MMO Family is your resource for leveling a gaming-specced family ... From tips on balancing gaming with family life to finding age-appropriate niches for every family member, MMO Family offers you advice on MMO gaming of the family, by the family and for the family.

Whether yours is the kind of family with "screen time" limits or the type that takes a more laissez-faire approach to logging in, there comes a point when enough is enough. Plenty of pixels and ink have been devoted to the debate over whether or not internet and gaming overuse should be considered an "addiction." What we're here to discuss is how gaming affects your family. As parents who game, we should be in a unique position to appreciate, respect and guide our children's attraction to games. But sometimes in the crush of day-to-day living, it's easy to let those last few minutes slip into half an hour ... past an hour ... into the evening ... into a habit that's begun eating away at family balance.

To help parents recognize when their children's gaming may have passed what's reasonable and productive for them as individuals, we touched base with psychiatrist Dr. Kourosh Dini (author of Video Game Play and Addiction: A Guide for Parents and himself a gamer). Statistics on gaming use, he explains, show that most gamers manage to balance gaming with their daily lives without negative consequences. "In fact ... sometimes what one can gain from a game is quite profound," he observes. "The person's mind and the video games together set the stage – either for benefit or for detriment." A gaming schedule that suffocates one child's motivation and energy might buoy another through social problems at school. Our mission: to keep the mix healthy, productive and fun.

It's easy to talk about gaming addiction as an abstract concept, but whether or not you think the idea holds a lot of water there are an awful lot of studies and examinations of it that just won't go away. Still, the concept is easy to deny. The human element, however, makes it much more real and that much harder to ignore. Which is why, ultimately, it's probably a good thing for everyone that Kotaku's editor Mike Fahey has written up his story of his EverQuest addiction -- the origin, the escalation, and the recovery of sorts.

Mike describes how the death of his relationship led to him escaping into the video game that increasingly was preferrable to his normal life -- which, in turn, led to him winding up without his car, then without a job, and then ultimately to the point that we could probably see coming, where the game became preferrable to pursuing a romantic relationship. He chronicles the downward slide, followed by the slow crawl back out of being addicted -- but, at the end, he doesn't conclude that EverQuest itself is the problem.

As he himself puts it regarding his addiction: "I hid. I ran from my problems, hiding away in a virtual fantasy world instead of confronting the issues that might have been easily resolved if I had addressed them directly." His story focuses not upon the game, but on his own responses and how they were what was ultimately responsible for what happened and where he wound up. It's an interesting piece for the conclusion alone, and worth reading for anyone with even the slightest stake in the topic of game addiction -- which, for those of us who play MMOs, should really just include all of us.

Gamers will argue almost endlessly over which games are the best, which ones were most important, what the proper way to play is... but one thing we almost universally agree on is that we are not addicted. We all know the arguments -- the guy who plays sixteen hours a day in his parents' basement would have acted like that anyway, it's just a game, he doesn't have a substance addiction. Why even bring it up?

Neils Clark, author of Game Addiction, wrote up a post about ten fallacies in addressing game addiction. The point of the piece, rather than concluding whether or not it's worth discussing, is to point out the ways in which many of the arguments on both sides are inherently flawed. The first point, for instance, is taking on the oft-quoted stance that "well, games aren't drugs" by laying out the many kinds of repeated behaviors that psychologists already recognize as potential addictions and treat accordingly.

MMORPGs, more than perhaps any other genre, are usually replete with tales of utter addicts and non-stop players. The article is worth reading if you care even the slightest bit about the topic, because it reminds us that the elephant is not a part of the furniture. It's an elephant, and it's the sort of thing that needs to be addressed -- especially as the genre expands its appeal and its user base.

[ via GamePolitics ]

MMOs have a tendency to be very addictive, arguably more so than other game genres. Even if you are very strict with yourself and try to limit your play-time, we bet you can think of a time when you were super excited about a new MMO you had just started playing, and experienced something similar to the opening lyrics of the song in the video above: "When I woke up this morning, you were on my mind." Okay, so they're talking about loving a person and not digital entertainment, but MMOs weren't so big when that song was written in the 1960s.

