The Exponent - features


10-22-2004	Previous edition: 10-21-2004

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Gaming addiction spreads, becomes controlling factor in students' lives

Mike Snyder/Exponent Photographer

David Anderson, freshman in the School of Technology, is an avid video gamer and plays X-box in his residence hall room.

By Julie Glaser and Crissanka Christadoss

Mike’s arms were scarred from his addiction.

His addiction to an online video game.

Mike (last name held on request) was spending so much time and money on gaming that he began to sell his plasma each week to afford the monthly subscription to his favorite online game.

"I couldn’t give blood out of one arm anymore because I had a hematoma," he said.

Due to his addiction, Mike failed out of Purdue’s West Lafayette campus after his freshman year. These days he is sustaining a 3.5 grade point average and semester honors at Purdue Calumet.

Mike’s game of choice was called Ever-Quest, known also as Ever-Crack.

It is a massive multi-player online role-playing game, known to avid gamers as just MMORPGs. MMORPGs allow the player to interact with other players during the course of a game to accomplish tasks and develop multi-faceted characters in a game.

Ever-Quest addiction has also made its way to Yahoo! user groups. There are groups named "Spouses Against Ever-Quest" and "Ever-Quest Widows." Video game addiction is not a rare occurrence. The topic has even been mentioned in Wired Magazine, a popular technology magazine.

Video games may not be the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions addiction, but it was exactly what Mike had.

Though the online subscription was $12 a month and he received $50 a week for his plasma, Mike had to pay for other things, such as getting a haircut. However, it got to the point that his gaming obsession made him so broke he couldn’t afford even a haircut.

When asked how many hours he played a week, he couldn’t say right away.

"I am not joking. I actually have to calculate it."

He said he’d spend nearly 80 hours a week gaming. He spent his days from 5 p.m. to as late as 8 a.m. in front of his computer.

He remembers his friends would try to get him out of his room but he wouldn’t go.

Glenn Sparks, a professor and the assistant department head for the department of communication, said there are a couple kinds of research going on that look at how people like Mike become addicted to video games.

One form of the research looks at the properties of video games that make them able to hold one’s attention for long amounts of time, while the other research looks at the personality of the type of individual who might become addicted to gaming.

Sparks said that in addition to the increasingly realistic visual and acoustic elements of games, the competitive nature of some games could also be a factor in excessive playing.

"People become emotionally involved in the outcome of the characters … and have to stay round until the end. It is a very powerful dynamic, especially online games because there is the sense of actually competing against other players who are somewhere else."

Sparks said some people might also have personalities that predispose them to addictive behavior, though that doesn’t mean it is out of the person’s control.

Not all gamers are addicts. Justin Heisler, a graduate student, has played video games his whole life. He said his family played video games together like other families would play board games. Heisler describes gaming like any other hobby but said he knows when and how to limit himself when gaming. He owns two laptops so he can pay attention to schoolwork when he has to.

"I have to physically separate my work machine from play machine to do homework," said Heisler.

Separating schoolwork from gaming is an obstacle James Haarbauer faces. Haarbauer, a freshman in the College of Engineering, said he can play video games up to 20 hours a day. However, due to his coursework, he is sometimes restricted to hearing his friends on his residence hall floor play X-Box instead while doing his homework.

"Every time I hear guys on the floor playing (X-Box), I clench my teeth."

David Anderson, a freshman in the School of Technology, is aware of the addictive nature of video games but views gaming as a serious hobby. He games on consoles such as Play Station 2 and X-Box but he also enjoys the group aspect of online games.

"Gaming with other people is a chance to show off your ability and work together."

Mike said that at the time of his gaming addiction, he enjoyed the group aspect of online gaming but he realized his real-life obligations and friends were more important.

It has been a year and a half since Mike has played Ever-Quest. He recently went online to cancel his subscription. Since Mike hadn’t played in awhile, he said he didn’t feel the need to continue gaming.

"If I am going to go to school (and get a degree) I have to stop playing games."

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