RE: STEEM Geek Podcast Episode #7 - Is "Gaming Disorder" A Mental Health Issue?
I saw this podcast a few days ago but couldn't watch it at the time, then I forgot to watch it later.
I do agree with your point that there are some gamers who have problem with controlling their time spent gaming and neglecting other important parts of their life. But I am opposed to the proposition by WHO.
I have also read IDC-11 draft, and first problem I noticed was lack of explanation what constitutes the gaming disorder (which is its name in IDC-11 listed under disorders due to addictive behaviour).
"Increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities" is sentence that has no meaning at all. If we break it down it means that if I like to play football and play video games, and my gaming takes precedence over playing football that I would fall in the category of the people with gaming disorder.
Than I wanted to check what other disorder's are in the same category, and there was only one - gambling disorder. I read that article as well and gaming disorder was basically copy pasted from that one. If you consider the moment when this proposal came (at the same time when we had worldwide game are the loot boxes gambling) it is clear that WHO didn't analyze the problem in depth.
There are certain people who have serious issues and I agree with you that we should find a way to help them, but it is not through this WHO's proposal.
I am in agreement with these folk here, I recommend you to give it a read considering you are interested in the topic: Scholars’ open debate paper on the World Health Organization ICD-11 Gaming Disorder proposal.
Hey @tripdespider! Thank you so much for your epic comment! Really appreciate it
You're right, man. That's too wide and blanket of a statement to be able to classify what's a gaming addiction and/or disorder.
Guess the initial idea is good but we're going to have to see the actual implementation of it and if they end up fine tuning their definition.
Thanks for listening :D
For I have been thinking about designing a game that would handle the problem of game "addiction". I am still brewing the idea, but the basic concept is that you would have to do things in real life in order to progress in some parts of the game. The game would have to start locally (if it doesn't have enormous budget) and spread from city to city.
Part of the game would be played on your pc, but then you would get a quest where you had to drink three beers in one of bars we have contract with, another example of quest would be to walk 3 miles each day for a week. Naturally you could progress down different questlines which fit your lifestyle (visiting bars and clubs, jogging and hiking, eating at restaurants...) but all the questlines would require some parts finished in game and some of them in real life which in this case is also ingame. I have different concepts of applying this to the game and even if this dream becomes reality it won't happen soon. But one day I might actually get to producing it.
That sounds like rewarding you for living life and achieving your goals :) great idea.
I think there's something called gamify? Something like leveling in life. My brother was telling something about that.
Would love to see that game happen!
There are a few versions of that, but none have combination of real life quests and actual gaming.