This morning, we would like you to share how much you think about your MMOs when you're not actually playing them. Simply being at this website means there's a good chance that you are invested in your games beyond just logging in and playing. Do you talk with friends and co-workers about your gaming exploits? Does thinking about your next play session ever get in the way of your productivity in daily life? Perhaps you can turn it off like a light-switch, never allowing yourself to be distracted any more than you want to be. Or maybe you simply find a way to get online whenever you're jonesing. Let us know in the comments section.

We've been reporting more and more lately on MMO censorship and legislation abroad, most recently with the troubles World of Warcraft faces in China. The latest news that we've come across comes to us from Germany where the Minister for Social Affairs in Lower Saxony, Mechtchild Ross-Luttman, wants to restrict sales of violent video games to minors in general, imposing fines of up to €50,000 for those caught selling these titles. She also wants to give MMO titles like World of Warcraft an "adults only" rating. This reaction to violence in video games comes in the wake of the tragic school shootings which occurred recently in Germany.

GameCulture reports: "The proposals come on the heels of a survey by the Kriminologischen Forschuginstituts Nidersachsen (the criminal research institute of Lower Saxony), which reported that 14,000 9th graders in Germany are addicted to videogames, particularly World of Warcraft and first-person shooters."

The Swedish Youth Care Foundation has an upcoming report in which they describe World of Warcraft as "the cocaine of the computer games world", indicating that it has been involved in every case of gaming addiction that they have dealt with. As the report is not yet published, it doesn't indicate what other games might be involved.

Swedish news outlet, The Local, interprets this with the headline 'World of Warcraft is as addictive as cocaine', a statement that is neither supported by the quotes, nor apparently supported in fact. The addiction rate for cocaine is 5-6% per use during the first decade and 15-16% per use thereafter. If World of Warcraft were really that addictive, then umpty-million players would be well and truly addicted -- a fact not in evidence. The Local's headline therefore, appears to be purest hype (or as we like to think of it, an attention-getting lie).

Burnout is something that affects all MMOs and most players experience it at one point or another. Your favourite game stops being as fun as it used to be and you don't feel like logging in. We all handle this in our own way. As a long-time MMO gamer, I've faced burnout many times in games ranging from EVE Online to Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft. I've quit the latter two games several times due to burnout but somehow even after playing EVE for five years (five years exactly on Tuesday 24th), it has never made me quit even when I've burned out. So how do you handle burnout and what makes EVE so special?

In this short article, I discuss burnout in MMOs and the different ways I've handled it over the years in EVE Online. Read on as I explain why EVE is the only MMO that has never made me quit.

A thoughtful Reuters piece explores a concept that MMO players have themselves been talking about since the economy began to take a downturn. Free to play MMOs, which have been gaining in popularity in the US for years, may be one of the biggest winners of this depressed financial situation. The article explores the benefits and increasingly high quality of online titles that don't require a subscription fee. While South Korea and other Asian countries have long enjoyed a strong connection with inexpensive social online gaming, that message is only just reaching saturation here in the states.

What's troubling to this blogger is that amid this very common-sense analysis, one of the most well-known commentators on videogaming sees fit to take a cheap swipe at a cross-section of gamers. Said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan: "I don't think (online multiplayer games) get impacted at all, because people who play them are addicts ... Losing their jobs makes them more likely to play because they have more time to play." It's frustrating that one of the few business analysts out there in the business world that understands gaming could be so dismissive of the online gaming genre. We'd like to suggest he do a bit more research in the future on this subject before making snappy statements like that.

As the Chinese race ahead to catch up with the West, they do so with the intent of creating better lives for themselves. The past several years have been characterized by rapid progression, but all those perks of modernization come with a price, which some of China's citizens are beginning to pay.

As incomes rise, so does the prevalence of the various maladies of modernization we've come to know well -- not limited to obesity, substance abuse, and addiction. While an addiction to a substance has a physiological aspect to it and is rarely disputed as a true addiction, non-material addictions to work, sex, and even shopping are on the rise in China. Such issues have been difficult to officially label as actual mental illnesses in the country. Others, like Internet addiction, have only recently been classified as such in China.

Yes! Finally, we have a new target of blame for college drop-outs. According to FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate, online game addiction - namely World of Warcraft - is "one of the top reasons for college drop-outs." And here I was thinking it had something to do with decreased funding for education or lowered standards for college admission. Silly me.

