Running head: LIVING IN A FANTASY WORLD WITHOUT ESCAPE

Living in a Fantasy World Without Escape:

Psychological Effects of Video Game Addiction in the
Virtual Community of World of Warcraft
Ivan Mota-Aguilar
Senaida Navar
Rhetoric and Composition 1301

Abstract

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The purpose of this paper is to explain the psychological effects of video game addiction
in the video game, World of Warcraft. The paper starts by describing what video game addiction
is and the psychological effects of it such as, loneliness, low self-esteem, low life satisfaction and
low social competence. Also, the paper explains what World of Warcraft is and some important
facts about the game such as how many time a regular player spent at the game and how many
time players have been playing the game. The paper also gives some of the worst cases of video
game addiction in the World of Warcraft community, the psychological reasons why people get
addicted to this type of games, and why society should care more about video game addiction.
The methods that were used to develop this paper were research about the topic in scholarly
articles and website articles to explain the importance of this issue. The conclusion of this paper
is that video game addiction is a very serious issue and everyone should be aware of it, not only
the people that play video game.

Living in a Fantasy World Without Escape:

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Psychological Effects of Video Game Addiction in the Virtual Community of World of Warcraft
In recent years, the video game industry has become one of the major economic sectors in
the world, even bigger than the film industry. Thus, the number of people who play those games
is enormous and is increasing every minute. According to Spilgames (2013), The total number
of people around the globe who play games is expected to surpass 1.2 billion by the end of
2013. Therefore, video game addiction has become a major issue in many countries and now it
is considered as harmful as the other major addictions such as, smoking and drinking. World of
Warcraft (WoW) has been one of the most popular video games in the world with a current
player base of 6.5 million players and keeps increasing. WoW is a Massively Multiplayer Online
game (MMO) where players can socially interact with each other. This report will cover the
psychological effects of video game addiction in the virtual community of the popular game
World of Warcraft.
The National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers, describes video game
addiction as an impulse control disorder that is very similar to the pathological gambling where
the user has the necessity to play video games and cannot stop. Some of the psychological effects
of video game addicted players are; loneliness, low self-esteem, low life satisfaction and low
social competence. In addition, many players that try to quit video games experience from anger,
depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness and many more that leads them to fall into the addiction
again. According to a study made by the Dr. Douglas A., 3,034 children and teenagers from ages
teen to seventeen video game addiction statistics revealed that approximately nine percent of the
players had some signs of video game addiction. Furthermore, four percent were video game
addicts who played approximately 50 hours per week on average. Dr.Karo Kensei conducted a
research at the International Medical Research Center in Asuka, Japan, where he found statistics

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of the percentage of teenagers from ages 12-18 that have suffered from psychological problems
as a result of this type of addiction. Also, he also identified the medical problems of the players.
The IMRC found evidence that more than 27% of youth ages 12-18 were experiencing such
medical problems as periodic headaches and fatigue, blurred vision, loss in appetite, and even
clinical depression, all directly linked to extensive use of video games. This demonstrates how
serious this condition is and that everyone is susceptible to suffer from this condition if they do
not are conscious of how addictive games could be.
World of Warcraft is an MMO where the player creates an avatar or personalized
character that is used to interact with the other players in an enormous virtual world. The main
goal of the players is to obtain the games currency to upgrade the statistics of their character and
be able to complete quests that each time are harder and harder. This could sound like an easy
task but, in reality it could take a regular player around over 3 months, playing 2 hours per day,
to go from level 1 to 100 according to the WoW official forum. Therefore, the people who plays
this game cannot quit it, after spending so much time. According to the World of Warcraft official
forum, the total amount of time spent by every WoW player together is approximately 5.93
million years.
As reported by the short documentary World of Warcraft: Dangerous Addiction or
Cultural Phenomena. Most of the players are attracted to the game because of the player versus
player aspect of the game that allows the player to kill whoever gets on their way, the social
aspect of the game, the life skills that they could get such as, managing money and time, and the
escape from the problems in their life. Also, this visual explains how a lot of players end up
playing the game so much that they neglect many aspects of their life. Such as, their health, their
job, their social life and more. This visual shows interviews made to World of Warcraft players.

