Carry on screening: A brief look at Internet Gaming Disorder

In this month’s issue of the Neuropsychiatry journal, I – and my research colleagues (Dr. Daniel King and Dr. Zsolt Demetrovics) – published a paper arguing that Internet Gaming Disorder needs a unified approach to assessment. Over the last 15 years, research into various online addictions has greatly increased. Prior to the publication of the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in 2013, there had been some debate as to whether ‘internet addiction’ should be introduced into the text as a separate disorder. Alongside this, there has also been debate as to whether those researching in the online addiction field should be researching generalized internet use and/or the potentially addictive activities that can be engaged on the internet (e.g., gambling, video gaming, sex, shopping, etc.)

Following these debates, the Substance Use Disorder Work Group (SUDWG) recommended that the DSM-5 include a sub-type of problematic internet use (i.e., internet gaming disorder [IGD]) in Section 3 (‘Emerging Measures and Models’) as an area that needed future research before being included in future editions of the DSM. According to Dr. Nancy Petry and Dr. Charles O’Brien writing in a 2013 issue of Addiction, IGD will not be included as a separate mental disorder until the (i) defining features of IGD have been identified, (ii) reliability and validity of specific IGD criteria have been obtained cross-culturally, (iii) prevalence rates have been determined in representative epidemiological samples across the world, and (iv) etiology and associated biological features have been evaluated.

Although there is now a rapidly growing literature on pathological video gaming, one of the key reasons that IGD was not included in the main text of the DSM-5 was that the SUDWG concluded that no standard diagnostic criteria were used to assess gaming addiction across these many studies. A 2013 overview of instruments assessing problematic gaming by my colleagues and I in Clinical Psychology Review reported that 18 different screening instruments had been developed, and that these had been used in 63 quantitative studies comprising 58,415 participants. This comprehensive review identified both strengths and weaknesses of these instruments.

The main strengths of the instrumentation included the: (i) the brevity and ease of scoring, (ii) excellent psychometric properties such as convergent validity and internal consistency, and (iii) robust data that will aid the development of standardized norms for adolescent populations. However, the main weaknesses identified in the instrumentation included: (i) core addiction indicators being inconsistent across studies, (iii) a general lack of any temporal dimension, (iii) inconsistent cut-off scores relating to clinical status, (iv) poor and/or inadequate inter-rater reliability and predictive validity, and (v) inconsistent and/or dimensionality. It has also been noted by a number of authors that the criteria for IGD assessment tools are theoretically based on a variety of different potentially problematic activities including substance use disorders, pathological gambling, and/or other behavioral addiction criteria. There are also issues surrounding the settings in which diagnostic screens are used as those used in clinical practice settings may require a different emphasis that those used in epidemiological, experimental and neurobiological research settings.

Video gaming that is problematic, pathological and/or addictive (i.e., IGD) lacks a widely accepted definition. In a recent book chapter (in the 2014 book Behavioral Addictions: Criteria, Evidence and Treatment edited by Dr. Ken Rosenberg and Dr. Laura Feder), I and some of my Hungarian colleagues argued that some researchers consider video games as the starting point for examining the characteristics of this specific disorder, while others consider the internet as the main platform that unites different addictive internet activities, including online games. Recent studies have made an effort to integrate both approaches Consequently, IGD can either be viewed as a specific type of video game addiction, or as a variant of internet addiction, or as an independent diagnosis.

As I argued in one of my previous blogs, although all addictions have particular and idiosyncratic characteristics, they share more commonalities than differences (i.e., salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, conflict, and relapse), and this likely reflects a common etiology of addictive behavior. Consequently, online game addiction may be viewed as a specific type of video game addiction. Similarly, Dr. G. Porter and colleagues in a 2010 issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, do not differentiate between problematic video game use and problematic online game use. They conceptualized problematic video game use as excessive use of one or more video games resulting in a preoccupation with and a loss of control over playing video games, and various negative psychosocial and/or physical consequences. However, unlike my conceptualization of gaming addiction, their criteria for problematic video game use does not include other features usually associated with dependence or addiction, (e.g., tolerance, physical symptoms of withdrawal), as they say there is no clear evidence that problematic gaming is associated with such phenomena. Researchers such as Dr. Kimberley Young view online gaming addiction as a sub-type of internet addiction and that the internet itself provides situation-specific characteristics that facilitate gaming becoming problematic and/or addictive.

In a 2010 issue of Computers in Human Behavior, Dr. M.G. Kim and Dr. J. Kim’s [11] proposed a Problematic Online Game Use (POGU) model that takes a more integrative approach and claims that neither of the approaches outlined above adequately capture the unique features of online games such as Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). They argue that the internet is just one channel where people may access the content they want (e.g., gambling, shopping, sex, etc.) and that such users may become addicted to the particular content rather than the channel itself. This is analogous to the argument that I made over 15 years ago in a number of different papers that there is a fundamental difference between addiction to the internet, and addictions on the internet. However, MMORPGs differ from traditional stand-alone video games as there are social and/or role-playing dimension that allow interaction with other gamers.

The POGU model resulted in five underlying dimensions of addictive gameplay (i.e., euphoria, health problems, conflict, failure of self-control, and preference of virtual relationship). I also support the integrative approach and stress the need to include all types of online games in addiction models in order to make comparisons between genres and gamer populations possible (such as those who play online Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games and online First Person Shooter (FPS) games in addition to the widely researched MMORPG players). The POGU model comprises six dimensions (i.e., preoccupation, overuse, immersion, social isolation, interpersonal conflicts, and withdrawal).

Irrespective of approach or model, the components and dimensions that comprise online gaming addiction outlined above are very similar to the IGD criteria in Section 3 of the DSM-5. For instance, my six addiction components directly map onto the nine proposed criteria for IGD (of which five or more need to be endorsed and resulting in clinically significant impairment). More specifically: (1) preoccupation with internet games [salience]; (2) withdrawal symptoms when internet gaming is taken away [withdrawal]; (3) the need to spend increasing amounts of time engaged in internet gaming [tolerance], (4) unsuccessful attempts to control participation in internet gaming [relapse/loss of control]; (5) loss of interest in hobbies and entertainment as a result of, and with the exception of, internet gaming [conflict]; (6) continued excessive use of internet games despite knowledge of psychosocial problems [conflict]; (7) deception of family members, therapists, or others regarding the amount of internet gaming [conflict]; (8) use of the internet gaming to escape or relieve a negative mood [mood modification];  and (9) loss of a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity because of participation in internet games [conflict].

The fact that IGD was included in Section 3 of the DSM-5 appears to have been well received by researchers and clinicians in the gaming addiction field (and by those individuals that have sought treatment for such disorders and had their experiences psychiatrically validated and feel less stigmatized). However, for IGD to be included in the section on ‘Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders’ along with ‘Gambling Disorder’, the gaming addiction field must unite and start using the same assessment measures so that comparisons can be made across different demographic groups and different cultures.

For epidemiological purposes, Dr. B. Koronczai and colleagues in a 2011 issue of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, asserted that the most appropriate measures in assessing problematic online use (including internet gaming) should meet six requirements. Such an instrument should have: (i) brevity (to make surveys as short as possible and help overcome question fatigue); (ii) comprehensiveness (to examine all core aspects of IGD as possible); (iii) reliability and validity across age groups (e.g., adolescents vs. adults); (iv) reliability and validity across data collection methods (e.g., online, face-to-face interview, paper-and-pencil); (v) cross-cultural reliability and validity; and (vi) clinical validation. It was also noted that an ideal assessment instrument should serve as the basis for defining adequate cut-off scores in terms of both specificity and sensitivity. To fulfill all these requirements, future research should adjust the currently used assessment tools to the newly accepted DSM-5 criteria and take much more efforts to reach and study clinical samples, which is an unequivocal shortcoming of both internet and gaming research.

In addition to further epidemiological and clinical research, further research is also needed on the neurobiology of IGD. A systematic review of 18 neuroimaging studies examining internet addiction and IGD by Dr. Daria Kuss and Griffiths in a 2012 issue of Brain Sciences noted that:

“These studies provide compelling evidence for the similarities between different types of addictions, notably substance-related addictions and Internet and gaming addiction, on a variety of levels. On the molecular level, Internet addiction is characterized by an overall reward deficiency that entails decreased dopaminergic activity. On the level of neural circuitry, Internet and gaming addiction lead to neuroadaptation and structural changes that occur as a consequence of prolonged increased activity in brain areas associated with addiction. On a behavioral level, Internet and gaming addicts appear to be constricted with regards to their cognitive functioning in various domains” (p.347).

The good news is that research in the gaming addiction field does appear to be reaching an emerging consensus. We noted in our 2013 Clinical Psychology Review paper that across many different studies, IGD is commonly defined by (a) withdrawal, (b) loss of control, and (c) conflict. However, it is critical that a unified approach to assessment of IGD is urgently needed as this is the only way that there will be a strong empirical basis for IGD to be included in the next DSM.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

American Psychiatric Association (2013) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Text Revision (Fifth Edition). Washington, D.C.: Author.

Demetrovics, Z., Urbán, R., Nagygyörgy, K., Farkas, J., Griffiths, M. D., Pápay, O., . . . Oláh, A. (2012). The development of the Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ). PLoS ONE, 7(5), e36417.

Griffiths, M.D. (2000). Internet addiction – Time to be taken seriously? Addiction Research, 8, 413-418.

