How addictive are games

From the point of view of somebody who had to research game addiction and has proudly suffered from it, games are very addictive and unfortunately has gotten out of hand in the past. People have died because of their own or other people's addicted nature to games such as World of Warcraft.

Less extremes are that which have resulted in people getting poor grades in school, college or university. The unfortunate truth is however is that it's not medically recognised, thus treated that seriously among the masses. So it is generally up to the addict themselves to remove the potentially threatening behaviour; hopefully before anything of extreme nature.

In a way, the gaming industry is partly at major fault. It has been discussed that the gaming industry uses psychological techniques to keep the players addicted, such as randomising the victory of the player which takes advantage of the slight inpatient attitude one might have. Other techniques involve simply giving the player a nice 'positive' sound when they win, and giving them an uncomfortable sound when losing; not only that but also giving a 'positive' sound when the player is meant to keep playing because they've collected an item.