I Kept Playing — The Costs Of My Gaming Addiction – A gaming journalist shares a deeply honest and personal account. More like this, please.
Perspective Win.
– October 22, 2009
I Kept Playing — The Costs Of My Gaming Addiction – A gaming journalist shares a deeply honest and personal account. More like this, please.
About the Author
Richard Clark (Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief) has spent his entire life writing, reading, listening, and playing. He has a Bachelors in Theology from the Baptist College of Florida and has a Master of Arts in Theology and the Arts from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY where he is the classroom technology manager at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition to writing at Christ and Pop Culture, he is also a staff writer for Kill Screen Magazine's website and has written for various other outlets such as Paste, Gamasutra, and Collide.
Email: deadyetliving [at] gmail [dot] com. Twitter: @deadyetliving. Xbox Live: deadyetliving 
Ugh. I’ve read that article waaaay too many times now. Written by different authors, written about different games. But the plotline’s always the same. Sometimes the ending is happy sometimes the ending is not, but the buildup to climax is always the same.
As much as I disagree with Jonathan Blow’s assessment of MMOs, he is certainly on target when it comes to their addictive qualities and the fact that you’re always chasing a carrot that’s just out of sight. Of course, the problem isn’t unique to MMOs. Even those who play story-based, shooters like Half-Life or Fallout 3 suffer the same carrot-on-a-stick dissatisfaction. The moment their game is finished, they seek another. Their time is whittled away on a never-ending stream of different games rather than on a never-ending single game.
Whatever. Addictions suck any way one looks at them and regardless of the object of the addiction. And perhaps worst of all, the addicted person rarely has the means to identify or even understand their addiction. We joke about the person who says they can quit anytime they want, but the fact is the vast majority of game addicts honestly believe that their need for gaming is not evidence of their addiction and is suffering that could potentially be quit of at any time.
Poor dumb gamers.