This statement by Tate was in addition to a similar statement by University of Minnesota Duluth officials that voiced the same concern in an interview with GamePolitics. Needless to say, they're pretty fired up about this over at our sister site WoW Insider with what is mounting up to 130+ comments on the post so far! Leave us your own comments below and let us know what you think about this.

Pascal Luban at Gamasutra is now up to part three in his series on the multiplayer megatrend in the game industry. Part one explored how game creators use multiplayer modes, online distribution, and downloadable content to increase the life span of the game. Microtransactions are also used to increase the money-making potential and also increase the speed at which "fast games" can be consumed. Finally, he explored how more interactive, believable environments enhance the gaming experience and will continue to do so as rendering abilities increase over time.

The second article explored the accessibility of games and the need to play them in smaller bursts rather than long marathon sessions. This stems mainly from the types of players (meaning more casual and older players). The latest discussion is around cooperative games, quality control, mobile gaming. And then, buried on page 4 of the article, is the bit that hits us hard - asking once again if MMOs are a public health risk. There have been claims for years now that gaming addiction is a very real problem - and there have been many answers over that time. For us, we just know that we love the games and are going to continue playing them... and looking forward to the last part of this article series.

The head of the Smith & Jones Centre, the first and only clinic that treats "gaming addiction" in Europe, has now said that he believes gaming may not be an addiction after all.

Keith Bakker, the founder of the clinic, is now saying that compulsive gaming behavior may be a social behavior rather than a psychological addiction. Through treating so many of the gamers that have walked through the clinic's doors, Bakker has realized that while the symptoms appear to be addiction, the sources of the problems are on a more social and emotional level

Addiction as it applies to MMOs and internet activity in general is a contentious issue. Many of the more unusual or extreme stories regarding the actions that result from digital addiction tend to come to us from Asia, especially China. The pace and fervor with which China's internet savvy population has seized the web and all that it offers -- both good and bad -- is staggering. The web has become integral to entertainment in China, particularly for the younger generation, but it's brought with it a host of societal problems and crime.

Only days ago, the Chinese government classified Internet addiction as a mental disease, a fact which may well stay the execution of Hu Ange, a 22-year-old man who poisoned his own parents... apparently so they would not interfere with his addiction to the online game Legend. Hu was sentenced to death, but the case is now being appealed on the grounds that he is mentally ill.

Here at Massively, we spend a lot of time with MMOGs [Well, duh! -- ed], and even more time at our desks and computers, scouring news, doing research and all of that. By non-gamer standards, we spend an immoderate amount of our weeks in front of our monitors, either actively gaming -- or writing about it.

It isn't fair to say we're actually addicted to it, though. We still actually have normal lives, families, commitments, relationships and all the other hurly-burly of daily life. Spending a lot of time doing something, or even making an unusual activity a high-priority doesn't qualify as addiction, unless it is causing you harm in some way. You might as well say that a person who has lost the use of their legs is addicted to wheelchairs and handicapped parking spaces, or that a ball-player is addicted to the game, while still maintaining a normal life. No harm, no foul; as they say.

With that in mind, dear readers, we've got a tough question for you to think about. Are you actually addicted? Oh, we often like to say we are, but is your passion for MMOGs (or for one MMOG in particular) so strong that it actually interferes with the rest of your life, or are your life's various elements all in working order?

On this past Monday's episode, the Dr. Phil Show explored online gaming addiction with some special guests who have lived through some nightmare situations. As is expected with a daytime TV show like this, the focus was on the negative effects of online gaming on families, finances and a person's well-being. Maybe they need to do a show on the dangers of watching daytime TV all day?

We'd imagine you could guess our views on something like this, and we'd assume that most of you share this same opinion. Sure, genuine addiction that leads to a total neglect of responsibilities is a serious issue, but when non-gamers see something like this, they jump to conclusions about how all online gamers are addicts. As someone once pointed out in the comments section of a previous post on this same issue, anything can become an addiction. You can become addicted to exercise with the exact same results as we see on this show. Regardless, this issue will continue to be showcased by the major media as online gaming's popularity grows. Check out an interesting post-show development from one of that episode's guests, and share with us some of your thoughts on the subject.