Why Gaming Is So Addicting

Before we go into the depths of video game addiction, allow me to clarify one thing. A lot of people think that when their children are playing one too many hours a day of games, they might be addicted. Whilst there could be a case for that, the subject for today is something different.

First of all, we are not going to be talking about young children all that much. I know many children begin to gravitate towards addiction to games around that age but that’s not when it becomes an addiction, rather, that’s just when they get to experience the depths of the hobby for the first time. Video games take time to complete, hundreds of hours spent in a fantasy world in order to reach the ending, some of them are much like sports where each game is different and you can play endlessly. At young ages they play so many video games because they wish to reach a certain end. In story based games, there’s a clear end and in competitive based games there’s the ranking system and certain goals they wish to achieve.

Now the feeling that gets them addicted is that very sense of achievement, true, but it’s not something you can fault. We all want to be winners, one way or another, and video games allow people to win at something — even if it has no real life consequences in the end. the real magic that lies behind video games, that truly makes them addictive, is escapism.

To understand this, you must first understand the basic principle of escapism. It’s in the name, you want to escape from something, whether it be harsh work, hard times in school, bad parents, or just a generally toxic or stressful environment. Video games are very, very immersive in that sense. They can take you out of that toxic environment and let you forget everything that harmed you, keeping you distracted with problems that you can actually fix with your own mind. But the thing is, if the person in mind does not have a problem he is escaping from, then as soon as they are done with reaching the goal they set out to achieve, they will quit. Maybe even sooner if they get bored. That does not happen for someone who is truly addicted to video games.

A person who is addicted to video games will not quit, even if their goals have been achieved. That person will play video games over and over again and even if they grow bored or have long since achieved their goal, they will keep playing. Why is that? Because the problem is still there. Whatever issues they have outside of their video game world is still around and it wont go anywhere because they’ve used all their time to escape from it. And they will keep trying to escape, over and over again, until someone comes and tries to help them out.

What you have to understand is that this applies to a lot of other addictions, whether it is alcohol, drugs, gambling and all sorts of bad stuff. Yet among all of those, if you had to pick one I would wager you’d rather have the video game addiction in the end.

As a closing note, I would like to add one more thing. That is, the multiplayer aspect of video games. As the medium has progressed with each year, a community has been built of not only players but also friends. The reason this is important is that, while said friends might be oblivious to their own dangers, they will almost always try to help out someone else. They will tell you to get a job and try to give you advice on life, they will listen to you. I’ve always been fascinated by this. There is a lot of kindness to be found in that community, and a lot of strange but good people to be met.

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