I noticed you seem annoyed when I poke you like this.” *poke* *poke*
07/12/2010 at 00:36 DrugCrazed says:
“Am I bothering you? Am I bothering you? Am I bothering you?”
07/12/2010 at 08:59 DJ Phantoon says:
“I’m not touching yooooou… I’m not touching yoooooou…!”
07/12/2010 at 00:29 Willard Foxton says:
As a former BBC journalist, who’s filmed panoramas, I can say that I was horrified by the shallow, I’ll-informed idiot tabloid view presented in this documentary.
There is a TREMENDOUS amount of serious research on this; a wide variety of serious interviewees could have participated. Instead, we got Daily Mail esque SHOCK!!!! I’m particularly annoyed after having had editorial policy goons crawl all over my documentaries from Palestine, Afghanistan etc with a fine tooth comb looking for objectivity and balance.
I suppose they were all too busy harassing real journalists to care about this video game episode. The problem is obvious to a TV vet like me – it’s written, edited & directed by the same person. No objectivity, no balance.
This would never have been made when Sandy Smith was in charge of Pano.
The individual responsible
07/12/2010 at 12:48 Monchberter says:
Thanks Willard.
07/12/2010 at 00:29 CaLe says:
I had no interest in watching this show to begin with, now I’m glad I didn’t waste my time on it.
07/12/2010 at 00:29 dux says:
I bet they wouldn’t be so quick to label those who spend hours and hours ‘poking’ other people on Facebook (or whatever it is people do on there, I’ve never bothered to find out) as addicts.
It seems to me that with the rise of casual gaming and popularity of consoles in homes over the last few years, people have started to think that more people gaming overall somehow equates to a ‘generation of addicts’. How can gaming addiction be ‘so new’ when games have been around for decades? I’m pretty sure people didn’t suddenly become addicted to alcohol or cigarettes 30 years after they first tried them. Why weren’t these kind of shows being made about all the kids who spent many an hour in the local arcade as a kid? Was it because they were out of the house so their parents didn’t care what they were doing? And the one thing I’ve /really/ never understood, why aren’t people who watch TV for 6-8 hours a day also labelled as addicts in such a derogatory manner? Is it really that much more of a wholesome activity? I know people who get irritable every time they miss their latest soap opera or reality TV show. Sure sounds like they’re addicted to me.
As gaming becomes more accessible to everyone, more people are gaming, and gaming a bit more than they used to. I really don’t see the story here.
07/12/2010 at 00:33 kikito says:
I hope they die from Spontaneous Human Combustion.
07/12/2010 at 00:36 MadTinkerer says:
I’ve found that SHC is caused by videogames. I sent my findings to UKIE.
07/12/2010 at 00:44 Lambchops says:
I’ve found that gaming will herald the return of smallpox. I sent my findings to the WHO.
07/12/2010 at 01:03 Lilliput King says:
I’ve heard that smallpox will herald the return of 60′s and 70′s rock. I’ve sent my findings to The Who.
07/12/2010 at 09:03 DJ Phantoon says:
I found when I time travelled back to 2002, The Who didn’t come up as both “The” and “Who” were common words and thus not included in my search. I’ve sent my findings to Google.
07/12/2010 at 09:20 jeremypeel says:
I’ve heard that ’60s and ’70s rock will usher in a reactionary movement of three-chord-only bands. I’m sending my findings to the Royal Family.
07/12/2010 at 00:34 Fergus says:
I actually was expecting it to be far worse, given Panorama’s record. Anecdotal evidence and pointing at extreme cases from South Korea was pretty much all they had, but that’s the same style that the show takes towards any similar topic.
The point seemed to be to show that people can become addicted to games. I don’t think there’s any disputing that, nor was anyone ever attempting to. Of course, you can become addicted to pretty much anything that gives you pleasure; watching TV, caffiene, gambling … hell, you can even become a sex addict. Don’t see anyone saying we should crack down on people having sex because they could become addicted to it though.
The point is not whether people can become addicted to something, it’s whether that something is inherantly addictive. Games are not. Therefore, no problem.
07/12/2010 at 00:35 MadTinkerer says:
That’s too bad. There have been some genuinely good Panorama shows (though admittedly I’ve not seen an episode since 1998 when I moved to New Jersey), but this is obviously not one of them.
07/12/2010 at 00:35 mandrill says:
This sounds like exactly the hatchet job I thought it would be. I’m kind of glad that I can’t watch it it would just make me incredibly angry.
The thrashings of a dying medium. They see in gaming their own demise as more and more people play games or use the internet rather than watch TV. A paradigm shift is coming, not only in the media we consume but in the ways we consume it and how we pay for it, this same shift is happening in how such media is created and distributed. All the old guard of the recording industry, the movie industry, the television industry and the traditional dead tree publishers are all quaking in their suits because they simply don’t know how to adapt. Their fear of their gravy train finally coming to the end of the track causes them to attack the superfast maglev of condiments which the new age is bringing.
07/12/2010 at 00:47 MadTinkerer says:
British kids should spend their time drinking and watching the telly! Videogame addiction is a threat to our budget- I mean, way of life!
07/12/2010 at 00:36 noobnob says:
I do not know what exactly the BBC means for you British folk, in a socio-cultural-whatever context, but John’s examination on this particular episode reminds me why I stopped watching TV.
07/12/2010 at 00:38 Josh Brandt says:
So I’ve heard that the most addictive games are the ones that are created from parts of all kinds of different games– that are made up of elements of, say, shooters, strategy, and so on. These “made-up games” are an insidious presence in our schools and homes…
07/12/2010 at 00:42 DeliriumWartner says:
Well done John. You showed remarkable restraint. If I’d been writing an editorial on this there would be many more swears.
07/12/2010 at 09:26 jeremypeel says:
Indeed. This will be the first place I point people who need to start knowing what they’re talking about.
And thanks for not sneering about it, John – it’s the natural reaction of gamers to do so, but we need to take the subject very seriously when our favoured medium is slandered in a programme that still has a reputation for good journalism and candidity (somehow).
07/12/2010 at 16:44 Josh W says:
Overall this incident has actually made me happier, because a vast array of stupid views have been hearded into one place, and you’ve responded in a measured and intellegent way. Well done John. I wish more people were on the internet so I could just send them this link when they get concerned.
Eisensteinian editing seems a weirdly underchecked form of bias; it’s like the BBC’s bias-checker can be stopped simply by feeding it enough weasel words, and then will let all kinds of absurd stuff through.
07/12/2010 at 00:46 DrugCrazed says:
He did. Its the previous post. :P
07/12/2010 at 00:55 Andreas says:
I would kind of like to see Blizzard implementing techniques to allow people to monitor/restrict their use.
Eg: Would you like to restrict your account activity to X hours a day for the next X months?
CONFIRMED! Your account is set..
07/12/2010 at 01:01 General Frags says:
I believe there are such features in WOW, they are in most consoles too as well but at the end of the day parents or the end user themselves don’t use them.
07/12/2010 at 01:38 Durkonkell says:
Such settings do in fact exist as part of the account management system and WERE advertised on the main WoW site (which has now changed completely and which I can’t check right now as it’s broken due to the Cataclysm).
Of course, parents need to actively take an interest in their child’s activities to even know it exists or that they might want to make use of it.
Also: I’ll be sending a letter of complaint tomorrow. If I recall correctly, they are actually legally obliged to reply to complaints if requested, but I’m just a gamer and my memory is so damaged by playing electronic video drugs 36 hours a day that I won’t even remember I sent the complaint in. I should really give it up in favour of drinking too much, falling over and accidentally impregnating women like the stable, normal non-gaming types.
I advise anyone within the UK to make a complaint about this programme if you find it unacceptable. As a public service broadcaster the BBC is held to certain mandatory standards of impartiality, accuracy and editorial quality. No incoherent raging or swearing at them if you want to be taken seriously though.
07/12/2010 at 00:56 DarkFenix says:
I’d love to say I expected better from the BBC, but quite honestly I knew the programme would take this tone. It’ll probably be a few more years before games start being taken seriously enough for a real study to be performed, then this ‘scandal’ can bugger off for the next convenient target to start taking the heat.
07/12/2010 at 01:08 General Frags says:
Gaming and the world wide media have never got on well and they probably never will.
07/12/2010 at 00:57 Josh Brandt says:
Oh, Adrian Hon _is_ an award-winning game designer, just mostly from another area– sort of a crossover collectible card game/ARG called Perplex City.
