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April 30, 2007 1:37 PM

When Internet Fun Goes Too Far

Posted by Daniel Sieberg
(CBS)
Earlier this month I mentioned a story we were working on about people addicted to online games like "World of Warcraft," "Final Fantasy" or "EverQuest." Tonight you'll get a chance to see it as part of a three-part series called "Caught in the Web" during the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

I'm fairly close to this subject matter as I have a level 64 character in "World of Warcraft." (Believe me that requires quite a bit of time.)
Caught In The Web Series:
Video Gaming Addicts
Addicted To Porn
Am I addicted? No. But I do love playing fantasy and role-playing computer games, and I can understand how some people get too caught up. I've seen a couple of my friends nearly ruin their lives because they couldn't stop. The key is recognizing when it takes over your family life or work or other responsibilities.

What is it about these games that make them so enticing? It's a combination of developing a character that gets stronger and more powerful, achieving goals and prestige, and socializing with other players. Plus, it's certainly an escape for many people who don't want to deal with the real world. These are open-ended games without a “Game Over,” so they could literally go on forever.

Again, not everyone who plays online games gets addicted, but I believe it's a problem that goes largely underreported. Tonight you'll meet one woman who had her life torn apart because of her addiction, and we'll talk about the medical implications and solutions that are being offered.

Tomorrow night I'll introduce you to a unique church group XXXChurch.com that helps Christians and others dealing with addiction to online porn. They take a traveling roadshow across the country with gatherings called "Porn and Pancakes." Then on Wednesday night Barry Petersen will show us clinics in China where internet addiction is a serious issue.

And here is a "First Look" video I did for the Web site describing this week's series.
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World of Warcraft ,
Final Fantasy ,
EverQuest ,
online games ,
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Add a Comment See all 25 Comments
by dimwit999 May 3, 2007 12:11 AM EDT
images count:

[img]http://www.cbsnews.com/images/2007/02/08/image2448156.jpg[/img]
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by psykiblue May 1, 2007 4:18 PM EDT
Playing with a spouse or partner does not do anything to help the feelings of neglect, being ignore, the hurt of the broken promises or anything. All that happens is you sit there feeling more resentment burning while ignoring everything around you.

It is not a solution, it is a tiny bandaid to a more serious issue. Yes, there are a lot more serious issues at hand when someone plays that much. Which is why therapy should be sought for those going through a really hard time playing WoW or any other game like its another job.

It was never the game that I hated, it was a lot of other things. Sure things in my household are not that bad as some other situations and my husband as regulated his gaming so much that its wonderful. He still plays but he spends time with me now and when I ask him to be done if something comes up he is.

Saying that a guild relies on you, and that's why people ignore families is ridiculous. Your family depends on you. They want you to be a mother, a wife or a father, a husband. They dont want to look at the back of your head and putting guildies before a family, you should be ashamed.
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by itwasntme000 May 1, 2007 2:58 PM EDT
hi kay,

You did find an addicted gamer. I pretty much have been since i was 10 maybe younger. I started playing games on the original nes. and own basically every single gaming system up to ps2. Then i found computor games and the counsil have no comparison. I got started on the computor games with diablo. and i played the *** outta D1-D3 LOD. Then started WoW.
world of warcraft is by far the most addictive game i have ever played tho. At least diablo I had quit a few times for 5-6 months at a time or so. But WoW with the guilds and the "closeness" you get to some of the players. I mean a group of like 10 of us "2 real life friends" are in the ventrilo channel basically every second that we play the game. And chat constantly. It makes it harder to quit when you actually know the people and like to play the game with them.

But i made it through 6 years of college with a 3. whatever gpa. ( i switched majors but i have a bachelors degree) I now work 40 hours a week and have not missed a day in the 8 months i have worked, nor been late.
It all depends on the person how much it effects them.
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by ignored1 May 1, 2007 2:57 PM EDT
To itwasntme000: start playing with him? excuse me? Then how does the house get cleaned, his laundry done, meals cooked, homework checked, bills paid, yardwork done, plus work a part time job, plus take care of changing furnace filters, unplugging toilets, etc.??? Why doesn't he play with me instead? because I'm real - he can't only deal with virtual apparently! What do ya think of me burning my hand on a hot lid and he didn't know anything about it for two days until he saw the broken lid on the counter wondering what happened to the smashed plastic ***. While I'm screaming from pain - he continues to play? You, you're just another one of 'them'.
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by kay--2009 May 1, 2007 2:07 PM EDT
Part 2
This is just the start of the coverage, and documentaries being filmed and due out this year. Some are calling it the addiction of the century. It doesn%u2019t matter the wording you use or your choice of MMORPG, ORPG or RPG, they can be compulsively played. If you have a computer and/or gaming system with internet in your home; everyone is at risk.