Griffiths, M. D. (2005). A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework. Journal of Substance Use, 10(4), 191-197.

Griffiths, M.D., King, D.L. & Demetrovics, Z. (2014). DSM-5 Internet Gaming Disorder needs a unified approach to assessment. Neuropsychiatry, under review.

Griffiths, M.D., Kuss, D.J. & King, D.L. (2012). Video game addiction: Past, present and future. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 8, 308-318.

Kim, M. G., & Kim, J. (2010). Cross-validation of reliability, convergent and discriminant validity for the problematic online game use scale. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(3), 389-398.

King, D. L., Delfabbro, P. H., Griffiths, M. D., & Gradisar, M. (2011). Assessing clinical trials of Internet addiction treatment: A systematic review and CONSORT evaluation. Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 1110-1116.

King, D. L., Delfabbro, P. H., & Griffiths, M. D. (2012). Cognitive-behavioral approaches to outpatient treatment of Internet addiction in children and adolescents. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 68, 1185-1195.

King, D.L., Haagsma, M.C.,Delfabbro, P.H.,Gradisar, M.S.^, Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Toward a consensus definition of pathological video-gaming: A systematic review of psychometric assessment tools. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 331-342.

Koronczai, B., Urban, R., Kokonyei, G., Paksi, B., Papp, K., Kun, B., . . . Demetrovics, Z. (2011). Confirmation of the three-factor model of problematic internet use on off-line adolescent and adult samples. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 14, 657–664.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Internet and gaming addiction: A systematic literature review of neuroimaging studies. Brain Sciences, 2, 347-374.

Kuss, D.J., Griffiths, M.D., Karila, L. & Billieux, J. (2013).  Internet addiction: A systematic review of epidemiological research for the last decade. Current Pharmaceutical Design, in press.

Pápay, O., Nagygyörgy, K., Griffiths, M.D. & Demetrovics, Z. (2014). Problematic online gaming. In K. Rosenberg & L. Feder (Eds.), Behavioral Addictions: Criteria, Evidence and Treatment. New York: Elsevier.

Petry, N.M., & O’Brien, C.P. (2013). Internet gaming disorder and the DSM-5. Addiction, 108, 1186–1187.

Porter, G., Starcevic, V., Berle, D., & Fenech, P. (2010). Recognizing problem video game use. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 44, 120-128.

Young, K. S. (1998). Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder. Cyberpsychology and Behavior, 1, 237-244.

Bonus bawl: Are online gambling promotions socially responsible?

Many online gaming sites use a wide variety of promotions as a way of attracting new clientele and/or as a way of generating repeat patronage. Such promotions include welcome bonuses, initial deposit bonuses, retention bonuses, re-activation of account bonuses, and VIP bonuses. Here are a few I have come across online:

• Players receive a 10% cash bonus on an initial deposit of $20 or more (however, the bonus and deposit combined must have a 15 times rollover. A ‘rollover’ refers to the amount of times an online gambler must wager a certain amount during a promotion)
• Players receive a 100% match-up bonus on deposits (up to $225) (however, the bonus and deposit combined must have a 12 times rollover)
• Players receive $100 free on initial deposit (however, the bonus and deposit combined must have a 20 times rollover)
• Players receive 100% deposit bonus of up to $200 (however, the bonus and deposit combined must have a 40 times rollover)
• Players receive 100% first deposit bonus up to £50 in free chips and players must deposit a minimum of £10 (however, bonus must have a 15 times rollover)

The issue here is to what extent the use of promotional ‘hooks’ to generate new custom or maintain repeat patronage can be regarded as a socially responsible strategy. Previous writings about advertising and marketing from a social responsibility perspective have noted that it is entirely appropriate for the gaming industry to advertise and market their products as long as it conforms to the relevant codes of compliance, is fact-based, does not oversell winning, and is not aimed at (or feature) minors.

Dr. Jonathan Parke and I have noted that in gambling there is a fine line between customer enhancement and customer exploitation particularly when it comes to facilitating new clientele and repeat patronage. Given the political sensitivities around the liberalization of gambling, the perception of what others think about a particular practice are sometimes given more weight than what it actually means in practice. However, irrespective of whether something is introduced in a socially responsible way and/or introduced into an environment with an embedded socially responsible infrastructure, there is always the possibility of a ‘PR own goal’ that may do more financial damage in the long run to the online gaming operator.

Given there is little empirical research on the effect of bonuses on vulnerable and susceptible gamblers, the implications relating to social responsibility are, at best, speculative. There are some academic writings on the use of bonus promotions in offline gambling environments but these are based on observational anecdotes rather than empirical research. For instance, Dr. Parke and I noted that the frequency of bonuses in offline gambling environments varies (depending the establishment) but can occur hourly, daily, weekly, or seasonally. We reported that such bonuses are often used to entice the consumer in several retail environments. What make them especially appealing in a gambling environment are the obvious similarities of the structural characteristics of such bonuses and gambling events in general (e.g., risk, uncertainty, interval-ratio reinforcement etc.). Furthermore, the appeal is strengthened since gamblers feel they are “getting something for nothing”.

We also distinguished between two fundamentally different forms of bonus – the ‘general bonus’ and the ‘proportional bonus’. These different types of bonus may have different implications in terms of social responsibility. General bonuses are those offers that are provided irrespective of the type of player (e.g., an occasional gambler is as equally entitled to the bonus as a ‘heavy’ gambler). Proportional bonuses are those offers that depend on how long and/or frequently the player gambles with a particular gaming establishment. This means that ‘heavy’ gamblers would receive disproportionately more bonuses than an irregular player. Given that a significant proportion of the ‘heaviest’ gamblers (sometimes referred to as ‘VIP gamblers’) may be problem gamblers, it raises questions whether rewarding people the more they spend is the most socially responsible strategy.

In relation to the use of promotional bonuses, there are two basic issues that arise. The first one is whether bonuses should be offered by online gaming companies if they are perceived by some to be ideologically incompatible with being socially responsible. The second is whether some types of bonus are less socially responsible than others. In the absence of empirical evidence, it could be argued that general bonuses that target potential adult online gamblers irrespective of play frequency and/or type, are acceptable within online gaming environments that have a good social responsibility infrastructure. However, bonuses that reward the biggest spenders could be argued to be much less socially responsible. Although this model is well accepted in most commercial environments (i.e., loyalty reward schemes), gambling is a commercial activity that can result in problems for the heaviest gamblers.

Applying these views to promotional bonuses in online gaming environments would mean that some bonuses appear generally acceptable from a social responsibility perspective (e.g., a $10 tokens, 100% welcome bonuses, and possibly re-activation offers) whereas others may be considered less socially responsible and potentially exploitative (e.g., retention offers, VIP offers). It may be the case that other socially responsible measures implemented by an online gaming company (such as the use of a behavioural tracking tool like mentor and PlayScan) may help mitigate the potential exploitation of problem gamblers, however, empirical research is needed to confirm such speculation.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Griffiths, M.D. (2001). Good practice in the gaming industry: Some thoughts and recommendations. Panorama (European State Lotteries and Toto Association), 7, 10-11.

Griffiths, M.D. (2005).  Does advertising of gambling increase gambling addiction? International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 3(2), 15-25.

Griffiths, M.D. (2008). ‘Foot in the door’: Player enhancement or player exploitation? World Online Gambling Law Report, 7 (7), 15-16.

Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Internet gambling, player protection and social responsibility. In R. Williams, R. Wood & J. Parke (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Internet Gambling (pp.227-249). London: Routledge.

Griffiths, M.D. & Parke, J. (2002). The social impact of internet gambling. Social Science Computer Review, 20, 312-320.

Griffiths, M.D. & Parke, J. (2003). The environmental psychology of gambling. In G. Reith (Ed.), Gambling: Who wins? Who Loses? pp. 277-292. New York: Prometheus Books.

Griffiths, M.D., Wood, R.T.A. & Parke, J. (2009). Social responsibility tools in online gambling: A survey of attitudes and behaviour among Internet gamblers. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 12, 413-421.

Sell division: The use of technology in commercial marketing

Today’s blog is only loosely connected to the types of behaviour that I usually cover but relates to the issue of excessive technological use. However, rather than focusing on the individual, my article today focuses on corporate technological excess, and more specifically the seemingly excessive use of technological marketing. Technology continues to invade almost every area of our lives. Although the advantages of these technologies significantly outweigh the disadvantages, technology is increasingly being used in commercial settings that some citizen’s rights groups claim are exploitative, unethical, and border on the criminal.

Shopping loyalty cards are now an every day part of consumer behaviour. Most people probably don’t stop to think about the reasons behind their introduction but they have the potential to be exploitative. In short, loyalty cards track every purchase a consumer makes over a long period (often years) including the store shopped at, the date and time, and the price paid. The long tracking period allows for monitoring of trends in purchasing. Stores may also record the method of payment, whether the card was swiped or keyed into the till, and the checkout that was used. The supermarkets use these data to categorize customers. In addition to the data provided when the loyalty card was issued, commercial operators can draw conclusions from the address using sophisticated categorization systems. Many companies now use customer relationship marketing software to help make sense and synthesize the information gathered. Ever since they were introduced, underhand uses of loyalty cards have been mooted. As long ago as 1999, the UK Ministry of Agriculture suggested cross checking purchases of genetically modified food with health records, effectively making the cards part of a huge medical experiment. However, the supermarkets declined to take part.