I should see if I can still get in touch with him and see if he’s annoyed at how he was represented here…
07/12/2010 at 01:04 John Walker says:
I knew I knew the name! Adrian’s a lovely chap – I interviewed him for my ARG piece.
I’m fairly sure the awards they’ll be referring to are those for their recent game. It won the 2010 SXSW award for Best Game, and the 2010 Learning on Screen Multimedia Award.
07/12/2010 at 01:30 Josh Brandt says:
Ah ha, okay! He’s been less active on the nominally-Iain-Banks-related mailing list where I met him a while back. Presumably he’s been off winning awards and stuff rather than sharing in the typical off-topic blatherfest there…
07/12/2010 at 00:58 General Frags says:
As a uni student studying Criminology and as a gamer myself, it is obvious that the so called addicts shown suffer from other psychological illnesses (depression, social rejection/maladjustment, etc) and that gaming is an effect not the cause. I have poured over the so-called research over the last 3 years that has been published and I can say that most of the data is highly anecdotal and convuluted and is often biased. When the research is peer reviewed the problems are brought to the surface but this happens after the publication, when this is reported back to the public by the news services it is often taken out of context making gaming look even worse.
For once I had hoped the BBC had produced something worthwhile but I guess I was wrong, considering that the video game industry adds over £3 Billion to our economy each year. As for the subject of is it an addiction I take a look at myself and my friends, most of them play WOW and other MMO’s (I don’t, as my experience in WOW was pretty crap) and maintain good social lives, have part time jobs and study at uni, they play about 7-9 hours a week and have had no problems ever. Its just this small miniority (less than 1%) which gives gaming a bad name, its my opinion and my friends that those guys are simply playing the game wrong or doing something that which the developers did not intend.
Personally at the end of the day it is the parents fault, lack of interest into their childrens activities and lack of control over them results in these kids just abusing their freedoms, most get over it and grow up but its a small portion that carrys on. Theres many features now in consoles and MMO’s that can limit time as well in game content, parents should not be afraid to get involved in the technical sides of gaming.
Also gaming at least keeps kids of the streets and away from crime, drugs and gambling and alchol which addictions often lead towards death or serious health problems.
And what crappy games to get addicted over, theres plenty of better games out there, they should try some.
07/12/2010 at 01:06 ScubaMonster says:
Gah, wrong post.
07/12/2010 at 01:06 kit89 says:
Interestingly enough, they could have cut the entire episode down to maybe about 5 minutes by saying something like :
“Just like all forms of entertainment, games can be bad for you, if played in excess. One needs to teach their children to play in moderation. One needs to take control of their child’s life and educate them at an early age to not gorge themselves on anything, whether it be food or entertainment. One needs to teach their child when to stop.”
What I don’t understand is when did playing or doing anything for 6 hours become acceptable? Are they suggesting parents are to dumb to realise? As if a parent would know that watching 6 hours of television is bad, but for games it is somehow an exception? When did this happen?
kit89.
07/12/2010 at 01:13 General Frags says:
Most parent believe gaming to be harmless thats the problem and they pretty much just ignore their kids and move on to other things, if parents were more tech savvy they would realise most games have such features to lock down the amount of time of play, instead of shouting at the kid and threatening them.
07/12/2010 at 13:38 Archonsod says:
To be honest, given the current standards of parenting I suspect they could have cut it much shorter by simply saying
“You need to teach kids”
Would certainly be a revelation for many people around here.
07/12/2010 at 01:07 ScubaMonster says:
The worst thing about this is lawmakers are trying to pass legislation based on these “findings”.
07/12/2010 at 01:10 General Frags says:
It won’t get passed, £3 Billiion per year in our economy is too big a hole to lose especial with lib/con cuts next year.
07/12/2010 at 11:51 Delusibeta says:
I think Scuba is thinking of the California law. AFAIK the argument it took to the Supreme Court is “because violent games harm children” or something along those lines (correct me if I’m wrong).
07/12/2010 at 01:19 Blissett says:
Personally I didn’t find the program particularly egregious. Certainly it had a clear agenda which is disappointing but it was considerably less shrill than most such programs. And the fact that you are able to pull quotes from the program that appear contradictory surely just underlines that this wasn’t a complete whitewash. The message at the end seemed to me to be – too much gaming is bad for you, it looks like it can be addictive for a small minority and a lot more research is needed that the industry should help fund. Nothing to get too upset about there. It certainly stopped a long way short of calling for games to be banned etc like some of the Titchmarsh bullshit for example so I’m inclined to be grateful for small mercies.
07/12/2010 at 01:28 manveruppd says:
Great write-up, once again it’s great to hear a reasoned voice on this! You deserve a wider audience though, cause, let’s be honest, you’re kinda preaching to the converted here.
07/12/2010 at 01:32 Owen says:
This was brilliantly said John. What with RPS being more and more ‘visible’ I’d like to think that at least some people that had a hand in the Panorma episode will read it.
Well done
07/12/2010 at 01:38 Shazbut says:
Great article
07/12/2010 at 01:38 Qwentle says:
The one point in this story that I liked was the “66% of teenagers in this country have their own consoles in their bedrooms”. Hopefully this means that in a few years time, 66% of families will have consoles in their main rooms, and then parents can both monitor their children’s time spent gaming (because regardless of how dangerous computer gaming is or isn’t, I’d like my kid to have more than one hobby) and use it as a bonding experience with them (though by that point I guess we’ll be bemoaning the addictive properties of some unimaginable new horror)
As with one of the guys above, I loved the disgust he had when he was the LAN Cafe and realised the teenagers there were in danger rather than going and doing something safe like getting hammered.
07/12/2010 at 01:39 duke of chutney says:
ive not paid my license fee in many ere year, take that BBC,
i will buy a tv and pay the fee, when the writers of Brass eye or Chris Morris, are employed to produce panorama.
07/12/2010 at 01:51 Dr Random says:
As a former player of World of Warcraft I could very well relate to what Leo was saying. I wouldn’t want to inflict the same experience I’ve had. I ended up quitting the game after realising that beyond my addiction to it, it was starting to create a lot of anger issues within me.
I’ll say that I’ve always had anger issues as a child and school was horrible for me. I won’t lie but when I started playing World of Warcraft in 2005 it was a fun environment that had its limitations and that was enough for me to play for three or four hours a night and log off. (Back pre TBC). Now with the 3′rd expansion being released alongside the previous two expansion packs I think World of Warcraft has become far too large to a point where it is over whelming and can begin to dominate a person’s life.
The segment in this episode of Panorama about rats learning to press a buzze fo foodr time and time again when food was placed in the chamber randomly actually did make alot of sense.
Some people will not know what I am about to refer too but for those that do, I think my point will make sense.
I leveled a character, a hunter in WoW all the way to level 80 in four days. Four days of no sleep, ten cans of Relentless eating microwaveable food and pot noodle. I was abvsolutley chuffed to bits and after hitting 80 and going ot the auction House in Ironforge and buying some better gear and resetting talent points I finally went to sleep knowing I had completed my goal.
The next day I woke up and started doing instances, at the time 3 new 5 player dungeons and a large raid had been released and I started the grind through dungeons to get badges and earn even better gear etc etc and so forth. I remember one bow item I wanted for my hunter came from a relatively difficult dungeon for new players to comprehend and this bow came from the last boss.
Getting that bow was bloody hard and I spent a week que’ing for the same instance over and over until I finally got it. My character HAD to have that bow.. people on my friend’s list were asking me to help them with their own dungeon runs and such and I just kept refusing. I was obsessed with getting it and didn’t stop apart from sleeping, eating or showering.
During this week period the bow dropped nine times and each time it was “ninja’d” from me by other players meaning they took the item even though some one needed it more. Alot of bad luck for me there but it made me rage so much I was swearing at the screen, yelling out profanities and even scaring my neighbors whom complaiined to my land lord to deal with me,
As an apology to my neighbors I sent them all a card and apologised personally at their door steps and told them it wouldn’t happen again. That was 6 months ago.
In that 6 months I’ve taken to playing more RPG’s/RTS games in an attempt to fill the void that was World of Warcraft. I’ve had alot of time to think about it all and realised that I have NOTHING to do. Having little money, enough to pay my rent, buy food and pay my utilities means I cannot go out and “get smashed” as that Nottingham idiot put it.
