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Tarang Tandel
Instructor Annie Yaniga
Writing 39C
31 May 2016
Excessive Video Game Playing and Potential Solutions
Kim Sa-rang, the three-month old daughter of a South Korean couple, died of
malnutrition while her parents were playing an online game, allegedly, for sessions lasting
around 10 hours (Salmon). Although this was an extreme case, excessive video game playing
affects not only the player himself or herself but also the people around them. The effects of
excessive video game playing on the individual aren’t to be disregarded either as they can be
very devastating. These individual effects range from physical such as obesity, wrist pain, neck
pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome to psychosocial such as suicidal ideation, maladaptive coping,
poorer social skills, decreased academic performance, sacrificing work, education, and
socializing, and reducing time spent with family (Griffiths et. al 311). Excessive video game
playing is a problem that will potentially become worse in the coming decades. There are several
ways to prevent and reduce its effects, however.
Figure 1: Although excessive video game playing is portrayed humorously in this image, a core aspect of the problem is illustrated as well:
neglecting real world responsibilities. Our world, sadly, isn’t as bright as the one portrayed. Source: Knorzer.
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Some clarifications must be made before the possible ways to approach the
problem of excessive video game playing are presented and justified. Excessive game video
game playing refers to harmful use of video games that disrupts the video game player’s life and
causes social and/or emotional problems (King, and Delfabbro 62; Lemmens et al. 78). When
video game playing becomes harmful is different for everyone but it becomes harmful when the
video game player neglects other important real world activities. One such act of neglect would
be a disregard for personal health; for example, eating or sleeping irregularly or not at all, lack of
personal hygiene, and living (and playing) in an unhygienic setting. Excessive video game
playing has also been referred to as problematic video game playing, video game addiction,
video game dependence, and pathological video game playing (King, and Delfabbro 62;
Lemmens et al. 78). All of these terms generally refer to the same phenomena but “video game
addiction” can be problematic as video game addiction is not recognized as a psychiatric
diagnosis and instead is listed as a condition for further study in Section 3 of the most recent
edition (fifth edition) of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American
Psychiatric Association).
Another issue to be cleared up is the claim that video game publishers perpetrate
excessive video game playing. It is not my intention at all to blame video game publishers for
excessive video game playing. It is just an observation that video game publishers, especially the
publishers of massively multiplayer online games that rely on micro-transactions for revenue,
benefit from having video game players that keep playing their game or games. Video game
publishers that publish video games with micro-transactions as their main way of generating
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revenue rely heavily on a player base that keeps playing their games. Thus, it would make sense
for them to make video games that would keep players involved in their game. Video game
design is fundamental in keeping players involved in a game over time (King et al. 329; Wood et
al. 9). This also makes video
game design one of the causes
of excessive video game
playing. Some of the structural
characteristics that make a
video game fun also contribute
to video game players playing
excessively (King, and
Figure 2: An example of micro-transaction in the collectible card video game Hearthstone.
Micro-transactions are generally outrageous payments for something that has no real value
outside of the game. Note a pack contains only 5 cards and the cards can’t be sold once bought
and they can only be used in the game. Source: Diigiio
Delfabbro 71). The structural
characteristics that reinforce
excessive video game playing include reward and punishment features such as earning
experience points, “levelling up”, finding rare items and meta-game rewards such as
achievements for doing certain things (King et al. 329). Video game publishers can, obviously,
control the design of the video games they publish. So it is possible that some people might
accuse them, perhaps falsely perhaps not, of intentionally designing video games such that their
video games incite or reinforce excessive video game playing.
Structural characteristics of video games are not the only factors contributing to excessive
video game playing, however. One such factor is neural activity during video game playing.
Research, using fMRI, has shown that excessive video game players have neural processes that
are similar to other addictions, both substance based and behavioral, and increased activity in the
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Figure 3: The brain activity of the control group. Notice the
increased activity in Fig. 4. Source: Ko et al.