Daniel asked me this %u201CWhat do you want to say to the addict out there who might be watching this?%u201D I replied %u201CI%u2019m not doing this for the addict, because this is prime playing time and probably won%u2019t be watching. I%u2019m doing it for the widow of the gamer; let them know they%u2019re not the only one out there going through this. They are not alone.%u201D It%u2019s that simple. I am a gamer widow.
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by kay--2009 May 1, 2007 2:03 PM EDT
Part 1
Hello, I%u2019m Kay from the segment. I%u2019d like to say thank you to CBS, my producer, Karen Raffensperger and Daniel Sieberg for portraying my story so eloquently. Thank you to GamerWidow.com for all your support. It%u2019s great to see the responses this segment is receiving here and in Tech Talk.

Imagine for a moment you take the worst secrete from your closet and put it on National TV. It was my choice to do so, and I did it for the right reasons. Game addiction, excessive playing, whatever you call it, is a growing, very real problem. A virtual world affects real life. I%u2019m not proud of what I did and I don%u2019t blame a game; however, I do know gaming was a large contributor to the demise of the marriage. It was our choice to allow it to interfere with our real lives.
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by itwasntme000 May 1, 2007 12:21 PM EDT
To get to level 64 in World of Warcraft requires approxmatly 30 Days played In-game, thats quite a dedication...
Posted by Lead4u at 06:57 PM : Apr 30, 2007

possibly...
but I am assuming he dosen't play all the time. So if you only play when you have rested exp it takes alot less time. Once i got my first lvl 60 (pre expansion) i started a few alts. I played pretty much only when they had lots of rested exp to burn off, and lvled to 60 in under 20 days played time.

But yea that is prob his first char.. my first char took ages to lvl up he is at 30 days at least.
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by itwasntme000 May 1, 2007 12:11 PM EDT
He's even go so far as to not eat supper with us - he's crawled out of his 'hole' and everything has been put away. He was made because I was sitting in the cardiology dept. for an EKG on a Thurs. night (apparently raid night!). Sorry - pardon me that I should have to have an EKG at the request of my doctor because his life (or lack of) has upset me to beyond oblivion!!!!
Posted by Ignored1 at 10:53 PM : Apr 30, 2007

Well he cant just leave the raid group for awhile when he is stacking sunder armors .............duhhh!!!
lol

Start playing wow with him... he will love you even more...
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by tawnee1969 May 1, 2007 8:37 AM EDT
I too have been widowed by wow. My once smart, funny, loving partner is now a wow zombie. It is all he does, the last few days 16 hours a day.
He is now boring. Instead of funny intellegent conversation all he knows is wow. He doesn't keep up with the world, the house, our life. He told me the other day that he couldn't turn the heater off because he didn't know how, yet he has numerous level 70's.

He has also taken MY credit card and spent $800 Aus on wow gold without telling me and even though it is my card and he knows I hate wow, he was quite happy to upset me than upset his guild.

If it wasn't for gamerwidow.com I don't know how I would have coped. I felt so alone and of course he made it sound like it was just me so he could continue playing. It is not me or you, it is them! This site saved my sanity and really helped me through the tough times.

It is over now. There is no love left. He is a shadow of the man I fell in love with.

