You're attributing this behavior to a variable instead of attributing it to a personality flaw. That's behavior of irrational and unbalanced individuals. What the variable was- Video games, television, sports, whatever- Is irrelevant. Anyone with that severe of a personality flaw would have found themselves in the same position whether they played video games or not. You could replace video games with anything- Say, playing the drums. These results you mention are the byproduct of poor character, the variable that exposed said character is immaterial.
Can you stop calling a disease a personality flaw? Your dismissive attitude is pretty sickening.
For what it's worth, I spent a ton of money on COH. I've been throwing money at Champions Online too. I never went without eating and paying my bills, I never shunned my responsibilities because of it. If I had or did do any of those things, it wouldn't be the fault of a game, it would be a character flaw on my part. I really do like gaming and I really am willing to spend money on it. I also like investing in my education and going to work. I also like eating and paying my bills and having a social life outside of the internet. None of these things are mutually exclusive, and anyone who thinks otherwise is seriously deranged.
Uh, good job on not having a disease I guess? What's your point? "Cancer isn't real because I don't have cancer!"? Nobody healthy believes having a hobby and having a life aren't mutually exclusive? Uh, duh?
I'd stated before that I purposefully divided compulsion from addiction because both things are semantically different, but people regardless of that those who have whatever various compulsions (and you're right the medium doesn't matter) have a messed up psychological profile, for various reasons. Often they're that way because of a mix of biology (humans have various levels of susceptibility to compulsion and addictions) and life experiences. It becomes more than a 'personality flaw', it becomes a full out medical condition.
You know what? I did state before that when somebody has a compulsion disorder that I'd rather fix the medical or social problem that brings it out, rather than change and/or punish content creators for exploiting it. And I stick by that, at least the first half of that. But your self important and entirely dismissive posts on the subject have sort of changed my mind.
Because I guarantee that it's your sort of mindset you're displaying here that lets people exploit people with a disease for money, and to make their products in a such a way to bring out that disease in healthy people, for money.
And there does become a sort of point where exploiting or encouraging disease for money crosses the line and does or at least should become unethical.
I tend to err on the side of letting people do what they want with their lives and bodies, because I've been on the receiving end of "I'm gonna run your life because I think you being gay/non-cisgendered/atheist/etc is hurting you sexually/health wise/financially/spiritually/etc". I tend to, as I stated, err on the side of solving a problem in this case by building social and economic conditions where healthy people can flourish, where they can afford therapy or medicine if they need it.
But there comes a point where that's not even enough, and where those gaming companies and other content creators do cross the line and it should be obvious to the common person that hiring psychologists for the
explicit purpose of designing games to entrap diseased persons and to cause diseased persons to manifest symptoms is
pretty blindingly unethical.
I'm against banning things that are 'fun' based on the idea that somebody with a disease might latch onto it, so, again, my knee-jerk reaction is to side with the video game creators and tell them they have no blame in this. But the more I think about it, the more that these creators are
purposefully bringing out this behavior, and that forces them to have blame in this.
And this isn't merely a tragic side effect here of video games being fun, in this case that VV has shown us. They're the
intended response as researched by trained professional scientists and doctors hired by the game to make the game design in this way.
This, as I said, isn't a case where a diseased person happens to latch onto and obsess with say, Football just by virtue of football being fun. That would be sad, but I'd have to side with the idea of it not being Football's fault. This is the opposite. This would be like if Football designed all its rules around the idea of entrapping as many people with a disorder as possible.
And you know what? That does make it unethical, completely, and that sort of practice
should be banned.
