Can this be called addiction?

When talked about addiction in games, it suddenly made me think of the farming games. It used to be very popular in China and attracted a large number of players no matter how old they were and what kinds of jobs they did. It’s easy to play and one central rule is gathering the ripe fruits in your farm on time and selling them for money, otherwise they will be stolen. Players can get progressed by earning more money and gaining higher gaming experience. There is no shortcut but go to your farm regularly or as much as possible so that you can steal the others’ fruits if yours are not ready. So lots of middle-aged women were crazy about it for the reason that they had enough time to look after their farms. It seemed they were addicted into this game, but after learned the definitions of addiction in various situations, I get a little confused that whether this phenomenon can be called addiction.

There are so many different ways of defining the meaning of addiction, some from the chemical perspective, like drugs which will lead high dependencies by human bodies; some from non-chemical angles, which suits the situation of gameplay, but with dissimilar names, such as problematic use, or immersion to which someone may equal addiction. And when we mention addiction in games, it will firstly goes to the situation that players spend too much time and totally get lost into the gameplay without caring about the surroundings. This seems not suitable for the situation I talked above, cause when my Mum played it, though she was crazy about it then, without missing any chance to get to her farm, even in the midnight if she wake up for toilet, she did not ignore any normal daily life, no matter to her job or the family.

But if put immersion here, it’s not appropriate as well, since these middle-aged players just go to their farm often rather than spend whole day sitting there and taking care of the farm. Their fancy about the game stays on the surface of high frequency to go to collect their food, instead of focusing on them for day and night without doing anything else. As to the problematic use, I think it refers more to the self-control in gameplay and though the middle-aged players are crazy about this game, they can balance their time on gameplay and daily life well. So whether this kind of gameplay can be called addiction or not? I am not sure…

Xu Can