It’s probably a fair assumption to make that the online population views the Internet as much a tool for information gathering and communication as for commercial transactions. The most powerful impacts are social rather than commercial. Just like the companies that run loyalty card schemes, Internet service providers can record when you logged on and off, how many seconds the connection lasted, and the Internet protocol address allocated during the session. They can also compile a detailed e-mail history. This can contain the header information from every e-mail received by the account in the period, the return address provided by the sender, the ISP from which the e-mail originated, the date and the time of the sending, an ID code, and the title of the e-mail. Most people have no idea how much potential there is for invasion of privacy.

There are some areas that are potentially more worrying than others. Take the case of online gambling (that I have covered in previous blogs relating to behavioural tracking). When it comes to gambling, there is a very fine line between providing what the customer wants and exploitation. The gaming industry now sells gambling in much the same way that any other business sells things. On joining Internet gambling sites, players supply lots of information including name, address, telephone number, date of birth, and gender. Internet gambling operators will know the player’s favourite game and the amounts they have wagered. Basically they can track the playing patterns of any gambler. They will know more about the gambler’s playing behaviour than the gamblers themselves. They will be able to send the gambler offers and redemption vouchers, complimentary accounts, etc. All of these things are introduced to supposedly enhance customer experience. Benefits and rewards to the customer include cash, food and beverages, entertainment and general retail. However, more unscrupulous operators are able to entice high spending gamblers (some of which will be problem gamblers) back onto their sites with tailored freebies (such as the inducement of ‘free’ bets and bonuses).

The Internet also appears to be a rapidly growing medium for child-oriented marketing with sites ranging from Pokemon and Barbie to Lego. These sites provide what appears to be a safe environment for children to play in online (and something my own children used to do). Today’s children are computer literate and the Internet empowers them to influence what they want for Christmas or their birthday. However, how ethical is it for businesses to use advertising to pitch to children – individuals who in most other spheres (e.g., voting, sex, legal documents) are treated as incapable of making decisions. Many claim the adverts carry a similar message (i.e., “If you haven’t got this product, you are abnormal”). The aim of most marketing is to sell goods, but adverts aimed at children are designed to get them to pressurize their peers and parents.

A number of years ago, the US Center for Media Education (CME) claimed that advertisers and marketeers exploit children by advertising products on the Internet in ways that manipulate children and violate their privacy. They urged the US Federal Trade Commission to develop safeguards for children and claimed that these advertisements would infringe American regulations that put safeguards on broadcast media like the television. They recommend that there should be no children’s content directly linked to advertising and that direct interaction between children, and that product spokescharacters (such as Kellogs ‘Tony the Tiger’) should not be allowed.

The CME claimed advertisers used a variety of online methods (such as ‘infomercials’) to collect detailed data and compile individual child profiles. This information they claimed, was used to establish direct and intimate relationships with children online. The CME claimed children’s privacy is routinely threatened to encourage children to disclose personal information about themselves and their families with some sites offering gifts and prizes. This technology makes it possible to monitor every interaction between the child and the advertisement allowing firms to create personalized marketing for a child. Again, questions need to be asked about how far advertisers can go and what protection vulnerable groups should have.

Other new technologies are also making an impact – often without the person’s knowledge. For instance, television set top boxes can monitor viewer activities. Those who operate set top boxes say they are doing it in order to develop personalized advertising. However, many claim that Internet video providers should not be able to track and sell information about what you viewers are watching in the privacy of your own home. Companies who use these systems claim they only keep anonymous viewing information. They also stress that their viewers can opt out of the data collection but the reality is that very few do. Perhaps the best way forward is to see the introduction of ‘opt-in’ rather than opt-out clauses.

Given the increasingly sophisticated technology on offer, companies have to do a lot of planning to get most out of their databases. There are two main sorts of database. The first type is a ‘flat file’ databases with information on them, set one after the other. The second type is a ‘relational database’ that can build relationships between different fields of information. For instance, if a company wanted to find a number of customers who had bought a particular product from them in the last month or sort their customers by their address, a flat file database could do those tasks individually whereas relational databases would do it simultaneously. The really creative part (and some might say potentially exploitative and unethical part) in database use starts when companies begin to look seriously at what the information can do for them. This is the stage when companies start to ask intelligent questions about the actual purpose of the information they have gathered.

Over the two decades, customer relationship management (CRM) has become integrated with database management. Companies offer insight into CRM processes that become available when information is managed electronically. Analytical CRM is geared towards understanding a series of interactions with customers over time in activity-based terms, with a view to understanding whether a given customer is profitable to the company and satisfied with the quality of that relationship. For this to work, the company needs in-depth detail on finance, human resources, distribution, and manufacturing so that they know exactly what a customer is costing them. Companies then know whether the customer is worth hanging on to. While the majority of companies may be using CRM for genuine customer enhancement, there are always those who are less scrupulous and may use such information to exploit.

Even a brief examination of how technology is being used in commercial situations demonstrates that the potential for exploitation of the customer is ever present and that such technologies should be monitored closely. Whether any of these practices will be seen as in some way criminal in the future remains to be seen.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Delfabbro, P.H., King, D.L & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Behavioural profiling of problem gamblers: A critical review. International Gambling Studies, 12, 349-366.

Griffiths, M.D. (2003). Exploitation and fraud on the Internet: Some common practices, The Criminal Lawyer, 132, 5-7.

Griffiths, M.D. (2003). Dot cons: Exploitation and Fraud on the Internet (Part 2). The Criminal Lawyer, 134, 3-5.

Griffiths, M.D. (2005).  Exploitative, unethical, criminal? The use of technology in commercial marketing. Justice of the Peace, 169, 916-917.

Griffiths, M.D. (2008). Digital impact, crossover technologies and gambling practices. Casino and Gaming International, 4(3), 37-42.

Griffiths, M.D. (2009). Social responsibility in gambling: The implications of real-time behavioural tracking. Casino and Gaming International, 5(3), 99-104.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Social responsibility in marketing for online gaming affiliates. i-Gaming Business Affiliate, June/July, p.32.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Online behavioural tracking: Identifying problem gambling. World Online Gambling Law Report, 10(5), 10-11.

Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Responsible marketing and advertising of gambling. i-Gaming Business Affiliate, August/September, 50.

Griffiths, M.D. & Whitty, M.W. (2010). Online behavioural tracking in Internet gambling research: Ethical and methodological issues. International Journal of Internet Research Ethics, 3, 104-117.

Zangeneh, M., Griffiths, M.D. & Parke, J. (2008). The marketing of gambling. In Zangeneh, M., Blaszczynski, A., and Turner, N. (Eds.), In The Pursuit Of Winning (pp. 135-153). New York: Springer.

No time for the crime: Excessive adolescent video game playing, social networking and crime reduction

On Sunday February 9, 1964, The Beatles made their debut on US television. Their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show drew an estimated audience of 73 million people. One of the most quoted consequences associated with this particular show was that between 8pm and 9pm when the show was aired, a number of news reports claimed that there was no reported incidence of juvenile crime across America during the time of the broadcast.  The editor of Newsweek, B.F. Henry, went as far as to claim that “there wasn’t so much as a hubcap stolen” during the hour that The Beatles were on the show.

This apocryphal tale, at the very least, shows the apparent compelling logic in the argument that when an activity is so engrossing it has the capacity to stop people engaging in other types of activity such as crime. Inspired by a speculative blog post on the topic, my friend and research colleague Dr. Mike Sutton failed to disconfirm what Dr. Sutton and I have called the Crime Substitution Hypothesis. We recently published a small paper in the journal Education and Health that examined the extent to which popular youth activity (namely video gaming and social networking) may be having an effect on youth offending and victimization.

Young people’s use of technology (the so called ‘screenagers’ and ‘digital natives’) has increased greatly over the last two decades and a significant proportion of daily time is spent in front of various screen interfaces most notably videogames, mobile phones (e.g., SMS) and the internet (e.g., social networking sites like Bebo, Facebook). These ‘digital natives’ have never known a world without the internet, mobile phones and interactive television, and are therefore tech-savvy, have no techno-phobia, and very trusting of these new technologies.

One of the most empirically researched areas is in the area of adolescent video gaming. Negative consequences of gaming have included addiction, increased aggression, and a variety of medical consequences, such as repetitive strain injuries, obesity, and photosensitive epilepsy. There is certainly evidence that when taken to excess, videogame playing can in some cases be addictive, especially online videogame playing where the game never pauses or ends, and has the potential to be a 24/7 activity. However, there are many reported benefits that adolescents can get from playing videogames. These can be educational, social and/or therapeutic.

Another positive benefit of playing video games along with activities like social networking may be the capacity to reduce youth crime. The reason why videogames may have implications for crime reduction is their use as ‘distractors’ (such as in the role of pain management). The reasoning is that ‘distractor tasks’ consume some degree of the attentional capacity that would otherwise be devoted to pain perception. I have noted in a number of my academic papers that the main reasons that videogames make good distractors are because they:

• Are likely to engage much of a person’s individual active attention because of the cognitive and motor activity required.
• Allow the possibility to achieve sustained achievement because of the level of difficulty (i.e. challenge) of most games during extended play.
• Appear to appeal most to adolescents

For instance, one study reported the case of an eight-year-old boy with neurodermatitis being given a handheld videogame to prevent him from picking at his face. Where previous treatments had failed, the use of the game kept his hands occupied and within two weeks the affected area had healed. A number of studies have demonstrated that videogames can provide cognitive distraction for children undergoing chemotherapy. All these studies have reported that distracted child patients report less nausea after treatment (when compared with control groups), and that playing videogames reduced the amount of painkillers the children needed during treatment. The very reasons why video games may be of benefit therapeutically may also be applied to video games in a crime reduction context (i.e., the playing of video games is so cognitively distracting that that there is little time to do or think about anything else).