I still have my wonderful circle of friends, small but I know I can trust them with anything and even they have told me that they couldn’t see anything else for me to do either. I’ve gone so far as to offer cleaning their houses while they chill out or so for something to do.
The trouble is that there is nothing else to do, nothing whatsoever.
Its all well and good for a parent to cut the internet off from their child if they think their child is becoming addicted to games but then what can they do? The stigma that there is always something to do is false. In today’s society there is nothing else to do. Video gaming is an escape and should be treated as such in moderation. Children do not play on the street, teenage gangs in lower class neighborhood are quite prevalent and activites such as skate boarding are being cracked down upon in towns and cities across the nation.
When the guy who made the peice interviewed Leo after he finished his battle ground asked him Leo: I’ll leave this for a second
Raphael: How much are you plaqying the game?
Leo: More than 6 hours a day.
Raphael: Just sitting here talking to me now, you seem uncomfortable as if I’m irritating you in same way.
Leo: Well no offence, but you are. I’m dying here and playing pretty badly.
Raphael: How do you feel that your now playing the game again?
Leo: What bothers me more is that I couldn’t find a substitute.
Raphael: There are millions of things for you to do out there. Look for new friends, find a girlfriend.
————————————————————————————————————————————-
Both the activites suggested often require alot of money of which in today’s society alot of people don’t want to be spending. What people do in their time is their business and not anyone else’s.
Raphael in that dialogue has demonished and made Leo seem like he is guilty of something.
He isn’t…
I’ll be blunt and say I am bored.. very effing bored sat here these days. I go out and look for work.. come home and watch old reruns of Dr Wgo on iPlayer or other websites to specific TV series. Society has us turning into vegetables. and its no wonder some people slip through it all and become addicted to video games.
Scaremongering from Panormama and nothing more, entirely mis representing the problem and explaining why it happens. This calls for quite a few angry letters..
07/12/2010 at 04:19 casualhero says:
Get some books. Books are great.
07/12/2010 at 08:15 Stranglove says:
I like books.
07/12/2010 at 08:35 Tetragrammaton says:
Meeting people does not require one to be rich – just as it does not require you to be roaring drunk. Equally there are a plethora of things you can do to improve your life for no pennies – try exercise, try reading, try writing, try drawing,. You say yourself you are bored. Can you honestly say that you have no interest other than playing videogames?
07/12/2010 at 11:29 manveruppd says:
What you mean is that there’s nothing for you to do that gives you the same level of instant gratification! The constant drip-feed of rewards that games like WoW put you on is illusory: real life isn’t like that, genuine achievement takes more than 15′ work, but the gratification you’ll get from it is, conversely, much bigger than the momentary rush you’d have gotten from getting that bow (after which you’d have only started on your next item of gear), as well as much more enduring.
Suggestions: take up a sport/martial art/join a gym. It’ll cost a little more than your WoW sub, but not much more. Read (second hand bookshops or your local library are a great source of cheap/free books, plus anything that’s out of copyright can be downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg). Learn a foreign language (which’ll let you get a much better job – there’ll probably be free courses you can borrow from your local lending library). Join a local boardgame or RPG group (there’s forums to help you find them). Write Warcraft fanfic – you’ll probably be able to come up with better plots than they do for the majority of their “Kill 80 sameoleons” quests! :p
I’m not saying you should do these things INSTEAD of playing games, just refuting the allegation that there’s nothing else to do. Nor am I saying that those things are “better” than games. (OK, learning a language or exercising probably are, because they’ll improve your life in more ways than just the fun you’ll have while doing them, but they’re not better as a pastime/form of entertainment.) Just saying that doing a few different things makes you enjoy your other hobbies more cause it stops you from burning out on them. Plus I genuinely think that the play/reward pattern in games like WoW is bad for you, it teaches us that we can achieve something with no genuine difficulty and conditions us to getting constant affirmation of our “effort” (if pressing the same 4 skill buttons for 15′ almost brainlessly can be called effort). Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of great things about MMOs (the teamwork, the exploration, the banter and social dimension, the community dymanics, especially in the pvp-oriented ones) but the zombiefication of the playerbase by putting them through an assembly-line grind of low-difficulty, short-term objectives with regular rewards is neither interesting, character-building, or even fun. After having played an MMO for a month or two I actually find it difficult to get into your average single-player game, because it requires effort and cognitive engagement that I’ve become unused to expending! It’s the gaming equivalent of trash tv!
07/12/2010 at 11:56 Nick says:
Take up a musical instrument.
07/12/2010 at 13:10 Sillytuna says:
DrRandom – the excuse you have given – “there is nothing to do these days” – has been given for time immemorial. I used to give it as a kid too. I vaguely understood that as a child and I certainly know it as an adult.
And it’s rubbish. It always has been.
There are a million things one can do, whether you have money or not. Obviously it helps to have money but there are many things you can do without money.
The fact is you don’t want to do them, and that’s not anyone else’s fault or that of modern society (well, not exactly – there are some issues here). I’m not saying it’s easy, I mean that only YOU have the power to get out of that rut. This is not about blame – on you, on games, or on parents.
Computer games, especially on-line ones, and social networks are like refined sugar – they are the easy quick fix; they take no effort; they [some] can work on a simple, low level. However, too much of a good thing is not a good thing.
I think it takes a lot of effort to go and find other things, to learn to enjoy new hobbies – whether they be walking or football or helping clean the local rivers or skateboarding or joining book clubs or… you get the idea.
Short of being severely disabled you really can’t use the lack of other options as an excuse.
In all likelihood the problem is not boredom at all, it’s mild depression – and you can (and perhaps should) get some help for that. It’s very common and some little things can really help.
07/12/2010 at 15:03 noobnob says:
I suggest Gutenberg as well, as it is very rich in knowledge with its vast collection of public-domain books.
As for “The trouble is that there is nothing else to do, nothing whatsoever.”, that’s a lie that many find themselves comfortable with, including myself back in the teens. There will always be room for personal discoveries, if you pursue them. Likewise, there is also the option to lock yourself up from the world beyond and believe that there is only THAT thing to do and only THAT is a reason to keep dragging on with your life. In the end, the choice is yours.
I say this as an ex-MMO addict myself, by the way. I had my own problems back then, but playing a 2D platforming grindfest for a whole year certainly didn’t help!
07/12/2010 at 01:53 geldonyetich says:
I’m not surprised they didn’t take it all that seriously. If any TV or movie did go out of its way to prove that gaming addiction is real, guess what’s going to be considered addictive next? TV or movies.
Because books, games, TV and movies all fall under the same umbrella of information-derived entertainment. Prove one is addictive or changes people’s behavior in any way, and you’ve proved (or at least lent considerable evidence to the claim that) they’re all addictive or behavior changing.
So, if you happen to be in any of those businesses, it’s a conflict of interest to establish that games are addictive.
07/12/2010 at 01:56 rocketman71 says:
Heh, didn’t know that Gabriel Tosh was now twisting the truth in Panorama.
I used to respect the BBC.
07/12/2010 at 01:56 Dr Random says:
Forgive my typos in my long previous post.
07/12/2010 at 02:03 Jsnuk says:
I spend at least 7 hours sleeping a day, I can’t go a day without sleeping; I guess I’m an addict.
07/12/2010 at 02:07 MD says:
What are you actually implying here?
If someone needed to game in the same sense that we all need to sleep, are you suggesting that wouldn’t count as an addiction?
07/12/2010 at 14:32 Jsnuk says:
I wasn’t implying anything I was just a little drunk, it must have seemed clever at 2am in the morning… such is life.
07/12/2010 at 02:21 fearian says:
The rather hard to track down BBC complaints page: http://goo.gl/u4Y8G
And fuck me if this tripe isn’t worth a complaint. remember – panorama is trying to call this show Journalism
07/12/2010 at 02:40 panther says:
It’s sad, someone like my grandma would watch this program and believe every word of it :(
07/12/2010 at 03:08 fallingmagpie says:
Put a link to here on the relevant BBC forum. Assuming it won’t get moderated away – it doesn’t break any of their house rules.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/panorama/2010/12/computer_games_-_a_hard_habit.html#P103904672
07/12/2010 at 03:50 Bob says:
Thanks John, your editorial proves Aussie and British media have something in common, I think Drug Crazed commented about the sensationalist aspect. Poor old gaming takes another hit and if it’s to believed, then the people I associate with on a gaming forum aren’t the intelligent, well adjusted people I thought them to be. If the media is to believed, then if they play one more shoot ‘em up zombie fest, they will turn into anarchistic, violent, addicts. I don’t need a game for that, the commercial breaks do it for me. :D
07/12/2010 at 03:56 Dr. Mike Reddy says:
”If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth” is a lie!
