More Online Games – According to a recent study published in Germany and Britain in 2007, more than a regular player in ten shows signs of addiction. Even if these practices more excessive concern Asia, where the culture of online gaming is widespread, experts believe in France as in Germany than 1% to 2% of players’ games massively multiplayer online (MMO) simulation games endlessly, have a practice of pathological nature, with a negative impact on their social life.

On average, gamers engage 35 to 40 hours per week online games, according to estimates. In France, nearly 60% of players recognize, however, have already played once at least ten hours and 5% reported spending more than 30 hours per week in the virtual world, according to a recent study by the “Rights Forum l ’internet’ French agency for regulating the Internet.

It is usually far, however, 50 hours in a row having claimed the life of a compulsive gambler South Korea 28 years in a cybercafe in 2005. According to many experts, the criterion for assessing a pathological practice of online games is not so much the number of hours but the social disruption in reality.

“Unlike the forms of dependency-related substances, addiction to online games is recognized in society as a moral weakness but not as a disease,” says Jakob Hein, head of the addiction to the Charity Hospital Berlin.

Yet this addiction “leads to similar problems in families and in the economy” and deserves the authorities treat “on the same level than the others in terms of prevention and intervention, he said. In Germany, the diagnosis of addiction to games is not recognized by health insurance funds, and specialized treatment centers can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

In his study, the German psychiatrist heard parents say they “prefer to see their children play on the internet rather than smoking cannabis. “Most experts agree that it is time to take seriously the issues of Internet addiction,” says Professor Jean-Luc Venisse, chief of addiction to the hospital of Nantes.

And “they agree that they are not action games or puzzle games but simulation games, especially multiplayer role-playing (…) MMORPGs that have the highest risk of drift addictive in subjects fragile. These games continue to evolve in the absence of the player who then feel lacking when no longer connected or excluded by the rest of the gaming community.

“World of Warcraft,” one of the games most likely to create dependency, more than 9.3 million subscribers worldwide.  This behavioral dependence, which moves slowly, is indicative of some discomfort (academic failure, lack of self recovery, etc. …). In a parallel universe, players will find a virtual social environment, clear rules and a system of rewards and sanctions that they lack daily.

The phenomenon does not exist only at teens but also at fathers and mothers and the elderly, according to Laurent Baup, Legal Rights Forum on the internet.  When to sound the alarm? ”From the moment you begin to wonder, is that we should have reacted long time,” said the psychiatrist Jakob Hein. Ironically, it is often on the Internet platforms that parents of problem gamblers seek advice and support.