World of Warcraft Addiction: Fact or Fiction

According to Blizzard Entertainment, the producers of the hit MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game), World of Warcraft currently has 9.3 million subscribers. Estimates in psychological field suggest that anywhere from 10% to as high as 40% of these players could be addicted. This translates to anywhere from 930,000 to 3,720,000 people addicted to WoW.

Could that many gamers really be addicted? Does it warrant a new diagnosis added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)?

According to WoW Detox and the 23,346 posts from those recovering from WoW addiction, World of Warcraft is an extremely addictive and dangerous game. Read the stories of those who have neglected loved ones and lost everything because of their inability to walk away from a simple MMORPG game.

According to Tech News World, in June 2007, at a meeting of the American Medical Society Association, a committee proposed the inclusion of Video Game and Internet Addiction as a formal diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The authors of the report admitted that there was not enough data to support overuse of video games as an addiction, but pointed to similar patterns of behavior that link video use to addictions. Namely, spending inordinate amounts of time on the activity and the resulting social dysfunction or disruption in social interactions could signal addiction. They concluded that 10 to 15 % of video gamers could be suffering from addiction.

Maressa Hecht Orzack, Ph. D., the founder of Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, and a member of the Harvard School of medicine faculty, revealed in an interview conducted by Rob Wright that as many as 40% of World of Warcraft subscribers may be addicted.

China has reportedly already instituted a required fatigue system, also referred to as an "Anti-online game system", that cuts the benefits gained within the game after three hours of play by slowing down the ability to gain new levels or earn rewards by 50%, and cuts the benefits to 0 after five hours of continuous play.

Yet according to WoW fans, World of Warcraft actually provides some redeeming value. To be successful in the game, players soon learn that it is necessary to work with others and form guilds. Becoming a member of a guild generally requires an application and approval process.

Once approved as guild member, the player must exhibit responsibility and loyalty to the guild. He must be dependable. Being dependable relies on developing interpersonal skills and problem solving skills.

The game also involves marketing and an understanding of basic economy. All of these skills are skills that will benefit anyone in the real world. But these are really incidental to the real draw to World of Warcraft.

The reason gamers love WoW is quite simple, really. The game allows them to experience power and assume leadership roles that are not dependent on their socioeconomic status. It isn't dependent on their name or who their family is. It's not even connected to what they look like, where they live, or what school they go to. The power and leadership they amass while playing World of Warcraft rests solely on their own abilities.

Whether or not any of the 9.3 million subscribers to WoW are addicted to the game is a matter of debate. Certainly those who avoid or neglect their loved ones, in the real world, in order to play endless hours of WoW, have the beginnings of some serious problems. Those who are consumed by thoughts of World of Warcraft and choose to play instead of eating or sleeping will eventually face the consequences of their behaviors.

But are they addicted? No one really knows for sure.