With apologies to Joseph Goebbels.
My 3 yr old insists I play with her: not only an addict, but a dealer in gaming!
No mention of the engagement (compulsion? Addiction?) of gaming and it’s positive application in Education and Serious Games… bad Panorama, BAD!
07/12/2010 at 09:11 DJ Phantoon says:
Don’t… don’t apologize to the dead Nazi.
He didn’t earn it.
07/12/2010 at 03:56 pupsikaso says:
John, thanks a lot for taking your time to write this and other articles on “gaming addiction”. I hope more journalists take up arms against these baseless accusations.
07/12/2010 at 03:59 casualhero says:
Conspiracy theory: The TV will attack PCs and Consoles because they are seen as competitors of easily consumable fiction. Get families and friends to ostracize people who play games, and what are they going to start doing with that free time? Watch TV.
07/12/2010 at 04:39 frags says:
Indeed. This is the same argument people once had for TV’s being too addictive. It’s just a new medium, the older generation has no idea what’s it about and the younger generation are growing up on. Yet these people who make these accusation never see the parallel with the history of TV.
07/12/2010 at 06:46 pupsikaso says:
Conspiracy? Since when has this become conspiracy rather than an obvious fact?
07/12/2010 at 04:10 Arthur Barnhouse says:
Stuff like this always reminds me of Infinite Jest, the character that brushed his teeth over and over again until his gums bled. We should probably illegalize Toothbrushes.
07/12/2010 at 04:40 Vaporz says:
John, I find your dissection of this topic interesting, but please be aware that you made a pretty broad and and problematic statement while doing so, and one not completely unlike what you are criticizing:
“No one ventures the notion that there may be physical differences in how one responds to the passive activity of watching TV and the active participation in gaming”
I know there are popular memes of the “turning your brain off” kind, but consider film (and TV) studies fields such as reception theory, phenomelogy, cognitive theory etc. that completely debunk this archaic notion of the passive viewer/consumer/reader/what-have-you.
07/12/2010 at 04:45 thebigJ_A says:
This program offends me. Severely.
I was an opiate addict for the better part of a decade. It changed who I was, tore apart my family, and really, really sucked. (I got better.)
I also play video games. They are fun without any detrimental side effects. (I propose that anyone having issues with gaming is merely exhibiting a side effect of some other, actual problem.)
The two are NOT the same. If we use the word ‘addiction’ to describe gaming, we are trivializing what addiction truly is.
07/12/2010 at 04:54 Fox says:
This was quite a frustrating and biased program. Now, to make everyone feel better about the whole thing, here is something much, MUCH worse!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7_aJtpUWT4
I miss the good old days when it was only FOX News spreading nonsense, nobody takes them seriously :(
07/12/2010 at 05:20 The Great Wayne says:
“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.”
Whatever the context, whatever the topic. Same old story again and again. Also, for those that aren’t too inclined toward seeing those lyrics applied to the question, I direct them to this quote:
“Today’s youth is rotten to the core, it is evil, godless, and lazy. It will never be what youth used to be, and it will never be able to preserve our culture.”
Which has been found on a babylonian vase aged of at least 3000 years. What should frighten us isn’t whatever shenanigan the TV can pull concerning video games, it’s out complete incapacity to learn from the bullshit of our fathers.
Because trust me, in 30 years (sooner for some, later for others), we’ll be watching crap shows like this one on TV, wondering what new stuff the kids have gotten into and worrying about it.
07/12/2010 at 12:21 AndrewC says:
We’re all doing this right now with our rants against consoletards and facebook games. Games just aren’t as good as they were back in the day, amirite?
07/12/2010 at 05:38 MultiVaC says:
Video game addiction is the most serious problem facing our society today. Don’t believe me? It’s all in the numbers:
Number 1: That’s terror.
Number 2: That’s terror.
07/12/2010 at 05:54 Lucifalle says:
My family completely fell for this :-/
I guess my reputation as the “dangerous game addict” is set in stone now.
07/12/2010 at 09:12 DJ Phantoon says:
Maybe you should stop sharpening that butcher knife habitually during dinner while staring into the eyes of your youngest sister.
Just a thought.
07/12/2010 at 06:00 Cloudgazer says:
“It is also my opinion that people can spend too much time riding bikes, playing bingo, and building model railways. I’m not being facetious. And each of these can lead to their personal lives suffering, and those of their loved ones. Until there is some evidence that gaming can create an addiction in someone otherwise undisposed to addictive behaviour, then it must be understood as a consequence of addiction, not a cause. To do otherwise is ignorant, dangerous, and harmful to the individuals. Blame it on gaming, and you’ll take away the games, leaving the person to continue suffering.”
I will never visit RPS again, because you’re all clearly so far up your own asses you’re not even people any more, just egoist shells of who you wish you were.
Ever met someone addicted to riding bikes or building model railways? No? Me neither. Bingo? Yeah, bingo is gambling, genius. I know you want to see unbiased, but you’re just as clearly biased as the dunce caps who made the documentary. You should get together, you’d probably make lots of money together once realizing you’re cut from the same cloth.
I’ve been addicted to games (and other substances), and I’ll tell you right now, you yourself are an addict. The stage you are in right now is called denial.
Mind you, this entire website seems to be full of staff who are in denial about what the hell constitutes good writing.
Adieu,
Your biggest fan
07/12/2010 at 09:13 DJ Phantoon says:
I’ve got some advice for you, chum.
Step 1: SUCK A DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII- [Message Redacted]
07/12/2010 at 11:55 noobnob says:
How can you deny the existence of bike addiction when a scientific article examines thoroughly its effects based on extensive observations? More telling is the fact that there is a website dedicated to Bike Addiction!
07/12/2010 at 11:59 Lilliput King says:
“Ever met someone addicted to riding bikes or building model railways? No? Me neither.”
Well, first of all, that’s the point. But have you not met people that neglect their relationships with their families for trivial things?
Like football, or golf? Anything is damaging if you do it to the exclusion of all else. But whether that is the fault of the thing itself or the fault of the person is not a trivial question, and whether it can really sensibly be called addiction is too easily taken for granted. That’s all John was saying. Your post is easily the most dogmatic thing on this page.
07/12/2010 at 06:32 ceebux says:
Ban this sick filth!
07/12/2010 at 07:06 Da5id Jaz says:
This topic doesn’t have to be handled so heavy handedly, take this new piece of writing on a similar theme: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/science/07tierney.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
07/12/2010 at 07:32 terry says:
I didn’t watch this because television is addictive.
07/12/2010 at 07:34 Lorieh says:
Great article! These clowns deserve all the hate they get and more. They are a dying breed and these are their last flailing attacks against that which they do not understand. Time is on our side…
07/12/2010 at 09:15 DJ Phantoon says:
No, no it isn’t. Rich people can have kids too, you know. I don’t know what it is in England, but here in the US, the top 10% has 50% of the wealth. They didn’t even have that much right before the Great Depression! Considering you’re not really doing any better than us in the “don’t get fucked over by the politicians” department, I’d say a bit of fear (in this case only) is justified.
07/12/2010 at 08:05 Torqual says:
Not so long ago i played online games like a second life. My first life was daily work to get my bills paid and the second life started the minute i had free time. In my part it was world of warcraft i was playing like an addicted. But i must say it was not the game i was addicted to, but the people i was playing with. When i realized that my gaming habit had a bad influence on my real life( my girl-friend went upside down and i did not realize why) i stopped playing. Yes you can become addicted to games. But most people do not have the time to spent their whole day in front of the pc or tv. I do not see what kind of message those game haters in mass media have. But those people who are addicted to games need help from professional caretakers, because mostly their family members are not capable of understanding the problems of the addict. You can’t prevent people from coming addicted to drugs, or alcohol or gaming, a prohibition did only criminalize the victims. Everybody has to forge his own luck, so just let it flow.
This kind of discussion reminds me of violence induced by gaming. 1% of all humans are capable of violent acts against each other, with no need to defend themselves in peaceful circumstances. So gaming is not more damaging as violent movies or books. And some selfproclaimed scientists found their whole career on searching for signs of gaming inducing violent behavior. Its sick. They should use their scientific capabilities on the eating habits of white sharks, please in real life studies by being eaten. Oh no this comment was induced by playing games.
