I was at an Internet Cafe in the city late last year. A couple of my friends had gathered for a momentous occasion. We would be playing the new MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic for the first time. I could babble on for a very long time about the goings on of that night but I won't as I want to focus on how long we were there for. We made a conscious decision to do an 'all-nighter', which is essentially a sleepover at an internet cafe, minus the sleep. This was my first time participating in this kind of thing as I usually could think of far better ways to spend my Wednesday nights. We arrived at about 4pm. We left at 7am. That is 15 hours at a computer screen. We were not the only ones, several other groups and several other dedicated, slightly addicted gamers were there even longer than us. I bring this up because I was surprised at the normality of which this seemed to my friends and the people at the cafe as well and to add to that, the apparent regularity of which people engage in this type of sustained gaming. I'm no doctor but it can't be good for you!
I think that it highlights an issue when it comes to video games which was touched on in lectures about the difference of games to other forms of media texts such as books and films etc. and more specifically MMORPG's as they in many cases have no 'end'. Where do you draw the line, where do you stop? The game wont tell you. I'm not at all saying that games should have an end but I think that it is an interesting issue nonetheless.
How about games enforcing time limits on daily amounts of play? Is this a possible option for governments to look at to curb gaming addiction? I don't mean to offend anyone who may participate in extended periods of gaming but I'm just throwing out ideas as this kind of behavior has lead to severe problems for many people.
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