Consequently, there is a developing school of thought arguing that peoples’ participation (especially excessive use) in video gaming and social networking may be contributory factors that may partly explain the fall in crime rates in recent years. For instance, the economist Larry Katz was quoted in a 2010 issue of The Economist suggesting that the playing of video games may be playing a role in crime reduction. Katz’ reasoning is simple – keeping people busy keeps them out of trouble. There appears to be some statistical support for such a hypothesis as the decrease in US crime rates appears to show an inverse correlational relationship with increased sales of video game consoles and video games. Clearly this correlational evidence should be treated with caution as it says nothing about causation. However, it does provide a hypothesis that could be the subject of future empirical testing.

Could the rise in video game playing and social networking be a major cause of what criminologists claim is an unfathomable drop in crime, and if not, then why not? Routine Activity Theory predicts that if a substantial numbers of young people are not on the streets either as victims or offenders then overall high volume ‘crime opportunities’ would diminish, resulting in an overall drop in high volume crime rates. We have no idea yet whether what we might call the ‘crime substitution hypothesis’ is plausible. Therefore, in our recent paper, Dr. Sutton and I set out some ideas that support it as something possibly worthy of further exploration.

As highlighted above, research suggests some young people are spending many hours playing video games or social networking. Research also suggests that video games can be engrossing, addictive and in some cases compulsive. Additionally, research has failed to establish that violent media is either a necessary or sufficient condition for causing crime. Therefore, taking a Routine Activity Approach, it would seem that an increase in video gaming might feasibly lead to a rise in the illicit market for stolen computers and games consoles. However, there might be fewer thieves to supply it if:

• Fewer potential offenders are getting addicted to opiates and other drugs, and/or misusing alcohol out of boredom because they have escaped boredom in the real world by entering the more exciting world of cyberspace to play and interact with others.
• Potential offenders and victims are gaming excessively and/or compulsively checking Facebook and/or other social networking sites.
• The game players and other ‘netizens’ are playing at home so (a) fewer potential offenders on the streets and fewer potential victims, and (b) houses are occupied for longer and so less susceptible to burglary.
• Immersion and gaming prowess and reputation may be sufficient substitutes for the same things in the offline (real) world
• The Internet allows more people to work from home so teleworking may reduce the pool of “available” victims on the street and also ensure fewer homes are empty during the day.

The evidence provided for the ‘crime substitution hypothesis’ in our paper was anecdotal and/or correlational in nature but we would argue that this would provide a fruitful avenue for further research. Such research into ‘crime substitution’ and gaming/social networking might involve: (i) measuring time spent gaming and social networking by groups that empirical research predicts are at greater risk of becoming offenders, (ii) conducting ethnographic studies with young people to gauge whether, and if so to what extent, gaming and social networking are used as a substitute for risky activities in the offline (real) world, and do this in relation to both potential offending and victimization, (iii) examining issues of offline and online peer status and how this may impact on consequent behaviour (including criminal activity), and (iv) further examining the correlation between console and game sales – and any data on playing time and type of games – with the general crime trend over the past 20 years.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Cole, H. & Griffiths, M.D. (2007). Social interactions in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing gamers. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 10, 575-583.

De Freitas, S. & Griffiths, M.D. (2008). The convergence of gaming practices with other media forms: what potential for learning? A review of the literature. Learning, Media and Technology, 33, 11-20.

Griffiths, M.D. (2005). Video games and health. British Medical Journal, 331, 122-123.

Griffiths, M.D. (2005b). The therapeutic value of videogames. In Goldstein J. & Raessens J. (eds.) Handbook of Computer Game Studies (pp. 161-171). Boston: MIT Press.

Griffiths, M.D. (2008). Internet and video-game addiction. In C. Essau (Ed.), Adolescent Addiction: Epidemiology, Assessment and Treatment (pp.231-267).  San Diego: Elselvier.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Trends in technological advance: Implications for sedentary behaviour and obesity in screenagers. Education and Health, 28, 35-38.

Griffiths, M.D. & Kuss, D. (2011). Adolescent social networking: Should parents and teachers be worried? Education and Health, 29, 23-25.

Griffiths, M.D. & Sutton, M. (2013). Proposing the Crime Substitution Hypothesis: Exploring the possible causal relationship between excessive adolescent video game playing, social networking and crime reduction. Education and Health, 31, 17-21.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Online social networking and addiction: A literature review of empirical research. International Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 8, 3528-3552.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Excessive online social networking: Can adolescents become addicted to Facebook? Education and Health, 29. 63-66.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Online gaming addiction in adolescence: A literature review of empirical research. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 1, 3-22.

Sutton, M (2010) Routine Activities Theory, the Internet and the 15-Year crime drop. Criminology: The Blog of Mike Sutton. Best Thinking: http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/sociology/mike-sutton?tab=blog&blogpostid=9634,9634

Stats entertainment (Part 2): A 2013 review of my personal blog

My last blog of 2013 was not written by me but was prepared by the WordPress.com stats helper. I thought a few of you might be interested in the kind of person that reads my blogs. I also wanted to wish all my readers a happy new year and thank you for taking the time to read my posts.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 860,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 37 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

A toning for reward and punishment: A brief look at the impact of colour on gambling behaviour

Researchers and those working in the gambling industry have been interested in the factors that lead to the acquisition, development and maintenance of gambling. Aside from individual differences, the combination of the situational characteristics of the environment, and the structural characteristics of the actual game being played have been highlighted as critical ingredients in determining these behaviours in relation to gambling. This idea parallels with that of store designers who manipulate various features of the environment in shops to encourage purchase behaviour in consumers.

Situational characteristics are typically those features of the environment that may encourage people to gamble in the first place, and in some cases to keep on gambling. Examples of such characteristics could include accessibility (e.g., the number of outlets or opportunities to gamble, membership rules); sensory factors (e.g., atmospherics, light, colour and sound effects); the use of advertising; access to other things (e.g., cash machines, alcohol, food); physical comfort (e.g., seating, temperature); and social facilitation (the presence or absence of other people in the vicinity). These are often acquisition factors and are often important in the initial decision for an individual to gamble. Structural characteristics are features of the game itself that can contribute to the development and maintenance of gambling behaviour. These can be reinforcing to the player as they offer constant rewards. For instance, the ‘aura’ of a slot machine may offer excitement, arousal and tension in terms of its high event frequency, near misses, stake size, and the use of music, lights and colour.

One characteristic that can impact on both a situational and structural level in gambling is colour. For instance, this can be manipulated and/or adapted in terms of the design of a slot machine or scratchcard, an Internet gambling website, or the décor and ambience of a gambling environment. Research more specifically into the psychology of colour has been somewhat controversial in how it affects individual emotions. The majority of literature in the colour psychology field has come from advertising and marketing papers. This is because they are interested in colour selection in the way that it may facilitate the sale of their products. It has been speculated that learning about consumers’ emotional reactions to colour can be a useful predictor of purchase behaviour. This is because certain colours can provoke a particular positive or negative reaction. For instance, red has consistently been found to be stronger, more exciting, and more arousing than blue. This concept has been applied in a variety of situations in an attempt to manipulate people’s behaviours. However, a lot of this evidence is anecdotal, as it is not based on any sort of controlled experimental design.

Colour preference has been explained in terms of cultural significance and associative learning. It has been suggested that associations of colour that have been developed in the past have been forwarded as explanations of perceptions of colour today. For example, blue has been associated with night, dark and quiet. Warm colours, such as red, are used in order to attempt to arouse consumers such as in gambling environments. Across cultures, red has predominantly been found to be the most effective in influencing human emotions. Individual responses to colour have also been explained in relation to the arousal that they produce. It has been suggested that colours that are on the extreme ends of the colour spectrum (e.g., red and violet) generate greater arousal than those in-between. However, when red and blue have been compared in terms of their influences on arousal, differences have been found between them, with red producing greater cortical arousal.

With regards to the gambling literature in this field there has been minimal research conducted looking at the impact of colour on gambling. In an observational  study I published with Helen Swift back in 1992, we reported our findings about various situational characteristics of five English amusement arcades. We noted that the interiors were generally red or towards the red end of the colour spectrum. This observation appears to suggest that gaming venue designers make use of the principle of red light exciting whilst gambling. Light and colour effects have developed in their sophistication over recent years and the gaming and casino industry have taken advantage of this when designing machines, games, and gaming venue interiors.

An old 1982 study by Graham Stark and colleagues in the journal Current Psychological Research provides one of the few empirical contributions assessing the effects of coloured light on gambling behaviour. Their study found that compared to gambling under blue light, gambling under red light leads to more risks taken, higher stakes made, and more frequent bets. They suggested that because blue is less arousing it leads to slower performance, as their attention is not specially focused on the task. As red was highly arousing it caused participants to focus on the salient aspects resulting in faster bets. The arousing effects of red were speculated to increase overt behaviour.