I do not see what kind of message those game haters in mass media have. Prohibition of gaming by the government? Who makes a profit from something like this. Why is the gaming industry not stopping such movement? I don’t get it.
Have a nice day.
07/12/2010 at 08:23 mpk says:
I freely admit to having been addicted to EVE. It caused me problems and played a part in the breakup of my relationship with my son’s mother. It wasn’t the main part, truth be told, but me sitting at the computer talking on Vent while she watched telly certainly created some problems. I was too blind to see them at that point and now, almost two years later, it’s too late.
I also freely admit to having one of those “compulsive personalities”, whatever they are. If I enjoy something I’ll tend to do it intensely and regularly until I get bored of it. With EVE, it was five and a half years. There are other factors as to why I played so much – the friends I had ingame being one of them, the stress of the job I was in at the time being another.
That said, if I had been told at the time that I was “addicted”, in the terms Panorama used, I’d have laughed at them. I still managed to have some semblance of a social life, while working 50+ hours a week running a successful business. It’s just that I tended to wind down and relax by shooting internet space fools.
I eventually lost that job too, but gaming had nothing to do with it. I imagine Panaroma would say it did, but they’d be wrong.
07/12/2010 at 08:30 cliffski says:
This is an excellent, well thought out and wonderfully written attack on a program that it depressed me to watch, given that this is apparently ‘public-service broadcasting’ that I am forced on threat of imprisonment, to subsidise.
Thanks for writing it, and I suggest you send the article as a formal complaint to the BBC.
07/12/2010 at 08:37 dadioflex says:
The BBC is the only thing standing between us and having Glenn Beck on television here. Be careful what you wish for, Clifford.
07/12/2010 at 09:18 DJ Phantoon says:
Please. The only thing that stops him from crying all the way to England to espouse… whatever… it is… that he does… he does crying, I know that much. He throws tantrums, too. And something about the Tea Party? I think that’s him too. Point is, he’s got a contract with Fox and he can’t work for the BBC right now.
08/12/2010 at 19:10 Kadayi says:
@DJ Phantoon
Try reading what dadioflex wrote.
07/12/2010 at 08:35 dadioflex says:
You’re all missing the actual story arc behind this piece.
Plucky Joe who was stuck in a rut at university discovers Call of Duty 4 and it gives him the confidence to tell the educational overlords to go fuck themselves so that he can ultimately get bored of Call of Duty 4 and become an independent film-maker.
I was crying as the credits rolled.
07/12/2010 at 08:52 UW says:
I didn’t watch this show, but it’s pretty much how I expected it to be.
I think the thing that makes gaming so easy to highlight is that as a form of entertainment it is basically a limitless way to spend your time. A longish book takes – what – 5 hours to get through? A long movie is 3 hours. A short game is 6 or 7 hours easily, and long singleplayer games can go on for 300 or more hours.
Any online multiplayer game has infinite replay to the right person. If someone is in a mental state where they want to escape from reality for as much as possible, gaming is an obvious and easy choice. As someone who was, by the definitions used in this programme, “addicted” to a video game for over a year, I think I understand it better than a lot of people might. I played an MMORPG basically every waking minute, I gained weight, I lost friends, I screwed up my education. Was it the game’s fault? No, it was me. I just wasn’t happy. The only quality the game had that I was looking for was that no matter how much time you put into it there was always something to do. In fact, it’s a rubbish game. I’ve tried checking it out a couple of times recently and ended up quitting within about 30 minutes.
Since then I’ve sorted myself out, I reconnected with all my old friends and I see them a lot. Sometimes we play games together. I’ve lost weight (Nine stone now), I go to the gym regularly, I eat well, I make a decent living. Did I have to abandon games to achieve this? No. Not at all. I still play games (Obviously, look where I’m posting) and quite a lot at that.
The reasons, I feel, that I was able to get so deeply involved in this game are that I was looking for something to get deeply involved in. If it wasn’t a game then it would have been something else.
07/12/2010 at 09:04 sonofsanta says:
Oh, and as predicted on here, the only point they made towards “how are games made to be addictive” was, of course, Skinner’s box. Genius.
The fact that they showed Daily Mail editorial headlines as some kind of proof of this sick videogame plague really says it all, as well.
Grrr BBC shoddy journalism etc. I don’t expect any better at this point, tbh, but sadly most people just accept their words unblinkingly.
07/12/2010 at 09:12 DrugCrazed says:
Something to ponder. The Eurogamer preview included a quote from the BBC saying that “The industry was being too defensive”. The BBC didn’t think there was a problem here.
That’s more worrying than a series of bias documentaries.
07/12/2010 at 09:23 DJ Phantoon says:
Nonsense! When the BBC tries to put someone on the defensive, go offensive! Call the interviewer’s mother a whore. Play their game!
07/12/2010 at 09:26 bill says:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/panorama/2010/12/computer_games_-_a_hard_habit.html for feedback and thoughtful comments.
07/12/2010 at 09:37 EndelNurk says:
Just in case people get the wrong idea about Mark Griffiths, he is a good researcher with good ideas about games. I don’t know anything about the studies that John refers to, nor Griffiths’ knowledge or lack thereof of those studies. With regard to papers that he has published we see the following:
Perhaps most importantly in this context, Griffiths in March of this year published a paper containing advice for Educational Psychologists about games. He states, “evidence suggests that in the right context playing video games can have positive health and educational benefits for a large range of different sub-groups, such as those with autism and impulsive disorders…If they are put into the right context, video games both online and offline have the potential to be used as training aids in classrooms and therapeutic settings.” Griffiths moves on to make precisely the same point as John, that “any activity when taken to excess can cause problems in a person’s life,” in fact he goes on to discuss excessive reading, particularly interesting in light of several comments here, and how that would not be seen as a problem and certainly not be legislated against as apparently excessive gaming has been in China.
WoW is often referred to in contexts such as these. Indeed my only gaming experience that came close to being problematic (and therefore arguably a behavioural addiction, as discussed above) was with WoW. Griffiths (2009) is an excellent qualitative study of the attitudes of MMO gamers with particular reference to WoW. 71 gamers were interviewed, ranging from the age of 18 to 54 and who had been playing for around 5 years on average. The extracts reported show an impressive maturity among the gamers, they would take care to structure their gaming around work so as not to cause problems in their work lives and they also highlighted the social nature of their gameplay. Two extracts report playing with partners and how this has helped form or strengthen relationships. Interestingly, more than half thought their gaming was or is excessive but only a fifth of the participants thought that MMOs themselves were addictive, suggesting the gamers believe it is not the game itself but rather their attitude to it that is or was the problem.
With regard to the benefits of gaming, some of the participants report that they play MMOs in order to relieve negative feelings. Combined with the study that Jim (I think) recently discussed regarding Tetris and PTSD, there appears to be growing consensus that games can be a therapeutic aid.
What personally interests me is that the gamers linked being social in the game with being anti-social in the real world. Do other people see this as a problem? Some other studies I’ve read, particularly with regard to FPS clans and MMO guilds suggest that serious gamers tend to play at least partly for the social experience so the old adage of gamers as anti-social people has some problems. I would be interested to know whether the fact that the people one socialises with are online rather than offline has any effect on the strength of the social experience. I know there are papers on this sort of thing but I haven’t got round to them just yet.
07/12/2010 at 10:32 John Walker says:
I’m sure Griffiths is very good at his job. But it gave me great concern to see him saying that there were no studies into the subject, when there are very many.
07/12/2010 at 09:41 DST says:
Fantastic article. For the first time in my life last night I was so angry at something I had seen that I felt compelled to complain.
I wonder how many people missed the show last night because of their addiction to Coronation Street.
07/12/2010 at 09:44 Olero says:
I’m addicted to life. And I really need to quit my job, so addictive…. Almost 9 hours a day, designing stuff on a computer, 5 days a week! And nobody thinks that’s weird at all. Social pressure is a much much much bigger problem. Sure, everyone has a free will, but when you use it, it is highly frowned upon. If not beaten down… Just be like all the rest and no-one gets hurt, eh?
The less attention programs (“shockdocs”) like this get, the better. Though nowadays, they’re kind of hard to avoid, sneaking up on you where you don’t expect them to be, unless you don’t watch television at all.
07/12/2010 at 09:44 uNapalm says:
If you feel strongly enough, then make a complaint to the BBC about this program.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/homepage/
If enough people complain then the program will be investigated and if the complaint is upheld then the BBC will be forced to apologise. I for one will be complaining.
