Sex, Drugs and Video Games

We've all been there. We've all played games that we are unable to put down, and the responsibility comes down to others to crowbar the controller – or mouse and keyboard if you're so inclined – out of our hands. We've all got up early before school to spend a few golden hours with our latest, engrossing purchase. We've all daydreamed in lectures about how we can't wait to get home to complete our diamond mine in Minecraft, to rack up those head-shots on Team Fortress 2, or get through that edge of the seat relegation battle in Football Manager. Some people may have even missed said lectures to do just these things, although they'd never admit to it in public, let alone in a student newspaper.

This study was published in Nature’s Translational Psychiatry journal, and looks like it could be the real deal

Why exactly do we do this? What is it that gives us that insatiable appetite to keep playing and playing, even when we know we have much more important things to do? Well, scientists this week have come up with an answer. It turns out that gamers are different in more ways than just the obvious, potentially socially embarrassing ones; our brains are structurally different. And as it turns out, we're all addicts.

The study I'm referring to isn't one of those unreliable, waste-of-time-and-energy studies on video games which only gets enough respect to feature in the middle pages of The Sun (or the front page of the Daily Mail). In fact, this study was published in Nature's Translational Psychiatry journal, and looks like it could be the real deal.

Frequent gaming is associated with higher levels of grey matter in the dopamine-related ventral stratum

(Warning: neuroscience ahead.) Essentially, the study has found that frequent gaming is associated with higher levels of grey matter in the dopamine-related ventral striatum. This area of the brain forms an integral part of our internal reward system and has been shown to be closely related to addiction on many separate occasions. Additionally, the study showed that this increase in grey matter correlated with less deliberation time when making decisions during a gambling task and more loss-related activity during a monetary incentive delay task.

So what can we glean from this? Well, if we were being reactionary we might say that playing video games causes our brains to swell, encourages us to make rash decisions and forces us to continually carry out tasks which we are doomed to fail, with no thought of nobly accepting defeat. However, the study provides, oh so predictably, no evidence that playing video games causes any of the features that I have already described. In fact, it seems logical to me that the reverse is much more likely to be true: people with brains that predispose them to addiction, with more grey matter in their ventral striatum, are more likely to engage in potentially addictive activities, and I am placing video games firmly in this category. Indeed, it was Henrietta Bowden-Jones from our very own Neuroscience division that suggested that the findings "further close the gap" between video gaming and other addictions. The idea that people whose brains predispose them to addiction are more inclined to play video games is something that I wish to use as a base for a potentially controversial observation that I can't help but make: video games are a lot like drugs.

I'd like to introduce this idea with a joke: What's the difference between a drug addict and a gamer? One parts with a lot of their hard earned cash in order to achieve short term pleasure – the other is a drug addict. Video games, like drugs, satisfy our brains in ways which keep drawing us back to them. We cannot get enough. As you start to accept this fact, yet more similarities will open up. For example, it is a well known fact that the more drugs you take, the more you need to take to achieve that elusive high. Tell me, can you remember a game that was as magical during your first playthrough as it was during your tenth? If you can, then I'll certainly have whatever you're having.

Video games, like drugs, satisfy our brains in ways which keep drawing us back. We cannot get enough

Another similarity can be drawn between the corresponding suppliers in each cases: the drug dealers and the video game companies. Now I'm not particularly familiar with the way in which a drug organisation starts up, and what understanding I do have is drawn from the questionable realism of The Wire (which I would recommend to everyone, by the way). I would hasten to guess that this first step requires that you produce a better product than your rivals. Once you have this product you will gradually get more and more customers, utilising economies of scale, and before you know it you're sitting on a mountain of cash. When you get to this stage you can start to relax. From then on, to some extent, you can get by on your name alone. Your business model becomes more about exploiting the irrational minds of those who are so hell-bent on buying from you than about creating a quality product.

With this in mind, let's examine a random gaming franchise. Say, I don't know, Call of Duty. For me, this is a series that started of with real promise. The franchise was built up by Activision, alongside developers, with real quality at its core, and managed to better (or at least match) its rivals in its early days. It gradually attracted more and more customers, utilising economies of scale, and before you know it, Activision was sitting on a mountain of cash. You see where I'm going with this. And by the way, the same could be said for a whole lot of other video game producers.

So, what does this all mean? Should we all start checking ourselves into rehab? Well, no, not really. Because video games aren't like hard drugs. But for a few, World of Warcraft related cases, you won't die because of video game addiction in the same way that you are likely to if heroin or cocaine is your poison of choice. No, video games are more like marijuana – practically harmless substances (check the studies if you don't believe me) that will let you sink into your own little world of bliss. From what I hear anyway. I can honestly say that I have never smoked marijuana in my life. If I had, however, I imagine that it would be a lot like slipping through a green pipe into Super Mario World for a brief period of time.

DOI: 10.1038/tp.2011.53