Similar types of research study have also been carried out on computer gaming. For instance, a study led by Dr. Sandy Wolfson in a 2000 issue of Interacting With Computers examined the effects of music and lighting on computer game play. It was found that red lighting led to participants underperforming in the latter games played (compared to blue), although initially both groups improved continuously. The red group’s heart rate also decreased in line with their decline in performance. This was explained in terms of red initially being more arousing, which led to higher concentration and less error rates than blue, but as time went on they became desensitized to its arousal.

A more recent experimental investigation by Jenny Spenwyn, Dr. Doug Barrett and myself in a 2010 issue of the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction reported what we believe was the first ever empirical study into the combined effects of both music and lighting colour on gambling behaviour. While playing an online version of roulette, participants took part in one of four experimental conditions; (1) gambling with fast tempo music under normal (white) light, (2) gambling with fast tempo music under red light, (3) gambling with slow tempo music under normal (white) light, and (4) gambling with slow tempo music under red light. We reported a significant interaction between light and music for betting speed, and that the speed at which participants gambled was increased while playing under red light and fast tempo music.

It is clear that situational characteristics of gambling environments (including colour) appear to have the potential to play a role in the acquisition, development and maintenance of gambling behaviour. The success of the gambling establishment’s situational and structural characteristics (where success is defined as an increase in gambling due to the situational or structural characteristic) depends upon the psycho-situational and/or psychostructural interaction. The importance of a characteristic approach to gambling is the possibility of pinpointing more accurately where an individual’s psychological constitution is influencing gambling behaviour. Such an approach also allows for psychologically context specific explanations of gambling behaviour rather than explanations that focus solely on personality and individual differences.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Babin, B.J., Hardesty, D.M., & Suter, T.A. (2003). Colour and shopping intentions: The intervening effect of price fairness and perceived affect. Journal of Business Research, 56, 541-551.

Bellizi, J., Crowley, A.E., & Hasty, R.W. (1983). The effects of colour in store design. Journal of Retailing, 59, 21-45.

Bellizi, J. A. & Hite, R.E. (1992). Environmental colour, consumer feelings and purchase likelihood. Psychological Marketing, 9 (5), 347-363.

Friedman, B. (2000). Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition. Reno, NV: Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming, University of Nevada.

Griffiths, M.D. (1993). Fruit machine gambling: The importance of structural characteristics. Journal of Gambling Studies, 9, 101-120.

Griffiths, M.D. & Parke, J. (2003). The environmental psychology of gambling. In G. Reith (Ed), Gambling: Who wins? Who looses? pp. 277-292. New York: Prometheus Books.

Griffiths, M.D. & Swift, G. (1992). The use of light and colour in gambling arcades: A pilot study. Society for the Study of Gambling Newsletter, 21, 16-22.

Grossman, R. P., & Wisenblit, J. Z. (1999). What we know about consumers colour choices. Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, 5 (3), 78-88.

Parke, J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2006). The psychology of the fruit machine: The role of structural characteristics re-visited. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 4, 151-179.

Parke, J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2007). The role of structural characteristics in gambling. In G. Smith, D. Hodgins & R. Williams (Eds.), Research and Measurement Issues in Gambling Studies. pp.211-243. New York: Elsevier.

Spenwyn, J., Barrett, D.K.R. & Griffiths, M.D. (2010). The role of lights and music in gambling behavior: An empirical pilot study. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 8, 107-118.

Stark, G.M., Saunders, D.M, & Wookey, P.E. (1982). Differential effects of red and blue coloured lighting on gambling behaviour. Current Psychological Research, 2, 95-99.

Valdez, P. & Mehrabian, A. (1994). Effects of colour on emotion. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 123 (4), 394-409.

Wolfson, S., & Case, G. (2000). The effects of sound and colour on responses to a computer game. Interacting With Computers, 13, 183-192.

Yoto, A., Katsuura, T., Iwanaga, K. & Shimomura, Y. (2007). Effects of object colour stimuli on human brain activities in perception and attention referred to EEG alpha band response. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 26, 373-379.

Character formation: Another look at addiction to buying virtual in-game items

I was recently interviewed at length by Mike Rose for an article he published on the Gamasutra website entitled ‘Chasing the Whale’ that examined the ethics and sometimes addicting nature of free-to-play games. The article began with the story of Chris, a man in his mid-20s who played a lot of the game Team Fortress 2 (TF2). While playing TF2 he started to buy virtual items from the online store to use in-game (such as keys to open in-game crates). After opening some of the crates, Chris would share the online booty with other online gamers and “keep the good stuff” for himself. Chris got social benefits from giving away some of the virtual items to other players and this alone was worth paying real money for. Within half a year of buying his first virtual item, he ended up spending all the money he had:

“I’d use birthday money, I’d eat cheaper lunches, I’d ask my wife to pay for dinner so I’d have a spare $10-$20 to spend in the store. Which does mean, I guess, that I was thinking about it even away from the game. [After buying my first ‘unusual’ item marked with a purple seal] I had this unbeatable rush of adulation and excitement. For someone who didn’t get out much I was on cloud nine. And at that point things changed. I started chasing that high. My savings got wiped out pretty quickly – although it should be noted that at the time I didn’t have much put away to begin with. The real trouble wasn’t that it cleaned out my bank account, but that it put me in a really delicate situation. With no savings and every dollar not spent on food, shelter, or utilities going to digital hats, any unexpected expense became a really big deal.It got so bad that at one point Steam actually blocked my credit card, thinking I was some sort of account scammer [playing a] stupid game with fake hats. And like any addicted user, my social element didn’t help – most of my outside-of-work contacts were people I just played TF2 with.

At work I just wanted to be uncrating things, and when I was uncrating things I just wanted to see better results. [This then affected the relationship with my wife]. I’ve never really been addicted to anything else, so I can’t say for certain whether a ‘real’ addiction would be stronger. I would say that it felt akin to what I’d expect a compulsive gambling addiction would feel like – social pressures reinforced a behavior that kept me searching for an adrenaline rush I’d never be able to recapture, even as it kept me from making progress in life. There were nights where I’d be up until 3am drinking beer and playing Team Fortress and chasing those silly hats with purple text, ignoring the gambler’s fallacy and swearing that if I dropped another $50 I’d be sure to win this time. Then I’d wake up the next morning and see that I’d not only spent over a hundred dollars on digital hats, but failed my only objective by uncrating a bunch of junk”.

According to Rose’s account, it was on these mornings that Chris felt the worst. When the reality of what Chris had done hit him, he felt depressed and worthless. He told himself that he wouldn’t spend another penny on buying in-game items but just like a gambler, as soon as he got his next pay cheque, every last penny would go on buying new virtual items. To the game developers and operators, Chris is known colloquially as a ‘whale’ (i.e., one of the 1% of players that spends large amounts of money within free-to-play games and allows the gaming companies to make profits despite the fact that 99% of players don’t buy anything in-game). Chris said:

“I have to question whether a business model built on exploiting ‘whales’ like me isn’t somewhat to blame. Free-to-play games aren’t after everyone for a few dollars – they’re after weak people in vulnerable states for hundreds, if not thousands [of dollars]” 

Rose then started tracking down other ‘whales’ to get their stories. Many 9but by no means all) were similar to that of Chris. Rose questioned how many free-to-play game developers are building their profits on vulnerable players like Chris. More specifically he “pondered whether these ‘whale’ players are fully consenting to the hundreds and thousands of dollars that they are spending, or whether they are being manipulated and exploited by underhanded design that purposely aims to make the player feel like they simply have no choice”.

Rose’s own research highlighted that many whales (even those that had spent thousands of dollars) felt they had got their money’s worth (i.e., they had lots of fun playing and had simply bought their entertainment). Others said they were spending money they could afford and could stop any time they wanted to. Despite Chris being in the minority, Rose asserted that:

“A business model where even the smallest portion of players can find themselves losing control and essentially ruining their lives, is a model that must surely face scrutiny, whether on a industry or governmental level”.

To me, this has a large similarity with the gambling industry that has recently started to put social responsibility at the heart of its business model. Rose interviewed Ben Cousins, industry insider and an outspoken proponent of the free-to-play business model who said:

“I believe that the responsibility to control spending on any product or service lies with the consumer, unless there is some scientifically proven link to addiction as is the case with products and services like alcohol and gambling. When these links are established, I feel industries should self-govern first and if they fail to act responsibly, be subject to governmental control. I would personally like to see wide-ranging independent studies done before we jump to any conclusions about any negative psychological effects. When looking at a small sample size there is always going to be a lack of certainty in extrapolating that data to a larger population. I think if we see a broad proportion of the spending userbase reacting as they claim to have in these accounts, it’s easier to read this as the developers having discovered a damaging method of psychological consumer manipulation. When a very, very small proportion of the userbase react in this manner, while sad, it’s easier to read this as perhaps individual issues with those people which may be expressed in any number of negative ways, not just with spending in free-to-play games. I’m sure small numbers of very negative stories could be found for spending on almost any product or service”.

