Persuading people into addiction.

Game addiction is poping up in the gaming news more and more lately as people are starting to worry about the effects. With kids and adults now being dienegnoes with this addiction countries are now looking at countering the problem but were does the problem begin with the person or the game? Everyday a person is most likely been advertised a game or played a game due to the persuading influence they have.

Games today have infected social networks and the internet and allowed millions of players to play with each other and this is a marvel of technology but the what are the effects. Games today can persuade platers to log on every hour just to check there game, what is the effect of this? Millions of players constantly having to check there game no matter were they are, thanks to mobile technology its possible but where will it end. Games like FarmVille makes have to time your crops in real life because if you don't sign in and play the game as it reaches its time then you could loose your crops thus loosing points and then fail to beat your friends. Farmville has the influence to persuade people into becoming addicts because you don't have to choose to play in a way that it will get in the way of your everyday life but the effect of not doing it is that you will be overtaken by your friends in which you are most likely competing against. Other games like Ogame as a similar effect, as a MMOG it makes you build game parts in time periods and if you don't sign in after the completion then you are losing out time against your enemies and friends.

I have found a article from http://www.escapistmagazine.com which discusses briefly the news of a 23 year old female that shook her child to death. She blamed the popular game 'Farmville' for shaking her son to death she he was crying while she was playing, this is an extreme case of addiction but it does rase the issue of do these games puersaude use to become something we are not. Another point rased about raised in this article is that blaming games isn't new but for the company Zanga the blame on there game is worrying to them as they have already annoucend there " "calculating and psychological" efforts to make its games as addictive as possible". This means that the games creatures are creating games that are so pervasive that they are causing people to have social issues just to get more out of sales.

I have also come across a similar event that has accured when a man allowed his son to die because of his addiction to World of War craft. He even admitted to seeing his son in risk of dieing but found himself caring on playing because there was no pause button. Again this raises both issues about games as culprits but also issues on the creatures on how much they make there game persuasive and addictive.

Full article here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108907-Man-Let-Son-Suffocate-Because-He-Was-Playing-WoW
http://www.tellinitlikeitis.net/2008/11/video-game-addiction-symptoms-and-treatment-of-video-game-addiction.html