Figure 4: The brain activity of video game players. Source:
Ko et al.
areas of brain associated with these other addictions. There was an increased activity in right
orbitofrontal cortex, bilateral anterior cingulate and medial frontal cortex, right dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), right nucleus accumbens, and right caudate nucleus of excessive
video game players (Ko et al. 745). All of the above 6 areas in the brain are related to urge or
craving for certain substances or behaviors, but of particular note are the anterior cingulate, the
DLPFC, and the right caudate nucleus. The anterior cingulate is associated with “cue-induced
drug craving” and is involved in “salience to emotional, motivational information, and regulatory
control over reward-seeking behavior” (Ko et al. 745). In other words, it is responsible for
determining how intense the urge or craving for video game playing is. The DLPFC plays a role
in craving for both substance based addiction and behavior addiction as it is activated in both
cocaine addicts and gambling addicts (Ko et al. 745). Therefore, the activation of DLPFC in
excessive video game players suggests that excessive video game behavior is similar to other
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addictions at least on some level. The caudate nucleus contributes to stimulus-response habit
learning, which means that a goal-directed action-outcome process (for example, taking drugs for
their euphoric effects or playing games because they are fun) becomes an automatic process
triggered by stimuli associated with the substance or behavior (Vanderschuren 78; Ko 746). The
increased activity in the various areas of brain related to other addictions suggests that
neurobiological components are responsible for inducing and reinforcing excessive video game
behavior to a certain extent. There are also several personal factors of the video game player that
facilitate excessive video game behavior. For instance, video game players who are “more
impulsive, have lower social competence and empathy, and have poorer emotional regulation
skills are more likely to become pathological gamers” (Gentile et al. 325). Thus, excessive video
game behavior of a video game player could be caused by several factors but how does it affect
the player and how many does it affect?
Video game players that engage in excessive video game playing make up a relatively
small portion of all video game players. In studies, the prevalence rate of excessive video game
behavior has been found to be generally around 8% of video game players. In the US, 8.5% of
video game players in a national weighted sample of 1178 adolescents were found to be
excessive video game players, 10.3% in China, 8.0% in Australia, 11.9% in Germany, and 7.5%
in Taiwan (Gentile et al. 320). There are about 155 million video game players in the US (ESA).
Thus, there would be about 13 million excessive video game players in the US if the percentage
from the study holds true for the entire population of US video game players. The AMA reported
(in 2007) that up to 90% of American adolescents played video games and that “up to 15%
[more than 5 million youths] might be addicted” (Tanner). Of course, this probably is an
overestimation of the number of excessive video game players, but the true number of excessive
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video game players even by conservative estimates is bound to be in the tens of thousands or
hundreds of thousands.
Excessive video game behavior is a problem that affects both the individual and the
people around them. Those that are victims of excessive video game behavior suffer from both
physical and psychosocial problems. The physical problems could take the form of fatigue,
reduced sleep time, physical pain, and skipped meals among other things (Liu, and Peng 1306).
A few of the psychosocial problems that excessive video game players experience are increased
thoughts of committing suicide, maladaptive coping, decreased academic performance, and
sacrificing work. Excessive video game players are also more likely to feel irritable or be in a
bad mood, feel nervous, feel tired, and afraid (Brunborg et al. 281). These are only some of the
effects excessive video game playing has on the individual. Excessive video game playing also
affects the individual’s family and other real-life relationships. Married couples have broken up
or divorced as a result of one of them playing excessively and neglecting their relationships
(Young 359). For instance, Griffiths provided case study evidence of two excessive video game
players, one of them being “Jeremy”. Jeremy was a 38-years old financial accountant and had
been married for 13 years and had two children. He was so invested in video game playing that
he “constantly rang in sick to work so that he could spend the day playing online game”
(Griffiths 122). As a result of his excessive video game behavior, he lost his job and his family as
his wife left him (Griffiths 122). This isn’t the only instance where the people close to the
excessive video game player have been affected. A 22 month old son and 11 month old daughter
of a Nevada couple were malnourished and near death due to their parents being too engrossed in
video games and neglecting them (Associated Press). Excessive video game playing has severe
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consequences for both the player and the people related to them such as their family, friends,
coworkers, and employers.
Excessive video game playing is a growing problem and there are several treatment
clinics and online support forums to counteract it. The treatment clinics generally approach the
phenomena in one of two ways: total abstinence, and moderation (Griffiths, and Meredith 251).