This line of reasoning was often used by the gambling industry 20 years ago and is currently being used by the video game industry more generally. I certainly believe that all forms of gaming (offline video gaming, social gaming, online gaming, etc.) will eventually embed player protection, harm minimization, and social responsibility into all of its products. In my interview for Rose’s article, I made a number of observations based on my many years studying both gambling and gaming. More specifically, I was quoted as saying:

“On first look, games like FarmVille may not seem to have much connection to gambling, but the psychology behind such activities is very similar. Even when games do not involve money, they introduce players to the principles and excitement of gambling. Companies like Zynga have been accused of leveraging the mechanics of gambling to build their empire. One element particularly key in encouraging gambling-like behaviour in free-to-play games is the act of random reinforcement – that is, the unpredictability of winning or getting other types of intermittent rewards. Small unpredictable rewards lead to highly engaged and repetitive behavior. In a minority of cases, this may lead to addiction. In those instances when there is no money changing hands, players “are learning the mechanics of gambling and there are serious questions about whether gambling with virtual money encourages positive attitudes towards gambling. The introduction of in-game virtual goods and accessories (that people pay real money for) was a psychological masterstroke. It becomes more akin to gambling, as social gamers know that they are spending money as they play with little or no financial return. The one question I am constantly asked is why people pay real money for virtual items in games like FarmVille. As someone who has studied slot machine players for over 25 years, the similarities are striking. The real difference between pure gambling games and some free-to-play games is the fact that gambling games allow you to win your money back, adding an extra dimension that can potentially drive revenues even further. The line between social free-to-play games and gambling is beginning to blur, bringing along with them various moral, ethical, legal, and social issues”.

Given my research background and my interest in gaming convergence, this is certainly an area I will be keeping a close eye on over the coming months and years.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Griffiths, M.D. (2008). Digital impact, crossover technologies and gambling practices. Casino and Gaming International, 4(3), 37-42.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Gaming in social networking sites: A growing concern? World Online Gambling Law Report, 9(5), 12-13.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Gaming convergence: Further legal issues and psychosocial impact. Gaming Law Review and Economics, 14, 461-464.

Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Gambling on Facebook? A cause for concern? World Online Gambling Law Report, 11(9), 10-11.

Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Social gambling via Facebook: Further observations and concerns. Gaming Law Review and Economics, 17, 104-106.

Griffiths, M.D., Kuss, D.J. & King, D.L. (2012). Video game addiction: Past, present and future. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 8, 308-318.

King, D.L., Delfabbro, P.H. & Griffiths, M.D. (2010). The convergence of gambling and digital media: Implications for gambling in young people. Journal of Gambling Studies, 26, 175-187.

King, D.L., Haagsma, M.C.,Delfabbro, P.H.,Gradisar, M.S.^, Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Toward a consensus definition of pathological video-gaming: A systematic review of psychometric assessment tools. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 331-342.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Online social networking and addiction: A literature review of empirical research. International Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 8, 3528-3552.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Excessive online social networking: Can adolescents become addicted to Facebook? Education and Health, 29. 63-66.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Online gaming addiction in adolescence: A literature review of empirical research. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 1, 3-22.

Screenage kicks: A brief look at children’s use of information technology

The following blog is an expanded version of an article that was published on my university website as one of the regular ‘Expert Opinion’ columns.

Last week week, a lot of media coverage was given to research on young children’s IT use carried out by the US pressure group Common Sense Media and electronic learning experts VTech. Based on a survey of 1,463 parents of children aged under eight years, it was reported that 38% of children aged under two years of age had used iPhones and/or Kindles for playing games or watching films. The study, called ‘Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America, 2013’ also reported that (i) one in three young children use a mobile phone or tablet before they could talk, (ii) 29% of children started using electronic gadgets as toddlers, (iii) children aged under two years spent an average of 15 minutes a day using electronic gadgets, and that (iv) children aged between two and four years spent average of two hours a day watching television. Are these findings a cause for concern?

Over the last decade I have taken part in many radio debates about the influence of information technology on the lives of children. Typically, I am invited onto such programmes to inject a hint of caution along the lines that engaging with technology is OK for children and adolescents in moderation, but that excess involvement with all things electronic may have a downside. To me this seems little more than common sense. As I repeatedly say to people, I am certainly not anti-technology, but pro-responsible the use of it.

Most people will be aware that computers were first introduced into schools in the early-1980s. Since then, information technology has been steadily growing in importance in education rising from a minority option to a compulsory subject in the National Curriculum. Over the years I have watched as many national initiatives have attempted to get children acquainted with IT as early as possible.

No-one can deny that IT skills should be an important part of children’s educational development. However, there seem to be endless numbers of questions that we need to answer before proceeding at the current pace. For instance, should the seemingly growing emphasis on IT be continued at the expense of more traditional classroom learning experiences? Is the idea to increase the amount of classroom work done on computers going to breed a new generation of children who have forgotten how to hold a pen? Should we be introducing children to computers from the earliest age possible? Will computers ever replace teachers?

As a psychologist specializing in the effect of interactive technology in the lives of children, it still surprises me how late in my own life I was acquainted with modern technology. Back in 1982, I experienced my first taste of computers as a teenager playing Donkey Kong on my father’s Commodore 64. It wasn’t until I was 18 years of age and at university that I first did something educational on a computer. The fact that I do not feel I have been left behind in today’s technological generation suggests that children do not necessarily have to begin as young as possible to appreciate the educational benefits of IT (i.e. if I can catch up having not started until I was in my late teens, then there is no reason why others shouldn’t be able to do so).

There is no doubt that children’s day-to-day leisure habits have changed dramatically in the last 30 years. Today’s modern teenager may well have a television, CD player and computer game console in their bedroom and many have online access to the internet at home and at home via smartphones, tablets, and laptops. In essence, today’s teenagers live their lives in a multi-media world and are more “screenager” than teenager. What is the long-term effect of this change in children’s leisure behaviour? Over the last decade there have been countless independent research projects all claiming to give pointers as to the long-term effects of children spending more and more time in front of the screen. A decade ago, eminent psychologists (such as Philip Zimbardo) made the observation that there had been a dramatic increase in shyness rates, a doubling of children’s obesity levels, and that children were spending less time involved in physical activities (e.g. sports) than they used to. I cannot put all the blame for these observations at the door of IT developments, but I do think they play a contributory role.

There appears to be a movement that automatically views IT as the way forward on lots of things (particularly in education), and that the only way of self-betterment amongst our children is through increasing IT use. There is little good reason to assume that more always means better. It is my belief that children at school need an integrated balance between computer-assisted learning (including the development of IT skills), traditional learning methods (paper and pen, the three ‘R’s’ etc.), physical sporting activities, and enhancement of play and peer development. That is not to say that computers and the internet do not have their positive side. Even a quick think on the subject would indicate that computers can:

• Be fun and exciting providing an innovative way of learning
• Provide elements of interactivity that can stimulate learning
• Provide elements of curiosity and challenge which can be crucial to learning
• Equip children with state-of -the-art technology
• Help overcome techno-phobia (a condition well-known among many adults)
• Eliminate gender imbalance in IT use (males have traditionally tended to be more avid IT users)
• Help in the development of transferable IT skills

However, on the down side, (and the last thing I want to be is a kill-joy here) computers (including internet use) can in some cases:

• Be socially isolating (perhaps leading to increased shyness)
• Be socially limiting (perhaps leading to physical inactivity and obesity)
• Be time-consuming, engrossing, and in extreme cases addictive
• Provide easy accessibility to exploitative material (e.g. pornography)
• Provide easy accessibility to adult activities (e.g. internet gambling)
• Provide IT skills that quickly change or become obsolete
• Cause repetitive strain injuries
• Produce unintended “sloppiness” (i.e. computers can correct spelling and grammar)

As can be seen by the list of ‘negatives’, some of the problems are not from the IT medium itself but from what children can do in that medium (e.g., access pornography or gamble at virtual casinos on the internet). Both parents and teachers need to be aware of IT’s limitations and need to put safeguards in place to protect children from unwanted exposure to adult material.

To re-iterate and expand on what I said earlier, there needs to be integration between lots of different activities (not just IT), and there needs to be a balance between IT and traditional education so that they can combine to form a richer experience for the children of tomorrow. IT will continue to have a large impact in the lives of our children. What teachers and parents need to concentrate on is not what to learn but how to learn. This in itself will have an impact on both the role of teachers and the contribution that parents can make.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Adolescent video game playing: Issues for the classroom. Education Today: Quarterly Journal of the College of Teachers, 60(4), 31-34.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Trends in technological advance: Implications for sedentary behaviour and obesity in screenagers. Education and Health, 28, 35-38.

Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Adolescent mobile phone addiction: A cause for concern? Education and Health, 31, 76-78.

Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Adolescent gambling via social networking sites: A brief overview. Education and Health, 31, 84-87.

Griffiths, M.D. & Kuss, D.J. (2011). Adolescent social networking: Should parents and teachers be worried? Education and Health, 29, 23-25.

Griffiths, M.D. & Parke, J. (2010). Adolescent gambling on the Internet: A review. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 22, 59-75.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Online gaming addiction in adolescence: A literature review of empirical research. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 1, 3-22.

Kuss, D.J., van Rooij, A.J., Shorter, G.W., Griffiths, M.D. & van de Mheen, D. (2013). Internet addiction in adolescents: Prevalence and risk factors. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 1987-1996.

Spekman,M.L.C., Konijn,E.A, Roelofsma,P.H.M.P. & Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Gaming addiction, definition, and measurement: A large-scale empirical study, Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 2150-2155.