07/12/2010 at 09:52 MikeP says:
I have a question. If we assume, given the lack of evidence to the contrary, that gaming “addiction” is nothing more than filling a void left by some other problem in life, should we stop people playing?
I have a foster brother, who by anyone’s reckoning has had a pretty awful life. In the last couple of years he spends a large amount of time playing WoW. I expect he’s bored, with fairly unexciting prospects for the future. Should I be encouraging him not to play, and to instead seek self improvement? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of point in stopping him playing if he’s just going to watch TV instead. Also, if gaming fills the void, isn’t that a good thing? On the other hand, maybe if he stops playing now, he might stumble upon an actual permanent solution, like a job and a relationship.
07/12/2010 at 10:08 oceanclub says:
If this program was unscientific rubbish – and from the synopsis it sounds like it was – I wouldn’t bother with feedback, I would organise a complaints campaign with others magazines and blogs. Enough is enough. Either these latter-day Fredric Werthams actually put up some peer-reviewed factual evidence that (a) games are harmful and (b) can be more psycholically addictive than any other entertainment which they _don’t_ condemn (and _anything_ can be psychologically addictive, and I’m sure that includes being a moral campaigner) or they stop making baseless scaremongering programs.
P.
07/12/2010 at 10:13 phuzz says:
I’m going to make a prediction:
The level of ‘gaming addiction’ is going to fall, because the parents of kids being born now, have grown up with games and gaming themselves, and recognise that it needs to be treated in a similar way to the way my parents rationed our TV (and now I think about it, our computer time) back in the day.
I’m also going to make a bold guess (based on no evidence what so ever), that all of the people presented in the program as being addicted have been brought up by parents who don’t really understand gaming, and rarely if ever play games themselves.
I look at my 5yo nephew, and see him playing with his mum on the DS and Wii. Somehow I don’t see him turning out to be addicted to games.
(that said, two of my flatmates have been up all night playing WoW, one of them I’d say might have a problem, but playing WoW constantly is just a symptom of that problem)
07/12/2010 at 10:15 Fraser Allison says:
The broadsheet, vaguely Guardian-esque newspaper in Melbourne ran a story on game addiction the other day that was even less well researched. It was basically an interview with a gamer kid and his parents. But there was one section that, to me, perfectly encapsulated the history of game censorship:
It goes unremarked that the game in question is Call of Duty: Black Ops, rated MA15+, and Riley is 12 years old.
07/12/2010 at 10:16 Groove says:
Just logged a complaint with the BBC.
Complaint basis: Bias
07/12/2010 at 10:28 Rhys says:
WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!?!
07/12/2010 at 10:49 Catastrophe says:
Fantastic read on the subject, as expected :)
07/12/2010 at 11:01 Leelad says:
I’m addicted to games as much as my wife is addicted to watching Eastenders and corrie and xfactor and im a celeb and strictly and dancing on ice and…..oh do i need to go on?
If gaming addiction really was a “thing” I’d rather be hooked on that over ramming a shit load of smack up my arm then robbing my family for my next fix.
07/12/2010 at 11:08 The Sombrero Kid says:
It’s times like this were i feel i need to make a Zealous Docu – Fearagedon – Drama about the dangers of Docu – Fearagedon – Dramas.
07/12/2010 at 11:35 Ross H says:
Yet again, a clear sign that reporters no longer do any investigation when it comes to the next subject to write about. Riddled with inaccuracy and vastly under-researched, it was nothing more than a pathetic scare piece. The BBC should be ashamed (but then I say this every week).
07/12/2010 at 11:55 David says:
Excellent article – speaking as a gamer, and as someone interested in research on this topic, I thought your approach to this was spot on; this is a very serious topic, and if there is real evidence of an issue then the gaming industry need to take note. Otherwise, stop with the scaremongering.
Speaking as someone who works for the professional body for IT, we constantly come up against a negativity about technology, particularly amongst the media. Gaming is nasty and antisocial, social networking makes you lock yourself in a room too, and of course, IT in areas like the NHS are a waste of money – as opposed to a massive (as yet, missed) opportunity to do things better for patients.
One of the things we did recently to try and shed some light on this was some social research on how IT use is associated with ‘wellbeing’ – which is (entirely coincidentally) now starting to be a trendy topic:
bcs.org/infodividend
The result was that there is a positive association – and it seems to be the case that IT use makes you feel more in control, more free. Despite the evidence, and the big societal implications, it was an uphill struggle convincing people!
07/12/2010 at 12:06 Peej Maybe says:
The artist who set up the hidden cameras to capture kid’s gaming faces was a master of retouching. I’m surprised the BBC didn’t hire him to do another series of that bloody stupid “Honey I’m killing our kids” TV series where parents are presented with before and after pictures of their offspring if they continue to feed them junk food.
Great piece of visual symbolism to put the fear of god into parents who have game-playing kids and it’s pretty obvious that of the hours and hours of footage the bloke took (and later digitally retouched or post-processed to highlight the sallow complexions of the kids involved, the dark circles under their eyes, the lank greasy hair as if to further underline the slow physical decline of these games-playing zombies), the nastiest looking specimens were purposely selected.
As for the parents involved in the programme (who are world authorities on everything simply because they start every sentence with “As a parent”), laying absolutely awful parenting skills at the door of anyone else but yourself is as lazy and bone idle as not bothering to get involved enough with your kids in the first place early enough to see that they were developing a problem. Again and again parents seem to think that “out of sight is out of mind” is probably the best way to bring up your kids and in the cases presented in the programme, it was telling that the mothers were always picked out for soundbytes and not the dads…
Great article John, thoroughly well done.
07/12/2010 at 12:14 MrEvilGuy says:
A few (and only a few since this is RPS) responses to this article remind me of my days back in first-year university English where we spent weeks learning how to find fallacious arguing and whatnot… a skill which I take for granted these days – I wish they taught that stuff in secondary school so everybody would learn it not just university students who are in philosophy or get lucky with a professor for whatever course who decides to teach this stuff.
07/12/2010 at 12:19 myros says:
The parts I found most “interesting” were when they seem to sugest drinkinh alcohol as a better alternative to gaming.
Firstly in Korea where he states something along the lines of “insteading of being out drinking or going to nightclubs they are in the internet cafes playing games.”
Then one of the “addicts” advises the viewers to give up playing games and go out and get “smashed” instead.
Wonderful, lets push mind altering rececrational drugs as a better alternative to gaming. Classic.
07/12/2010 at 14:02 Markachy says:
The program did not do this, that is utter nonsense. It was suggesting that in Korea, instead of socialising they were playing games. True. And socialising in WoW etc is NOT the same as socialising in real life, its a very poor substitute.
The “addict” was suggesting that instead of locking yourself in a room for another 12-hour sesh of WoW, you go out socialising with a mate you haven’t spoken to in a while as a result of your gaming. He said go get “smashed” because that is how the vast majority of people his age end up after socialing in a pub. It was not some hidden attempt by the program to suggest that becoming an alcoholic was a better option, as far too many gamers are bending over backwards to suggest.
I hate it when gamers become so eager to defend their (and my) past-time that they end up being as bad as the thing they are protesting against.
07/12/2010 at 19:09 myros says:
Im sorry but your reply is “utter nonsense” ,,, your trying to interpret what the makers ‘meant’ I stated what they actualy did. They quite clearly created a ‘compare and contrast’ between drinking alcohol (a proven danger for addiction) and gaming in a cafe. The statement he made on Koreans had an inhernent judgement – ie rather than doing his pre-concieved ‘normal’ activity (drinking in pubs) they were doing this terrible thing of gaming in cafes …. everything from the backdrop to the music was intended to convey that message.
And the documentary makers chose to leave unqualified the other ‘addicts’ statement of getting “smashed”, getting blind drunk on alcohol would be FAR more dangerous than playing WoW. I worked for 10 years in an ER seeing the direct results of people getting ‘smashed’, I never once saw someone come in due to playing WoW … funny that.
07/12/2010 at 12:30 DarioSamo says:
I’m on a reversed situation here, while I enjoy playing different games from time to time, I think my father has developed a serious addiction to Plants Vs Zombies. : /
07/12/2010 at 12:30 Elizabeth says:
Good article. When was a teenager my dad died and I took refuge in books. No-one seemed to mind that but i spent just as much time reading as people play games now, if not more.