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The players explain their experiences and how this video game has affected their life. For
example, how the game made them gained a lot of weight, loss friendships, loss goals and
ambitions because they were always thinking and focusing in the game, and how they become
more dependent of the game.
After spending so much time into this type of video games, the players start to care more
about the game than their own lives. As a result, there have been many news stories of people
who prefer to keep playing than living. For example, an Idaho mother forgot to feed her kinds
because she played WoW eight hours a day, the court decided to intervene and she started
rehabilitation processes for video game addiction but she showed almost no improvement and
the court decided to qualify her as disabled. Another example, and maybe one of the most drastic
effects of video game addiction was a young girl that died after playing World of Warcraft for
several consecutive days without a rest. The cause of her death was exhaustion and bodily
neglect. There have been many stories of WoW where the players lost all their psychological
state of mind and commit suicide. For example, Zhang Xiaoyi a teenager who played World of
Warcraft up to 36 consecutive hours and jumped off a tall building to end his life. In his suicide
note he wrote that he wanted to join the heroes of the game he worshipped. And there have
been many more examples like this.
Although, people would argue that the main reason people is addicted to MMO games
like World of Warcraft is because their friends play them or they just like the art and features of
the game. However, the real reason why so many people become addicted to this type of games
is because the company behind WoW uses a reward system that gives the player an award after
they complete a task. This is one of the most important game design philosophies, the player
starts a task and along the way accomplish side goals that keep them from getting bored and then

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is rewarded after reaching a set objective. Furthermore, WoW is a game with thousands of
smaller tasks with every task being very long. The psychological explanation of this is that there
is a part of the brain called limbic system and it is responsible for the effort and reward response,
when you complete an activity with success, neurons communicating through neurotransmitters
release dopamine into your brain circuits resulting in euphoria. However, is not just about the
feeling of success, the limbic system storages the event to repeat it every time for the same
rewarding experience. In the same way, this is how gambling works in our brains every time
someone won, they limbic system release dopamine and that is why they keep playing until they
do not have any money left. Also, WoW have a progression system that when the player
completes a task more task appear that are harder and longer, this is even better that a reward for
many players.
The reason why everyone should pay attention to this issue is because this could happen
to everyone that does not understands how serious and addicted games like World of Warcraft
can be. Also, maybe you may know someone that is suffering from this condition and you do not
know. This is why it is important to know the symptoms of video game addiction such as,
Isolation from others in order to spend more time gaming, lying to friends or family members
about the amount of time spent playing video games, poor personal hygiene, and Carpal tunnel
syndrome caused by the over use of a controller or computer mouse. Similarly to other
addictions, people who suffer from video game addiction are not aware of their problem until it
is too late. What everyone has to do is to raise awareness about how serious video game
addiction is and how to identify someone that is suffering from this issue and help them face
their problem by taking them to a therapist to overcome their addiction.
References

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Alarming Video Game Addiction Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved November 06, 2016, from
http://www.addictions.com/video-games/alarming-video-game-addiction-statistics/
Furrh, M. (Director). (n.d.). World of Warcraft: Dangerous Addiction or Cultural Phenomena
MikeFurrh [Video file]. In YouTube. Retrieved December 12, 20017, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB5cSLdOr8U
Gentile, D. A., & Choo, H. (2011, January 17). Pathological Video Game Use Among Youths: A
Two-Year Longitudinal Study. Retrieved November 1, 2016, from
http://www.drdouglas.org/drdpdfs/GCLSLFK_Longitudinal_2011.pdf
K. W. (2014, November 13). The Worst Examples of "World of Warcraft" Addiction | Complex.
Retrieved October 23, 2016, from http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/11/theworst-examples-of-world-of-warcraft-addiction/
McGonigal, J. (2011, January 21). The Benefits of Videogames. Retrieved November 06, 2016,
from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704590704576092460302990884