Bitter sweet? A brief look at ‘addiction’ to Candy Crush

Earlier this week, the ‘addictiveness’ of the game Candy Crush made the national newspapers when the Daily Mail published the story with the headline ‘How women blow £400,000 a day playing Candy Crush, the most addictive online game ever’. The Mail article said:

“Look around any busy train or bus and it seems every other person with a smartphone or tablet is hooked on Candy Crush Saga, the latest online game to have taken the world by storm. With its twinkly lights, hypnotic music and comic sound effects, it has millions of people in its grip – and, like 2010’s Angry Birds, which even numbered [British Prime Minister] David Cameron among its fans, it has become an online sensation…An astonishing 700 million games of Candy Crush are played every day on mobile devices alone, according to AppData, a leading authority on social media trends. But, unlike so many video games, it appears that instead of teenage boys and men, it’s mostly women who are in thrall to Candy Crush. According to the game’s creators, King.com, women aged 25-55 are the demographic most loyal to the game…According to ThinkGaming, Candy Crush makes an estimated £400,000 a day for King. That’s £146m a year, figures which have prompted the Office of Fair Trading to voice concern that guidelines are needed to stop firms exploiting young users.King claims that 90 per cent of its players are over 21, but maturity doesn’t seem to prevent women…from falling under Candy Crush’s spell”.

I was interviewed by the journalist that wrote the article [Jill Foster] who wanted to know why it was such an ‘addictive’ game and why so many women played it. I told her that Candy Crush is a gender-neutral games that has a ‘moreish’ quality (a bit like chocolate – although this analogy didn’t end up in the article) and can fit in flexibly around what women do in their day-to-day life. The game takes up all the player’s cognitive ability because anyone playing on it has to totally concentrate on it. By being totally absorbed players can forget about everything else for a few minutes. I speculated that this may be particularly appealing to many women whether they are a stay-at-home mother who has ten minutes to play it in between childcare, or a business executive on her commute. It’s deceptively simple and fun. I also noted that unlike many online games, Candy Crush doesn’t involve killing or fighting, and it doesn’t feature strong male characters or highly sexualized female characters. For those of you reading this that have yet to play Candy Crush, the Mail report provided a good description of the game:

“The rules of Candy Crush are indeed simple. Players move a variety of brightly coloured sweets – or candies – around a grid and line up at least three of the same sweet in a row. Every time a row is completed, the line explodes, making way for more sweets to drop in. With more than 400 different stages, each more difficult than the last, and more being added all the time, players never need run out of challenges. As a so-called ‘freemium’ product, basic access to the game is free, but users must pay for ‘premium’ services. Players aren’t charged to advance through the first 35 levels but after that, it costs 69p for another 20 levels, although it is possible to avoid paying by asking your Facebook friends to send you extra lives. However, the cost can rise as players are encouraged to buy ‘boosters’ such as virtual ‘candy hammers’ for around £1”.

In typical tabloid style, the Mail article had interviewed a number of women that were used as examples to demonstrate the existence of Candy Crush ‘addiction’. For instance, Lucy Berkley, a 44-year old company director from Ashford in Kent told of how she came into her office on a Monday morning with severe back pain. All of her work colleagues could clearly see she was in much discomfort. The cause of her back pain was Candy Crush that she had played for ten hours over the weekend hunched over her iPad. She claimed “I couldn’t help it, it was so addictive. The extraordinary thing was that almost everyone else in the room admitted they too were addicted. Now we’re all competing”. Another woman, Steph, a mother-of-one interviewed for the Mail article said:

“I’m thinking about it all the time. I call it “crack candy” because I imagine giving up is like trying to break a crack habit. I hadn’t heard of it until I saw that many friends – all intelligent, creative women – were playing it on Facebook. I’ve never played any other game on my phone. But I don’t like going a day without my ‘fix’. I play it whenever I have a free moment. In the morning I play on my commute and when I look around the train, nearly every other person seems to be doing the same. I’ll have a sneaky game or two at lunchtime. When I get home, I’ll leave the ironing or the housework and have half an hour – or more – on the iPad. [At the weekend when] I’ve got up and read the papers, I’ll start playing and that’s me sorted for the next three to four hours. In fact, I only usually stop when my iPad runs out of battery. My boyfriend thinks I’m mad. My son Ben, who is at boarding school, can’t understand my obsession. I’ve been known to meet him off a train and rather than give him a hug I’ve said ‘Just a minute Ben, I’m just getting on to the next level!”

She then went on to say:

“Over the past four months I’ve probably spent around £150 playing it. But it’s worth it…I’m thinking about it all the time. I wake up and the first thing I do is pick up my phone to have a game, then I’ll be playing if I get a spare second before work. I play it on my walk from the car to the office. When I come home, I play it while I’m cooking the evening meal or watching TV. [My partner] Martin thinks I’m bonkers. When the lights go out and we’re in bed he’ll say: ‘I know you’re playing it because I can see the light from your phone’ so I have to play it under the covers. My son asks: “Why are you playing that game again Mum?’ It’s as if our roles have been reversed. It’s taking over my life. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop”.

Although none of the cases covered in the piece appear to be genuinely addicted by the criteria I use to assess addiction, that doesn’t mean the cases are uninteresting psychologically or that games like Candy Crush are totally innocuous. I have noted in a number of my more general writings about games played via social networking sites that ‘freemium’ games are psychological ‘foot-in-the-door’ techniques that lead a small minority of people to pay for games and/or game accessories that they may never have originally planned to buy before playing the game (akin to ‘impulse buying’ in other commercial environments. I’ve also argued that many of the games played on social network sites share similarities with gambling. As I noted in my interview with the Mail:

‘On first look, games like Candy Crush may not seem to have much connection to gambling, but the psychology is very similar. Even when games do not involve money, they introduce players to the principles and excitement of gambling. Small unpredictable rewards lead to highly engaged, repetitive behaviour. In a minority, this may lead to addiction”

Basically, people keep responding in the absence of reinforcement hoping that another reward is just around the corner (a psychological principle rooted in operant conditioning and called the partial reinforcement extinction effect – something that is used to great effect in both slot machines and most video games). Another woman interviewed for the Mail story (Jenni Weaver, a 40-year-old mum of four from Bridlington) is worried that she’s addicted to Candy Crush (and based on her interview quotes, she certainly appears to display some signs of bona fide addictive behaviour) She told the Mail that her Candy Crush addiction was beginning to affect family life:

‘I’m playing it for eight hours a day now and it’s become a real problem. My daughter told me about it. I was hooked straight away. The longest I’ve played for is 12 hours with just a few short breaks in between. It’s worse than smoking…Housework has gone to pot. I’ve even been late picking my ten-year-old up from school because I’ve been stuck on a level. I’ve burnt countless dinners and let vegetables boil dry because I’ve been engrossed. I’m trying to limit myself, but I can still spend eight hours a day playing it. It’s ridiculous.’

Earlier this year, I was interviewed at length by Mike Rose (for Gamasutra, the online magazine about gaming issues), who wrote a really good set of articles about free-to-play games. In one of Rose’s articles I argued that even in games where no money is changing hands, players are learning the mechanics of gambling and that there are serious questions about whether gambling with virtual money encourages positive attitudes towards gambling. As I have noted in a number of my recent articles, the introduction of in-game virtual goods and accessories (that people pay real money for) was a psychological masterstroke. It becomes more akin to gambling, as social gamers know that they are spending money as they play with little or no financial return. The real difference between pure gambling games and some free-to-play games is the fact that gambling games allow you to win your money back, adding an extra dimension that can potentially drive revenues even further. The lines between social free-to-play games and gambling is beginning to blur, bringing along with them various moral, ethical, legal, and social issues. The psychosocial impact of free-to-play games is only just beginning to be investigated by people in the field of gaming studies. Empirically, we know almost nothing about the psychosocial impact of gambling or gaming via social networking sites, although research suggests the playing of free games among adolescents is one of the risk factors for both the uptake of real gambling and problem gambling.

Postscript: Following the Daily Mail story I was also interviewed at length for a story that appeared in Yahoo! News – you can read my in-depth comments here.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Foster, J. (2013). How women blow £400,000 a day playing Candy Crush, the most addictive online game ever. Daily Mail, October 17. Located at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2463636/How-women-blow-400-000-day-playing-Candy-Crush-addictive-online-game-ever.html

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Online gambling, social responsibility and ‘foot-in-the-door techniques. i-Gaming Business, 62, 100-101.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Gaming in social networking sites: A growing concern? World Online Gambling Law Report, 9(5), 12-13.

Griffiths, M.D. (2012). The psychology of social gaming. i-Gaming Business Affiliate, August/September, 26-27.

Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Social gambling via Facebook: Further observations and concerns. Gaming Law Review and Economics, 17, 104-106.

Hall, C. (2013). Just how addictive are mobile games? Yahoo! News, October 18. Located at: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/how-addictive-are-mobile-games–143654713.html#P1M3U7a

Lagorio-Chaflkin, C. (2013). Candy Crush Saga’s intoxicating secret source. Inc.com, July 25. Located at: http://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/candy-crush-secret-sauce.html

Pressman, A. (2013). Candy Crush: Insanely addictive today, but likely on borrowed time. The Exchange, July 11. Located at: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/candy-crush-insanely-addictive-today-likely-borrowed-time-171103788.html

Rose, M. (2013). Chasing the Whales: Examining the ethics of free-to-play games. Gamasutra, July 9. Located at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195806/chasing_the_whale_examining_the_.php?page=7

Care in the (gaming) community: Social responsibility and the videogame industry

In recent years, the problematic use of online videogames has received increased attention not only from the media, but also from psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health organizations and gamers themselves. A number of studies from different cultures are providing evidence that somewhere around 7 to 11% of gamers seem to be having real problems to the point that they are considered pathological gamers. In extreme cases, some gamers are reported to have been playing for 40, 60, and even 90 hours in a single gaming session.