We need to see neurological and psychological research before we can say people are addicted for sure.
07/12/2010 at 12:37 RevStu says:
Alternatively, a sane and rational view of videogame addiction:
http://wosblog.podgamer.com/2010/12/07/when-addicts-get-addicted-to-non-addictive-things/
07/12/2010 at 12:43 Pete says:
John, that was a refreshingly balanced and thoroughly thought-provoking piece of criticism. Bravo Sir, you are a credit to this hobby and art form.
07/12/2010 at 12:58 Caleb367 says:
meh, the usual crap-flinging.
Scapegoats always go well with TV shows,especially these devils tools of today. My kids drop out of school? It’s not my fault, it’s rock music. My son smokes crack and steals cars? Not my fault,it’s GTA. My daughter’s the town bicycle? Not my fault, it’s that hippie-looking teacher in her school.
That’s all there is, actually.
Just means for failed parents to shift the blame and feel better about themselves. And for dishonest journalists to suck easy money from scaremongering.
I remember an episode from the Transmetropolitan comic, Spider Jerusalem (investigative journalist, based on Hunter S. Thompson) visiting a hostel for troubled children. The guy working in it told Spider that everyone looks everywhere to find the culprit, the one to be blamed for destroying kids’ lives, looking everywhere but the right place, in the mirror :P
07/12/2010 at 13:03 We Fly Spitfires says:
Excellent, excellent article that sums up my thoughts and feelings precisely. This view of gaming seems very similar to the same views we saw about Marilyn Manson etc a few years ago. It seems to be easier for people to find a single topic to blame then accept that there are deeper issues going on, usually revolving around family and society.
07/12/2010 at 13:23 Bascule42 says:
He set the tone when talking about the premiere of “Starcraft”. Might seem like picking that he didn’t say “Starcraft II”, but as someone who is expected to research the issue I thought it was rather telling and it set the tone for a doc by someone totally uninformed and ignorant of the issuies at hand.
Did he really say “Laura” Croft?
07/12/2010 at 13:39 Stellar Duck says:
This is actually a subject that touches on some personal experiences.
When I was a university I found myself spending waaay too much time playing games, TF2 mostly. It was something that quite worried me for a while. I believe my studies suffered as a result.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t play becuase I was addicted. I played because, as it turned out, I had a major depression and gaming provided a way out, if only temporary for me. When jumping on the clan servers I was able to socialise with people without any pressure. I was able to forget, for a time, my ever growing problems and all the shit that kept piling on my life.
Not surprisingly I played more and more to get that brief moment of peace. Also not surprisingly it was not a good solution. But games, as it turned out, was an attempt to self medicate, if you will.
I think this ties to what Mr. Walker said in his piece. Exaggerated gaming was not the cause of my problems. It didn’t ruin my life. But it was a result of undiagnosed depression.
And I’m fairly certain that a lot of people will have been through the same. And I also am fairly certain that, as Mr. Walker mentioned, gaming can be substituted for any number of activities. Had I been interesting in some other hobby I suspect I would have taken that to an extreme.
07/12/2010 at 13:45 Markachy says:
“This episode genuinely contains someone advising people who game too much to go out and get drunk (“smashed”) instead.”
I thought the article was great until we arrived at that sentence. By using that example you are being a hypocrite, doing what you complain (rightly) that the program did too much — gross, misleading sensationalism by taking something out of context. That was a 18-25 year old giving advice to get in touch with a friend you haven’t seen for a while thanks to “addiction”, suggesting socialising with them in the pub instead of sitting in front of WoW for another 12 hours.
It was not suggesting that all gamers go out and get “smashed” all the time instead of playing games too much, and it was not presented as such. That ending pretty much ruined for me the generally fair and logical tone of the article. Shame. Pot, kettle, black.
07/12/2010 at 17:23 oceanclub says:
Yes, but didn’t the program also itself compare the “normal” activity of going to the pub versus those weird South Koreans who go to games cafes? There definitely was editorialising and value-judgements being made there.
P.
07/12/2010 at 18:06 Markachy says:
Again I think socialising is the key point here. I have no idea how social the Korean cafes are having not been there, but it would be impossible for it to be as social as going to the pub with mates.
It used the pub as an example because thats what the vast majority of people in the UK do at the weekend – go out with their mates. I for one don’t think that sitting in a cafe playing games is a good substitute for socialising.
07/12/2010 at 18:46 noobnob says:
Why “impossible”?
07/12/2010 at 18:51 Neut says:
“I have no idea how social the Korean cafes are having not been there, but it would be impossible for it to be as social as going to the pub with mates.”
That’s a bit of a sweeping statement there. Like you said, socalising is the key aspect here. A pub isn’t the only place you can go to with your mates. There seems to be an implication that going to the pub, with or without mates, is an inherently superior form of social activity than going to an internet cafe, because it’s what the majority of people do here.
07/12/2010 at 13:53 Jim says:
World of Warcraft? L O L. I might pick up cataclysm to check it out. I wonder if it will still play on my Dual Core 2, Intel HD video laptop?
07/12/2010 at 14:04 screeg says:
Considering that people have been yakking about this for ~20 years and there still isn’t any evidence that it’s harmful in any way whatsoever, I’d venture that No, it’s not all that serious a topic. and No, there isn’t anything at all to worry about. If any portion of the population is “addicted” to games, meaning playing of games has a negative impact on their lives, this is more to do with their personality type than games per se.
Frankly, I think the whole topic is a joke, just a bit of non-news filler that’s dusted off every six months. There’s more gamers wringing their hands over how they’re perceived than non-gaming citizens who actually give a shit either way.
07/12/2010 at 14:44 Kory says:
Why not contact them and let them know how irresponsible you think their reporting is:
panorama.reply@bbc.co.uk
07/12/2010 at 14:52 Bacardibatman says:
I was there when some of this was being filmed (i40 “britians biggest games festival” ) and friends interviewed. It started of with ok questions (im guessing to ease themselves into it and gain their confidence ) which turned to obviously negative especially on the 2nd day of filming you could see the angle they were aiming for
alot of the questions asked were quite leading
friends & were asked/told to play the game and i’ll interview you during it
i’ll bet like “leo” was asked to play WoW while being interviewed as he’d know the effects to make him appear more involved in the game rather than interview
i also bet most ppl have asked someone who’ve been watching their favourite TV program “and had the same response ”
One of my friend was asked if he didnt play and stopped cold turkey would he sweat and shake word for word
@ 10:10 in the program – guess they just wanted a gamer to say exactley what Panorama wanted and scripted
they even asked my friend if they could experiment & if he would try to take his pc away for 30 days to see what the results were
also check
http://www.olganon.org/?q=node/21825
when they were sourcing ppl for this
also coincedence it being aired on cataclysm launch ? …it was originally supposed to be aired Nov 15th so…in the words of L. J. Gibbs “i dont believe in coincedences”
if Raphael Rowe is worried about his children playing too much – ACTUALLY BE A PARENT AND SAY NO TO THEM
07/12/2010 at 15:18 Napalm Sushi says:
Funny… spending almost all of my down time in front of my PC never caused me to put on weight, stop seeing my friends and stop going out.
To do that required a girlfriend.
07/12/2010 at 15:41 Mike Williams says:
Registered only because I wanted to say bravo to this article. Very well written response. Cheers.
07/12/2010 at 16:04 Abacus says:
“Joey had been playing games since he was a small child…
… and then he bought an Xbox.”
Alright, I’ll admit it. I laughed.
07/12/2010 at 16:07 Fabio_butter says:
Having played wow for quite some time now, I can definitively deduce that there are MANY wow “addicts” out there. Any serious wow player knows exactly what I say here as well, but the denial is so deeply ingrained that conscious awareness of it gets sucked into the ether in exchange for 10 hour days in pursuit of that lvl 271 two handed axe. I’m not at all surprised that people are saying that games have no negative affect on people, that’s a pretty typical human response to something many will vehemently defend in order to protect that aspect of their escapism. Good or bad, that’s the facts folks. To say the least, if you are dedicating 8 hours a day, you are probably on your way to a pretty chaotic nervous system disorder, not to mention an addiction most people don’t even believe in. Having allowed myself to be sucked into this void, I’m here to tell you, it’s real and most intelligent adults who play wow are fully aware of it too. Any one who claims that playing wow (or any other game for that matter) for absurdly prolonged amounts of time isn’t damaging to one’s life, is clearly deluding themselves. Log off and have a sandwich. The AH will be there when you get back. :)
07/12/2010 at 16:49 Zig13 says:
I hated the focus on ‘kids’ (most video games are not intended for children!) and teh fact that they neglected to mention Farmville. If any game is going to be mentioned as being specifically tuned to get people to keep coming back it should be a social game like Farmville. And yet the social aspect of online games which is arguably one of the things that make them the most ‘addictive’/fun was completely ignored. It’s like they wanted to reinforce the stereotype of the loner gamer.
