Addiction

An attempt was made to come up with a scale that measured the severity of addiction to the game. The point was not to use it as a diagnostic tool, but rather, a way to see how scoring high on this scale might influence other in-game behaviors, or how the scale correlated with general demographics. The following statements were used, and respondents were asked to indicate how accurately the statement described them.

- I worry that my friends will level faster than me.
- I continue to play the game even when I am upset or frustrated with it and not really enjoying it.
- I feel better about myself when I am playing the game.
- I am going through problems or difficulties in real life, and playing the game allows me to temporarily avoid them.
- My playing habits have caused me academic, legal, health, financial, or relationship problems.
- Playing the game makes me feel guilty.
- Nothing gives me as much satisfaction as playing the game.
- I become anxious, irritable or angry if I am unable to play.
- When the servers go down unexpectedly, I feel like I don't know what else to do.

All the above statements inter-correlate to a high degree. A summated scale was then used to continue with the analysis.

It was found that UO players scored lower on this scale than EQ and DAOC players (p<.001 and p=.02 respectively).
EQ and DAOC male players scored significantly lower on this scale than female players (p=.003 and p=.03 respectively). UO male and female players did not score significantly differently from each other.

The scale correlated negatively with age across all 3 games: -.20 for EQ, -.25 for UO, and -.20 for DAOC. The effect is more dramatic when plotted against quintiles of the addiction scale.

The scale correlated positively with number of hours played each week: .30 for EQ, .32 for UO, .33 for DAOC. Between the top and bottom quartile is almost a 12 hour difference in average game play per week.

The addiction scale correlates positively with the Achievement, Grief and Relationship factors (.32, .26, and .26 respectively).