Posted Jan 30, 2007 at 05:03AM by Remi M. Listed in: Off Topic, Opinions & Analysis Tags: Blizzard, Maressa Hecht Orzack
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extreme case of gaming addiction  - Image 1Remember Maressa Hecht Orzack? Well, we don't expect you to remember her so we'll refresh your memory a bit. She hogged the QJ limelight a few months back as that clinical professor at Harvard Med School who helps addicts break the habit. By addicts, she is referring to those who have grown so addicted to playing games like The Sims, Everquest, and World of Warcraft.

Recently, The Orange County Register ran an article about gaming addiction and basically, it focused on people hooked on WoW. They even pulled some anonymous quotes from a site called wowdetox, here is a sample of a quote allegedly posted a by WoW addict:

WoW and cigarettes are incredibly similar in a lot of ways: Addictive, bad for your health, and it makes the companies a lot of money. The people at Blizzard must be laughing at the world as they rake in the dough from the addictions of millions.

This is an issue too juicy to pass up, so Ms. Orzack shared her thoughts on this. She said that:

Those who might be addicted represent a fraction of the WoW player population but even if 5 to 7 percent of 8 million players are addicted, that's still a fair number...People can stop using a substance but most people use a computer in their daily lives.

I don't know about you, but I just hope that instead of ranting about the problem, experts should think of a solution for it (and by solution we don't mean shredding CDs on national television). With that, what could you say about this? Do you have an interesting workaround for this kind of "addiction"?


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4 Comments


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   by darknero of (fateshand) (Unregistered) - 2007-01-30
 » here's a workaround for ya

ok sure you want a workaround how about this then treat it like any other addiction have the companies ie. blizzard work towards making a special patch to limit the amount the addicts can play per day thus leading to a balance allowing the addict to still get the fix they need and keep it at a healthly level so they don't over do it well how's that for a win win situation ok my works done laterz :)

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   by Joe (Unregistered) - 2007-01-30
 » No...

yes but that woulden't work for some players because I can miss out on playing on WoW for a couple of days then i after a long hard week, i will just want to relax on friday playing it all night...or go out....

   by Ragarnok (Unregistered) - 2007-01-30
 » .

You guys are joking right? Severage that's the worse thing you could do, well no as bad as getting on Tyra's Bank show.

Btw can you imagine how worse the situation is in Korea? where there are many more MMOS and many more addicts

   by darchlord (Unregistered) - 2007-01-31
 » ha!

to be honest theres no solution to this thing and theres no addiction either, its just the same as any new hit game tht come out, like me i stopped playin it some time ago, when i was done with the old one and all it had to offer, but now heres a sequel, one thts even better, now once i'm back from school im on the game, its crazy i tell ya, but it'll all wear out soon enough once im on lvl 70 and have gone thru outland a few times, thats not addiction cuz u can get bored of it, unlike smokes/drugs that u just have to keep takin r u lose ur mind.



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