07/12/2010 at 17:28 Artist says:
Comming from the Game Studies I found Nick Yee’s “The Trouble with ‘Addiction’ ” an very interesting approach:
07/12/2010 at 17:29 Artist says:
No, I have no idea how to add a link properly, grrr… http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001543.php?page=1
07/12/2010 at 18:16 cisforcookie says:
the world is full of an awful lot of parents who don’t understand their children and struggle to feel connected. scapegoating videogames, something they don’t remotely understand, is only natural. I mean which is easier “my children aren’t interested in me or the things i want for them” or “my children have been unfairly taken away by something I don’t understand that seems to occupy them all the time”
07/12/2010 at 19:10 Darthus says:
Ugh… came in so late on this one. I’m in my 4th year pursuing a Doctorate in Psychology. I was going to do my dissertation on VG addiction and have read a decent amount of research. I don’t think there is ANY debate that gaming can be “addictive”, in that people can play games problematically. The closest correlation are NOT things like Heroin and Nictoine, which are physiologically addictive, but things like Gambling, which is classified as a “behavioral addiction”. There is actually plenty of research out of places like China that support this.
I think arguing over whether or not gamers are “addictive” is a smokescreen, it’s something that riles up gamers defending their hobby and it scares people who don’t game and see games as heroin. Many games (MMOs in particular) do have elements in them that are similar to gambling, with added progression, that can trigger addictive behavior in someone who is predisposed to that behavior and under the right circumstances. But, as has been mentioned, we should be examining THAT, not spending hours debating whether or not games are “addictive”. That’s a useless distracting battle.
07/12/2010 at 23:26 Delusibeta says:
As I pointed out elsewhere, the Extra Credits episode on the Skinner Box is pretty good. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2487-The-Skinner-Box
I realize the Skinner Box isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of techniques to encourage the player to play on, but it’s one of the main ones.
07/12/2010 at 23:37 Darzil says:
I’ve not seen it (though my wife did).
Sounded like the usual stuff. Carefully didn’t mention that one of the prime ‘addicting’ qualities of MMOs (at least for me and people I know) is the social one, that you are playing with people who want your presence, and want to do things with you. There are other pressures, of course, but that’s the big one. Unfortunately, of course, that doesn’t sound like ‘people getting cut off from society’, so it’s not mentioned. Of course doesn’t mention any research, as that unfortunately gives a different message. At least it sounds like there was no Susan Greenfield.
07/12/2010 at 23:46 Helder Pinto says:
What a great article!
07/12/2010 at 23:54 Jabberwocky says:
This thoughtful article, and some of the hilarious comments remind me why I love this site so much.
08/12/2010 at 01:10 Carra says:
I agree that gaming addiction is a symptom that has a deeper cause. E.g. People who are depressed may spend way too much time in the game as an escape from reality. In this case the cause should be cured after which the symptoms will vanish automatically.
And yeah, I speak from personal experience. I quit playing WoW for a long time after I figured out that I spent 6 hours each day playing it for two years straight. That was seriously hurting my school results. These days however I can just spend a few hours each week playing some games. Gaming wasn’t the real problem.
08/12/2010 at 01:50 Andy says:
Hey there, i found a website that is very interesting. They have Nintendo games there.http://www.thegameplanet.info/
08/12/2010 at 03:37 MrTwitchy says:
What a gods damned ridiculous enormity of a documentary. I dont even feel compelled to intelectually refute this program. It’s a biased, scaremongering, idiotic piece of tabloid filth with a young black voice to lend it credibility. I feel shame for paying my license fee.
08/12/2010 at 04:33 MadMatty says:
Excessive book reading NooooooOOOOOOOOOO!! – get out laddy and dont come back till ya had atleast 6 pints
08/12/2010 at 09:16 Richardanr says:
I love how very early on in the program they show people (mostly well over the age of 18) lining up at night to be among the first to be able to buy a new video game. The comment the “reporter” then makes is something along the lines of “I cannot believe people are doing this” which shows early on where his bias is.
Similar scenes of young children lining up at night to buy the new Harry Potter book however have always been shown by the BBC without negative comments
08/12/2010 at 10:52 clumsy says:
Could you fix the “enormous amount of time spent researching ” link? It doesn’t seem to go anywhere at the moment
Also, I think Mark Griffiths may have been fishing for funding…
08/12/2010 at 13:10 deejayem says:
(Late to the party, but) BRAVO, JOHN!
08/12/2010 at 20:10 Sherpa says:
Well, it was very informative – I had no idea that video games could be so dangerous! I’ll certainly think twice before turning on my console and playing as “Laura Croft” or Solid Snack. If something as basic as “the ping pong game” on the Atari is addictive there’s no telling what the more complex ones could do!
But seriously, they could have at least gotten a reporter with the vaguest amount of background knowledge on the fucking subject. Honestly. As a games design student in her second year of study, this programme makes me want to weep. I can only hope the public aren’t stupid enough to pay it any heed.
08/12/2010 at 23:41 George says:
It mentioned that a small amount of people can become addicted to games since they have addictive personalities.. Likewise those same people could easily become addicted to alcohol or food and therefore die faster. Only… I think 16 reported of deaths due too games? That’s extremely low when compared to alcohol and drugs.
09/12/2010 at 02:27 Unaco says:
I didn’t actually read this article, and still haven’t. But I’ve just found two of my internet loves come together… I just came here from a link on Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science mini-blog.
09/12/2010 at 22:02 verticalshine says:
I’m just going to echo what a lot of people have already said but I feel this is important enough that it needs to be said many, many times. Mr Walker has written an excellent article and I’m glad that so many people have commented on it with humour and intelligence. Hopefully I can do the same.
I have an addictive personality. I always have. At the age of 12 my mother banned me from buying any more books because she though I was spending to much time reading. Yes, reading. She liked that I knew lots of big words, and did well at school, but worried I spent to much time not talking to her about things she liked and understood.
At university my friends and I dabbled in drugs. I would say some of us overdid it, myself included.
I also failed at least one exam because I was obsessed with Speedball2 and Populous. Yes, we didn’t need the high speed internet for that to be a problem. I also like a lot of students drank an amount that, had they known, my parents would have thought shocking.
Despite all this I graduated with a good degree and managed to secure an excellent job. Working in “the City” a lot of my colleagues drank a great deal and were also partial to the marching powder. As far as I’m aware this never led to us destroying the world’s economy.
I have played many games into the wee hours of the night. At the same time I would be listening to music, talk to friends, smoke a joint, and drink. If you have a hole in your life, you don’t limit yourself to just one thing to fill it. Occasionally this caused me problems, the major one being when a “straight” colleague mentioned my lifestyle choices in front of my boss.
Now I’m older I don’t game, drink, do drugs, party very often. It was a phase. I came through it. Yes, I have a friend who is an alcoholic and it’s wrecked his life. And yes, there are other friends who could have made better choices. But when it comes down to it, and I think this is what we are mostly saying, is that mental addiction, to sex, games, gambling, whatever, is a symptom of a much deeper problem in people.
How many people play games. How many people have a problem and how many of them had problems before the games.
10/12/2010 at 00:46 Steve says:
I lost 3 years of my life to Halo2 and Halo3 they are 3 years I can never get back. If you watch the original Xbox T.V. advert with the baby flying out the womb flying past all the games and landing in the grave it says it all.
10/12/2010 at 13:55 UK_John says:
Here’s an idea: Survey one hundred 40 something drug addicts and gambling addicts and find out if they were gaming addicts as kids on the Commodore 64, Spectrum 48K etc, as a kid. If they were, we would know straight away that the problem was people with addictive personalities rather than gaming per sae.
10/12/2010 at 16:49 ElectronicCigFan says:
What an interesting and disturbing show. Some of those kids were seriously addicted.
11/12/2010 at 01:49 Stoo says:
Its brilliant,
You don’t have any evidence and they don’t have any evidence.
You do however have a big advert for World of Warcraft, great way to be impartial and put the world to rights.