I've been a part of two different friends' attempts to quit addiction to MMOs. A high school friend had a problem with Everquest back before WoW. His brother recruited us friends to help give him alternative stuff to do like movie and other game nights. We succeeded, and he was able to put the game down. Some college friends and I were not so successful in pulling one of my roommates away from WoW. Activision Blizzard have it literally down to the science of addiction.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I remember EverQuest being called EverCrack back in the day before WoW.

[–] flicker 4 points 3 months ago

I read "EverQuest" and my brain commented, "You mean EverCrack," immediately.

My cousin was horrifically addicted. Luckily for me, my opinion on subscribing to a game was, "no matter how good a game is, I'm not paying for it over and over, " even in middle school, so he couldn't convince me to try it.

[–] helloharu 2 points 3 months ago

I have a friend that refuses to play FFXIV again because how addicted they felt towards it. That came off the back of a WoW addiction that led them to mix up their priorities between food, alcohol and playing the game. The whole addition to both of those was a way for dealing with other mental health issue, yet only made matters worse with how those games work.

I also had my own issues with game addiction when I was dealing with grief over a death. Fortunately it didn’t impact my physical health but it did impact other areas. I certainly wasn’t looking after myself and my surroundings as best as I could back then, and neglected a lot in my life.

My friend found a way of dealing with game addiction by removing them entirely, I found ways to prioritise other areas of my life and continue with that while keeping gaming strictly as a hobby.

Often I think people become addicted to games like any other substance due to dealing with external factors in life that they’re not getting help for. It takes a lot to realise there’s a problem, it takes even more to deal with the root causes. Some people also have low thresholds for addiction and which exacerbates it.