Please, if anyone recognizes this as their life, stop playing!
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by climarathorn May 1, 2007 6:11 AM EDT
I watched this story, and I realize game addiction is a serious issue, i just hope someone wont take this story and turn it into something to use against the online gaming community.
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by lyrus-2009 May 1, 2007 6:00 AM EDT
Speaking from experience (I was almost addicted at one point) my wife got involved in my playing and played with me. When she was unable to play as often I found that I didn't want to play as much either! It wasn't a much fun without someone to play with. Showing interest in their activity encourages them to open up making it easier to discuss things. Don't stand back and criticize as that will only force them deeper. True addictive personalities will suffer if you cut them off. You need to understand WHY they play and then show them how to get the same things from life without the game.
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by gamersmom May 1, 2007 3:37 AM EDT
My 20-year-old son began playing the World of Warcrack his senior year of high school. He did his homework and held down a part-time job, but when he went to college, he began playing the game obsessively and eventually flunked out. He was a bright, witty, social young man from a 2-parent family, with no history of drug or alcohol abuse or mental illness. He had a bunch of hobbies and a boatload of friends and was NOT a loner. He was a NORMAL kid. He came home from college anxious and phobic, with a vacant look in his eyes, an empty shell. I am a physician, and I would not have believed this if I had not seen it with my own eyes. It is frightening. I dispute the 0.0001% figure quoted earlier. About 5-10% of gamers become addicted. There are over 8 million people playing the World of Warcrack. Just that one game. Those of you who can play it without getting addicted, be thankful. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. If you have a problem, there is help at www.olganonboard.org (Online Gamers Anonymous)
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by ignored1 May 1, 2007 1:53 AM EDT
This story came on tonight and I just about fell over. It is my life in a nut shell only reversed - it's my husband that has forsaken his family, responsibilities as a father and duties as a husband. Sure, he goes to work, but after that - we're on our own. Playing upwards of 250 hours a MONTH doesn't leave alot of time for family. And intimacy...I don't even remember what that is anymore - he'd rather sit in his little fantasy world playing in his fantasy life. Yes, this is leading to divorce....and he doesn't care to stop it, he doesn't care that it's hurting me and our son. He's even go so far as to not eat supper with us - he's crawled out of his 'hole' and everything has been put away. He was made because I was sitting in the cardiology dept. for an EKG on a Thurs. night (apparently raid night!). Sorry - pardon me that I should have to have an EKG at the request of my doctor because his life (or lack of) has upset me to beyond oblivion!!!!
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by honortheroll May 1, 2007 1:14 AM EDT
This internet addiction is something on the sensitive side for me. For about 3 years I was heavily addicted to a game called Runescape. This addiction started with a friendly, " hey check out this game, we can kill cows on it," to a overwhelming 20 hour-a-day power playing on both saturday and sundays. I felt I turned to this game because I was in control of my destiny, I was the one who mattered.I didn't get satisfaction from anything else but this game. My addiction turned sour when I was blowing off friends to play more, faking sickness to play more, even putting family second to it. The ramifications from playing probably 60 hours a week on this game ranged from lack of sleep and preforming below satisfactory in school, being anti-social and missing out on part of my teenage years, to dreaming about the game and thinking about it during bus rides; literally stressing out about when I would play next. The game provided the essentials for everything, it was chat based, you were part of communities, and people relied on each other to get better. I felt it was somewhere i could reinvent myself. Now so further me going back to playing runescape how I was, I keep myself busy with extra-curricular activities like running, acting, and community service. I wanted to put my addiction to a better use. Now I am heavily involved in running; one of the best runners in the city, I'm a president of a community service club called key club, and am staring in a one-act play at school.
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by jeanne4616-2009 May 1, 2007 12:55 AM EDT
I hope the series this week covers all aspect of internet addiction. I recently (March 6) became officially divorced after 33 years of marriage from a man who lives in a virtual world. He would find women who sympathize his "poor me" and make since of why we had problems. Women who were as messed up as much as he is. He has cyber ***, phone *** and in-person *** and thinks this is normal. I tried to bring this to his attention but he would always find a way to blame me as to why our marriage wasn%u2019t working. This went on for almost 10 years until one day he said %u201Cnothings change%u201D %u2013 this was after a full year of me trying to change what I thought and believed was the problem. I FINALLY realized it wasn%u2019t me, but him and his obsession. He justified all these relationships because of me. So now he lives through this and is planning on bringing one of his Asian ladies to live with him%u2026 I do hope he is satisfied with everything.
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by kathylee4 April 30, 2007 11:58 PM EDT
I just watched the segment on internet gaming addiction. For all you non-believers, this is a very real problem. My divorce from my husband of 10 years was just finalized last week. The root cause, the wonderful world of Everquest. This man has played this game for over 2 years about 64 hours a week. Everything else was non-existent to him while playing the game. When away from home on vacation, he almost had a nervous breakdown from withdrawal. I finally sought counseling for myself and I thought my counselor would laugh at me when I started. However, quite the opposite, he knew the game even without me giving him the name. I'm now a member of an online group-Evercrack Widows. About 4 months ago, he came home and announced he had to get out of here He didn't have a problem with the game, he enjoyed and used it as an excape. Like I said, our divorce was final last week. He didn't fight it, didn't hire a lawyer or disagree with the generous settlement the judge awarded me. I know it reads irreconcilable differences but it should read "marriage cancelled due to an Everquest raid".
Thank you so much for trying to get the word out. This is very real and I'm trying rebuild my life because of it.
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by sdhaskins April 30, 2007 11:48 PM EDT
CBS change the limit from 1500 Characters, I wrote a post that was very relevant, chopped it 3 times and ended up giving up, there should be a disclaimer below the login info.