While it may be difficult to distinguish between a healthy and unhealthy usage of online videogames, there is sufficient evidence to describe some excessive gaming as problematic and/or addictive when it pervades and disrupts other aspects of life making it an issue worthy of extensive investigation. In some cases this leads to symptoms commonly experienced by substance addicts, namely salience, mood modification, craving and tolerance. Research suggests that some gamers are struggling to keep their playing habits under control and consequently compromise their academic achievement, real-life relationships, family relationships, physical health, and psychological wellbeing.

Despite a decade of research, there is significant disagreement on whether pathological gaming can be conceptualized as an impulse control disorder and/or a behavioural addiction such as pathological gambling. While acknowledging the potential for some gamers to engage in pathological use, most researchers argue in favour of creating an official diagnosis for pathological gaming. However, others disagree and advise caution about the potential for exaggeration of a real but uncommon problem. As well as the divergence of opinions in the scholarly community, there is insufficient evidence to reach any definitive conclusions or an operational definition of pathological gaming, its diagnosis criteria and prevalence. While the academic debate is likely to continue for a while, it is clear that for a small minority of gamers, pathological gaming leads to negative life consequences.

Against this backdrop, comparable with the cautionary health messages on tobacco and alcohol packaging, warning messages about risk of overuse have recently started to appear on the loading screens of popular online games. For example:

• World of Warcraft – ‘Take everything in moderation (even World of Warcraft)’ and ‘Bring your friends to Azeroth, but don’t forget to go outside of Azeroth with them as well’;
• Final Fantasy XI – ‘Exploring Vana’diel is a thrilling experience. During your time here, you will be able to talk, join, and adventure with many other individuals in an experience that is unique to online games. That being said, we have no desire to see your real life suffer as a consequence. Don’t forget your family, your friends, your school, or your work.’

These and similar warning messages raise the question of why the online videogame industry warns its players not to overuse their product. Does the videogame industry really believe that their products have addictive features that can lead to negative consequences and the functional impairment of gamers’ lives? This leads to the important issue of whether the giving of such messages by online videogame companies means they have done enough to fulfil their social responsibility or do they have they a wider role to play? Furthermore, these warning messages suggest that the online videogame industry knows how high the percentage of over-users is, how much time gamers’ spend playing, and what specific features makes a particular game more engrossing and addictive than others. While they do not directly admit this, by showing these warning messages, they do take some responsibility into their own hands.

Companies in the online video games sector have started to face criticism around the addictive and problematic nature of the use involved with certain online games and their violent content, suggesting that it is a controversial industry. Gaining broader societal acceptance has become a critical factor for companies in controversial industries where failure to meet stakeholders’ societal expectations result in their legitimacy being challenged. Unlike the gambling industry, which has a long history of forced governmental regulation and in which CSR has become a crucial issue, the online videogame industry has, by and large to date, escaped governmental action. However, there are some isolated examples of governmental interventions. For example, China introduced controls to deter people from playing online videogames for longer than three hours, while Thailand’s government banned Grand Theft Auto 4 when a student murdered a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the game ‘to see if it was as easy as in the game’. In addition, the Australian classification board refused the original version of Fallout 3 due to the high level of realistic drug use thus forcing its developer Bethesda Softworks to release a censored version.

In the USA, the sales of ‘Mature’ (M) or ‘Adults Only’ (AO) rated games to minors has been an issue of much concern to public officials, and the Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act introduced to the US House of Representatives requires an ID check for M- and AO-rated game purchases (US Congress, 2006). The majority of game publishers have decided to get controversial games rated by voluntary rating systems. For example, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rates games in the USA and Canada, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) in the UK, and the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) in Europe. While the ESRB and PEGI ratings are not legally binding, the BBFC ratings are backed up by the British law, thus making it illegal to sell the game to anyone under the indicated age. Few publishers in the online videogame industry have attempted to develop and sell a game with the strictest ESRB rating of AO. While rating systems are helpful, a study commissioned by the UK games industry found that parents let their children play games with adult or 18+ ratings, because they perceived age ratings as a guide but not as a definite prohibition.

Online videogame developers and publishers need to look into the structural features of the game design, for example, character development, rapid absorption rate, and multi-player features, that make them addictive and/or problematic for some gamers. This undertaking falls mainly on the game developers as they hold the codes for making the games less addictive. For example, long quests can be shortened to minimize the time spent in the game to obtain a certain prized item. Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of World of Warcraft, introduced some down-tuning of hardcore game-play mechanisms that encouraged excessive gaming. Initially, a symbolic and unique in-game title was rewarded to players who progress their character to the maximum level of 80 fastest. However, after several pages of forum debate in which players expressed their concern, an official Blizzard representative announced the removal of the title from the game.

Many games make use of variable ratio reinforcement schedules, which provides a very intense experience, thus increasing the addictiveness of the virtual world. Although, the potentially addictive design features of MMORPGs might not be intentional there is an obligation on the developers to consider ways of limiting harm. One way of doing this can be for developers to make design changes on time limits as many gamers schedule and plan according to the in-game periods of time. For example, long quests could be shortened, the amount of experience points needed to reach the next level could be lowered, spawns could be timed to appear more frequently to give gamers increased chances of receiving specifically wanted items and by speeding the processes of difficult task, gamers will be able to leave the game much earlier after completing their tasks. Implementing these changes to MMORPGs would show that game developers are taking CSR seriously and that they are concerned with more than revenue.

In terms of effective care policies for the gamers, the most observable act until now by the online videogame publishers is the initiation of warning messages. Through these messages, the industry is seemingly addressing CSR in the area of excessive use of videogames, albeit to a rather limited extent. Furthermore, some games (such as WoW) have a parental mode that allows parents to restrict playing time for their children.

Online videogame publishers should make provision for suitable referral services. Presently, they provide neither referral services nor customer care with regard to videogame addiction. Although the time constraints policies applied in China might not be a viable option in Europe, companies can potentially identify from their databases extreme or problematic gamers who are spending an excessive amount of time in the game and offer them contact information for a referral service in their country. Empirical evidence from the gambling industry suggests that similar initiatives and other social-responsibility tools are appreciated by players. There is also recent empirical evidence from the gambling studies field that the setting of time limits helps the most gaming intense players the most. In the context of online gambling, I have suggested that it is not the gaming industry’s responsibility to treat gamblers but it is their responsibility to provide referrals for problem gamblers to specialist helping agencies. I have argued that it is better for the industry to refer their problem customers to online help that offers a high degree of anonymity (as this is preferred by online gamblers). This is an important finding for the online videogame industry to take on board, as it seems that it is not currently taken into consideration in their CSR practices. Online videogame companies need to take social responsibility for the extreme and problematic usage of their products. The proportion of gamers who develop problems and/or become addicts may stay roughly constant but as online videogames get better and better, and increasing numbers of people discover them, the number of addicts is most probably going to rise.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Additional input: Dr. Shumaila Yousafzai and Dr. Zaheer Hussain

Further reading

Auer, M., & Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Voluntary limit setting and player choice in most intense online gamblers: An empirical study of gambling behaviour. Journal of Gambling Studies, DOI 10.1007/s10899-012-9332-y.

Cai, Y., Jo, H., & Pan, C. (2012). Doing well while doing bad? CSR in controversial industry sectors. Journal of Business Ethics, 108, 467–480.

Ferguson, C. J., Coulson, M., & Barnett, J. (2011). A meta-analysis of pathological gaming prevalence and comorbidity with mental health, academic and social problems. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 45, 1573–1578.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Age ratings on video games: Are the effective? Education and Health, 28, 65-67.

Griffiths, M.D., & Meredith, A. (2009). Videogame addiction and treatment. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 39, 47-53.

Griffiths. M.D., Wood, R.T.A. (2008). Responsible gaming and best practice: How can academics help? Casino and Gaming International, 4(1), 107–112.

Griffiths, M.D., Wood, R.T.A. & Parke, J. (2009). Social responsibility tools in online gambling: A survey of attitudes and behaviour among Internet gamblers. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 12, 413-421.

Griffiths, M.D., Wood, R.T.A., Parke, J. & Parke, A. (2007). Gaming research and best practice: Gaming industry, social responsibility and academia. Casino and Gaming International, 3(3), 97-103.

Hussain, Z., Griffiths, M.D. & Baguley, T. (2012).Online gaming addiction: classification, prediction and associated risk factors. Addiction Research & Theory 20(5), 359-371.

King, D.L., Delfabbro, P.H. & Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Video game structural characteristics: A new psychological taxonomy. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 8, 90-106.

King, D.L., Haagsma, M.C.^, Delfabbro, P.H.,Gradisar, M.S.& Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Toward a consensus definition of pathological video-gaming: A systematic review of psychometric assessment tools. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 331-342.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Online gaming addiction: A systematic review. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 10, 278-296.

Porter, G., Starcevic, V., Berle, D., & Fenech , P. (2010). Recognizing problem video game use. Australia Newzealad Journal of Psychiatry, 44(2),120 –128.

Van Rooij, A., Meerkerk, G., Schoenmakers, T., Griffiths, M., & van de Mheen, D. (2010). Video game addiction and social responsibility. Addiction Research & Theory, 18(5): 489-493.

Yousafzai, S.Y., Hussain, Z. & Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Social responsibility in online videogaming: What should the videogame industry do? Addiction Research and Theory, DOI: 10.3109/16066359.2013.812203