Treatment clinics employing the former strategy believe gaming behavior can’t be re-learned and
thus encourage total abstinence. Supporters of the latter, however, believe it can be re-learned
and that video games in moderation aren’t a problem. Both these ways of treatment do have
some common ground. In both, the aim is increasing pro-social skills through social activities
and replacing the time spent playing video games with real life activities (Griffiths, and Meredith
251). There are also online support forums that provide practical advice and tips for identifying
and dealing with excessive video game playing; some of which are run by professional
organizations while some are run by parents (Griffiths, and Meredith 249). One of these support
forums is On-Line Gamers Anonymous (OLGA), a nonprofit organization in the US. OLGA
uses supportive treatment approach based on the 12-step model used by other addictive behavior
recovery groups such as support groups for alcoholics and gamblers (Griffiths, and Meredith
249). Another support forum is Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous (CGAA) which is not
affiliated with any organization and is more open to users than OLGA. For instance, the latter
requires one to be a member to access certain features while CGAA does not.
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Figure 5: The home page of CGAA. Notice the various ways CGAA help each other demonstrated in the "Make Connections"
section in the lower right. Source: CGAA
Both the treatment clinics and the support forums have an obstacle that diminishes their
efficacy. The person that needs treatment or support may not be aware that these treatment
clinics or support forums exist. Providing them with this information would enable them to seek
help for their problem. Since the video game publishers have various data about the players of
their game such as the amount of time and the time of the day when they play, the video game
publishers can identify excessive video game players and provide those players with information
regarding the treatments clinics, support forums, and other referral services (Yousafzai et al.
184). Since most online games require email address of the player before he or she play, the
video game publishers can email this information to the players they have identified as playing
excessively. Another alternative is providing this information to the player in-game when he or
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she logs in to the game. Most of the online video games have a website with information
regarding the game, customer support, and perhaps tutorials. Video game publishers could also
host this information on such websites. Note that this is most likely to only help those who know
their video game playing behavior is a problem but don’t know what steps to take to solve the
problem. This approach to excessive video game behavior may not be helpful to the majority of
excessive video game players. But that is not a reason to not implement this method as there are
those that do benefit from having this information made available to them.
At first glance, it seems that video game publishers would have no reason to implement a
mechanism that helps players who play excessively. In the case of online video games, the
publishers gain more revenue by having a player base that keeps playing. This sentiment is
reflected in the design of video games where many of the characteristics of the game such as a
reward system are intended to keep a player invested in the game. As mentioned earlier in this
paper, this structural characteristics of the game are also responsible for excessive video game
behavior. So it seems that the video game publishers would have no reason to do something that
could potentially make them lose money. In fact, money is the reason video game publishers
would want to implement this mechanism of helping excessive players. As Shumaila Yousafzai
et al. state in their editorial, “companies in online video games sector have started to face
criticism around the addictive and problematic nature of the use involved with certain online
games…suggesting that it is a controversial industry” (182). Companies in controversial
industries could lose stakeholders if the stakeholders believe that the companies are engaging in
unethical activities (Yousafzai et al. 182). Video game publishers might also want to be proactive
in this matter to avoid governmental intervention that most likely will reduce their revenue (van
Rooij et al. 492). Implementing mechanisms in their games to help excessive video game players
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would help reduce the negative perception of video game publishers and would also prevent
potential monetary loss.
Most video game publishers would not implement features that would provide referral
services to excessive video game players even when it would be beneficial for them.
Governmental pressure is key in getting video game publishers to do this. In fact, Senator Joseph
Lieberman and Herb Kohl were responsible for a major change in the video game industry in
1994. Lieberman and Kohl spearheaded a congressional hearing about the video game industry
marketing extremely violent video games (Kohler). The video game industry “under threat of
official regulation” that Lieberman was proposing decided to form Interactive Digital Software
Association (which is now ESA) and create the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (Kohler).
The ESRB still exists today and “applies and enforces ratings, advertising guidelines, and online
privacy principles adopted by the computer and video game industry” (Gray, and Nikolakakos
94). Arguably, Senator Lieberman brought about a major change in how the video game industry
operated. Getting a senator or a congressman to support the notion that video game publishers
should provide referral services to players that need them could be just the pressure the
publishers need to act.
