So just who is labeled as a typical game addict? It could be anybody around you, upper class or lower class, working adult or in-school adolescent, male or female; the typical online gaming addict does not have to be any certain type of person. Since the physical traits of person do not directly portray a special category of game addicts, there must be some other cause to this addiction. Nick Yee, a self-governing researcher who is working on his psychology degree, decided to conduct extensive research on MMORPG addiction. In his research project, titled “Ariadne - Understanding MMORPG Addiction,” Yee has concluded that the main factors contributing to this new addiction are low self-esteem, poor self-image, a person’s lack of a sense of control of their lives, and the inability to form and sustain relationships (Yee). These factors are all psychological, thus leading me to draw the conclusion that online game addiction is not based on a physical dependency but rather a mental dependency.
A well-known case concerning online gaming addiction involves Shawn Wooley who used to be an avid Everquest player. Wooley had been playing for years and had developed quite a few in-game friends, thus establishing a virtual cluster of personal relationships for him that he otherwise might not have had in real life. On Thanksgiving morning of 2001, Wooley decided to end his life. He was found dead in front of his computer; displayed on the monitor was the login screen for Everquest. Wooley’s mother believes the game drove him to commit suicide. She also casually mentions that her son was professionally diagnosed “with depression and schizoid personality disorder…which include a lack of desire for social relationships, little or no sex drive, and a limited range of emotions in social settings” (Miller). This points to even more evidence towards MMORPG being more mentally addicting than physically addicting and suggests that there may be more factors to MMORPG addiction than just any straight laced type of addiction has.
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