Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs with respect to gaming.

Very good article, seriously, i like it a lot.

I think the gaming addiction thing is a very serious problem, and i'm sure there are a lot of direct psychological parallels that you could draw. Reinforcement schedules i'm sure are another thing you could look at - in fact, just about any theory of addiction would show direct parallels to gaming.

I think gaming is particularly important because it targets kids and young adults who might be upset about lack of achievement in their own -real- lives, forcing them to look more and more to games and online communities to substitute for their social and achievement needs.

Gaming is probably more than just satisfying needs, there's a real addictive impulse to it that is the same as all addictions. People find themselves doing it automatically, without thinking, out of habit, but with an irresistable force that they can't rationally explain. Like is often said of substance abuse, they find themselves doing it long after it stopped being fun.

And it's not just gaming, the same could be said of all online/TV/media outlets that replace normal living experiences with the readily available digital version. I think this could quite possibly be a massive problem, and who knows, in economic terms, might even have more of an impact than illicit drugs.