Referral services, as mentioned earlier, would only be helpful to a minority of excessive
video game players: those that acknowledge that video game playing is a problem for them but
are unsure of how overcome their problem. Helping the rest of the excessive players –those that
don’t realize or can’t accept that their video game playing is problematic– would require
government regulation in some form. There already has been government regulation to combat
excessive video game playing. South Korea passed two laws: the “Shutdown Law” and the
“Cooling Off” law. The Shutdown law forces children under the age of 16 to stop playing online
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video games from 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM (Hawkins). In the Cooling off law, a video game player
is forcibly removed from the game after having played for two hours; the player can get back
into the game after 10 minutes (Hawkins). China also introduced a policy to combat excessive
video game playing. According to China’s policy, henceforth referred to as “fatigue law”, video
game players can play normally for three hours and after those three hours the rate of acquisition
of rewards in the game is halved and after five hours the player cannot gain any rewards (Davies,
and Blake 49). Online video game developers in China are forced to implement a system in their
game that complies with this policy. The Shutdown Law is a case that we would want to avoid as
the law generally worsens the problem while a system akin to the fatigue law is desirable as it
has the potential of working.
There are several reasons to adopt a system that resembles the fatigue law and avoid a
system that resembles the Shutdown Law. Bryan Davies conducted a study precisely to test the
effectiveness of these two strategies. The participants of the study played a game without any
modification (the control), with a fatigue
system implemented, and a shutdown system
implemented. The study consisted of three
sessions to test the above three conditions with
one session each week. There are several
reasons for the participants in the shutdown
group to want to get back immediately into the
game. The shutdown policy forcibly removes
players from the game which takes away
agency from the players (Davies, and Blake
Figure 6: The figure shows how soon the players intended to return to the
game after a session ended. Notice players showed less desire to continue
playing while the players showed a strong desire to continue playing (in some
cases they wanted to get back in to the game immediately). Source: Davies
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50). Loss of agency along with the possibility of the game being shut down at an inopportune
time is likely to aggravate players. There could be several occasions in the game where being
forcibly removed from the game is highly undesirable such as in the middle of a boss fight, or in
the middle of a “story scene” or cinematic (if available in the game). This isn’t the case for the
fatigue system where the player can choose to exit the game at a desirable time such as right after
the end of a quest or a boss fight. Another disadvantage of the shutdown policy is that since the
players are negatively affected by the policy and have a strong desire to get back into the game
right away, they might find alternative ways to “play” the game (Davies, and Blake 55). For
example, the players might go on forums to discuss the game or watch online streams of players
that are not affected by the shutdown policy. The fatigue system has the most potential for
addressing the excessive behavior of video game players. There are drawbacks to it, however.
The fatigue system for each genre of game and possibly every single game would need to be
designed separately because the way a first-person affects a player could be vastly different from
how a role-playing game affects him or her. Analyzing genres of games (or every single game in
the worst case) and designing a fatigue system viable for them would be costly and timeconsuming. This and other potential drawbacks of the fatigue system can be addressed, however.
There are several obstacles to the fatigue system. The video game publishers, without a
doubt, would be heavily opposed to a fatigue system. It adds additional work for them that they
do not benefit from. There is likely no way of accommodating the goals of video game
publishers while also working for the benefit of video game players. Governmental regulation is
necessary for the implementation of the fatigue system. Credible and substantial research about
excessive video game behavior (that supports the idea that it negatively impacts individuals and
society) along with public outrage would be essential in getting governmental support. Another
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obstacle is that most of the video game players would be opposed to a fatigue system because
most are not excessive video game players and would be outraged at having to abide by a system
that is not beneficial for them. Another obstacle was mentioned earlier in this paper: designing a
viable fatigue system would be costly and time-consuming for each genre of game (and possibly
for each video game). However, there is a solution to the two predicaments mentioned above.
The fatigue system does not have to affect every single player. Since the video game publishers
have data regarding which players are playing excessively (Yousafzai et al. 184), the fatigue
system could be enabled only for these players which are, currently, bound to be in the minority.
Thus, the majority of video game players are not affected. The solution to the design problem is
similar. The fatigue system only needs to be implemented for video games that have excessive
video game players. The data to do this would be the same data mentioned above. Video games
that have a significant number of excessive video game players. This drastically reduces how
many video games need to be analyzed and accounted for.