--SDH
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by jozy46 April 30, 2007 10:52 PM EDT
Everything in world today has been labeled something by someone. No one, and I mean no one steps up to take responsibility for their actions anymore; we place the blame on an addiction or a genetic defect, or the way we were brought up/raised, or the lack of a parent in our childhood. But that is simply our list of made up excuses we as a nation have created to fit the need. It is because we have grown fat, lazy and weak as both individuals and as a nation that we are exactly where we are today, blaming everything but the individual who performs the deed. ALL PEOPLE want to feel pleasure, period. How they can achieve that feeling comes about from many, many different choices. It is a choice made by an individual to ignore the real world around them in lieu of getting that pleasurable feeling from whatever is their method of getting their "fix". Be it drugs, alcohol, ***, gaming, it is a choice. We have grown weak both in mind and our physical beings as our technology has increased our capacity to be lazy. We don't even get up to change TV channels anymore for goodness sake. I know from experience about chasing the pleasurable feeling. And one day I made a choice not to do it anymore. The mind is far more powerful than we think it is. To utilize it is to know you control it, not the other way around. But if the person is responsible, and wants to change they can. Or they can take society%u2019s way out and pick from the list of excuses.
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by cybold April 30, 2007 10:18 PM EDT
After watching CBS News for more than 30 years, I quit watching after they put out a series of bogus stories and lies designed to make the viewer believe that all vitamins and supplements are dangerous and need to be manufactured only by big drug companies instead of using the free enterprise system.

That story and other stories promoting drugs made it clear that all that drug money in advertising had turned CBS News into just on big advertisement for the drug companies.

Tonight, I decided to come back for one night. It was no surprise that I found the usual nightly news report designed to sell more drugs. Now it is computer addiction that is being reported on. Solution: Take more drugs.

CBS News has become nothing more than a half hour advertisement for highly dangerous and addictive drugs being marketed as safe and effective.

I tried ABC for a while but found all their drug ads influenced their news reports as well. After several reports designed to sell drugs on ABC, I moved to NBC News. So far, I haven't seen the kind of corruption there, but I'm sure the drug companies are working hard to control NBC News just as they now have control of CBS and ABC. It is a sad time to be an American.
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by cubaninja88 April 30, 2007 10:12 PM EDT
im andrew ive played more than 7+ different mmo's (lineage, conquer, ... etc.) i play counter-strike and 360 more thou. ive never been addicted to them but over the summer ive been know to go over friends houses and play over nighters, but nothin big. i don't have a family to support so i think it's ok for me to play 40 hr.s a week! unlike if ur missing work bc of it! i mean my friend is lv. 130 reborn (which means he reached lv150. and started over and than went to lv.130. total of 280lv.s) and he's not addicted to it i see him all the time we go skateboarding and run. i play games bc there fun not bc their addicting! i also got a 360 which i probly play more than my computer but im not failing school bc of it. my friend whos lv 130 reborn is actually going to University Of Florida. it's all about pacing ur self and only playing for fun when u have free time.
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