If the virtual world of MMORPG – massively multiplayer online role-playing games – was a republic, its swelling population of swaggering avatars would number some 13 million citizens.
As this nation flourishes, so does a smaller parallel universe peopled by therapists treating players who are obsessed with the game’s exotic adventures of green-skinned orcs, back-stabbing rogues, and sword-slashing warriors.
Next month, the Smith & Jones addiction treatment center will start offering 24-hour treatment to so-called online game addicts when it opens the doors to a residential care facility in Amsterdam that claims to be the first European center offering such intensive treatment.
The dark side of the world of powerful Internet connections is that sometimes players lose control, according to experts in this new field, missing school, work and sleep to follow the exploits of their own avatar, or character, in long-running games with no real finale.
Typically, they are young men who are escaping the real life anguish of passage though adolescence. But men up to their mid-40s are also seeking solace in virtual game adventures to cope with a breakup, divorce or unemployment, for example, the experts say.
Valleur’s most troubled patient was a 28- year-old man from a wealthy, demanding family. The man tried to quit a game, “Dark Age of Camelot,” with a vacation escape to South America, but when he arrived at the airport there, he started thinking about the characters in the game. He found a public computer, according to Valleur, and spent the entire vacation playing in the airport.
Van der Heijden, whose obsession spanned a variety of games like “EverQuest,” continues to participate in support groups. But he has adopted a variety of strategies to avoid games.
He is going out now to movies, clubs and concerts. He also moved his computer out of the bedroom to a more public area of his apartment, a strategy that most therapists recommend.
And finally, Van der Heijden has switched from a powerful personal computer to a laptop that cannot play most games.
Rock on! Just not as obsessed.
Having only played WoW, I will say for me it’s just cheap entertainment. It costs $15 a month to play, when I would spend 2 times that at a bar in a single night.
$30 at a bar in a single night, I wish I knew where you went drinking. I remember a few mornings waking up to see my credit-card statement say I droped over a C-note ….
Hmm, I was one of those people you’re taking the p*ss out of – I lost three months of my life to this damn game. For those who have naturally addictive personalities (like me) and who also like computer games, WoW can be very nasty. I actually burnt the install discs in the backyard when I got out of it :\
Look at this – http://ihatewow.tribe.net/ lots of people heading for breakups due to their partner’s wow-addiction – not good 🙁
I’m not addicted, but I reinstalled an old game I had then stayed up till 2AM trying to find the grass strip I had taken off from in my J3 Cub. Or maybe it wasn’t a “game”? Is a flight simulator a “game”? If not then I’m ok.