Excessive video game playing is a growing problem that affects both the individual and
the people around them. It is likely to get worse in the coming decade. Two potential solutions
were presented to counteract it. The first solution while being feasible only benefits a minority of
excessive video game players while having no to minimal effect on the majority. The second
solution while potentially beneficial for most of the excessive video game players would require
tremendous work from those involved in carrying it out and considerable public support as it
would face the most opposition. The best course of action, for now, would be to implement the
first solution and keeping the second solution in mind in case the situation worsens.
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Works Cited
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Disorders, 5th Ed. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association.
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Post, 17 July 2007. Web. 27 May 2016. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071600355.html>.
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Peripheral Criteria of Video Game Addiction in the Game Addiction Scale for
Adolescents." Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 18.5 (2015): 280-85.
Print
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Davies, Bryan, and Edwin Blake. "Evaluating Existing Strategies to Limit Video Game Playing
Time." IEEE Comput. Grap. Appl. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 36.2
(2016): 47-57. Print
The main point of this source, as also evident by the title, is evaluating some strategies to
limit video game playing. The author is reporting the results of a study he was involved
in that tested this two strategies: shutdown and fatigue. The basic idea of the “shutdown”
strategy is shutting the game down at a certain point in time no matter what and removing
the player forcibly from the game. The basic idea of the “fatigue” strategy is to
progressively make the game less fun so that the player voluntarily stops playing at a
certain time. This source is in unique in the sense that this was the only article that had
actual data regarding the two abovementioned strategies/policies. I plan to use this source
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to explore these two strategies in my AP and use the data in the source to support my
claims on these strategies.
Diigiio. "What Has Hearthstone Become?" Amino Apps. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2016.
<http://www.aminoapps.com/page/hearthstone/8849425/what-has-hearthstone-become>.
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<http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-Essential-Facts-2015.pdf>.
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Voluntary Compliance and Enforcement in the Video Game Industry." Canadian Journal
of Law and Society Can. J. Law Soc. 22.01 (2007): 93-108. Print.
The main point of this source is to criticize the legal regulation of the video game
industry, specifically the lax ESRB ratings and the rating system being generally
ineffective as vendors not enforcing the rating system. The author proposes some
solutions to the problem such as stricter ESRB ratings, ESRB playing a bigger role in
having vendors enforce the rating system, and features integrated into the design of video
games as means of regulation. The importance of this source for me lies in the last
proposed solution: the integration of features designed as a means of regulation. I plan to
use this source to explore this aspect of regulation; that is changing the design of the
video game to incorporate features that would help gamers (or their parents) to prevent or
reduce the effects of video game addiction.
Gentile, Douglas A., Hyekyung Choo, Albert Liau, Timothy Sim, Dongdong Li, Daniel Fung,
and Angeline Khoo. "Pathological Video Game Use Among Youths: A Two-Year
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Griffiths, Mark D. "The Role of Context in Online Gaming Excess and Addiction: Some Case
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Print.
The main point of this source was to report on the findings of a study about whether
structural characteristics of games played a role in the initiation, development, and
maintenance of problematic video game playing. The results of the study were that
certain structural characteristics played a significant role in influencing problematic video
game playing and that some structural characteristics were stronger predictors of
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problematic video game playing than gender, age, and time spent playing. This source
supports my claims that video game design can be responsible for gamers being addicted
and that many of these designs are also what makes games fun for gamers. I plan to use
this source to show that video game design can be problematic for gamers and that
forcing game developers to remove design choices that can be problematic would be
questionable as this is also what makes game fun.
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& Theory 18.5 (2010): 489-93. Print.
The author draws parallels to other industries which are heavily regulated and explores
the issue of social responsibility of the video game industry. The author argues that video
game publishers should provide referral services and customer care to reduce the effects
of video game addiction. The author claims that doing so is in the best interest of both the
video game industry and the customers as this might prevent governmental intervention
that could possibly hurt the revenue of the video game industry. This source is the basis
for my second and third solutions. I plan to use this source to introduce and explore my
solutions and provide some credibility to them.
Salmon, Andrew. "Couple: Internet Gaming Addiction Led to Baby's Death." CNN. Cable News
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<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062700995.html>.
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