ESA rubbishes game addiction study Comments by Robert Purchese

He'll get another grant to do yet another study then.

Unlikely...sounds like he screwed this one up well and truly. ESA dude got him well and truly telted.

Quite right. That study was like a pair of fishnet stockings.

Define "addiction" then look at those people.

Then fuck off.

What kinda of journal publishes such junk in the first place?:\

That journal must have pretty laughable standards to let that be published. How did it even get past peer review, with data collected in that way?

s'ok though, they'll redo it with a random selection and the findings will show that addiction rates are nearer 40% :-)
Of course 23% of all statistics are made up anyway...

I can see why he would be upset. Not many EA games would be addictive.

A proper study of the addictive nature of a property is always going to be limited when it comes to games anyway. Certain people are more attracted to certain types of games than others. If I was part of the study and was only tested on driving games (bar the mighty F-Zero GX) I'd be bored stupid and be shown not to have an addictive nature.

Everything is subjective anyway. A vast proportion of the population will quite happily watch hours and hours of mind-numbing TV and then go on to condemn anyone who plays an hour of GTA4 when their kids have gone to bed as being an addict. Everyone needs an escape from reality every now and then and games are the perfect partner for some.

I'm not blinkered enough to say that there's no such thing as being "addicted to games" as there will always be cases where some people are addicted. But that will be down to their own nature. Five years hence they may have been addicted to films or books or music.

Just because you stay up till 2am one night completing "Portal" doesn't make you an addict. If you stay up till 2am EVERY night doing the same hobby without an interest in anything else - then you clearly need a jolt of perspective.

However, I think people who are truly addicted to be a VERY small minority. Most people are mature enough to know the difference and its time gamers stopped being treated like social anomalies.

In my experience, Psychological Science is a bit of an oxymoron.

Emphasis on the moron...