Topic : 06/03 Virtual Chaos

I'm glad you did this show! When he said it didn't cost him anything to play, that's not completely true either. You have to pay either a monthly fee or pay for pre-paid minutes to play....the game he is playing is World of Warcraft and my husband played for about a year and a half.

Actuallt when I saw the preview for this show last week I actually thought to myself "I wonder if they're talking about WOW" and sure enough that's the game he was playing. World of Warcraft is horrible. I know a family that was just like this and maybe even worse. I understand that gaming in general isn't really that bad but the thing about WOW and some of the other games is that people feel the need to play hours on end to actually get great gain, it's part of this competetive nature of the online community, and when they enter raids and big battles you are usually playing at least 3 hours just to complete a main task, and they can do these every night. There would have to be en emergency to be able to just get up and walk away from the computer...

I personally think that games like these should have a component that the characters need so many hours of rest and if they do not get it, they take more damage and are less productive so that people have to take a night off every 3-4 nights. I think it would help. Also the fact that WOW actually has a button you can order food with so you don't HAVE to get up and order a pizza is ridiculous. 

Thanks for your good wishes. I haven't seen the show yet. I'm at work until 1745 h Eastern time. My wife's at home watching right now.

Thanks everyone who's watching with an open mind, and please say a prayer for Fred and Juli!

-Brad

www.exgamer.net

I believe they're demoniac spirits behind some of those games that control people who play them and get into their live to destroy.

My husband and I are both gamers. Before our daughter,  we played in any of our spare time and yes, we would binge on the weekends. But now that we have a 2 1/2 yr old daughter, we game together AFTER bedtime. It's called being RESPONSIBLE. To all the wives out there sick of their gamer husbands, would you rather your husband have an "outside the home" hobby? If you marry a gamer, expect to be married to one. Like everything else in someone's life, moderation is the key.

Dr. Phil, I am so glad you did a show on this topic as it has really struck a cord with me.  My boyfriend and I have been together for 4 1/2 years and he has played wow for the duration of our relationship.  We have lived together for the past two years so I have seen and experienced first-hand the negative side effects associated with this online game (like many other games).  My boyfriend wakes up 2-3 hours before he has to leave for work in order to play, he goes to work on the daylight shift, and plays all night when he comes home.  And, that's just during the week.  Weekends are even worse.  I do regularly ask him to limit his time on the game but I know that he will never completely stop playing it.  It does create a barrier in our relationship because all of the time spent playing the game is void time in our relationship and in my opinion, it's time that could very well be spent doing something more productive.  It's not possible to hold a conversation with him while he's playing and I get easily frustrated because of this.   The funny thing is that he once told me that I should be happy that he plays WoW because if he didn't, he could easily be out at clubs drinking and partying all the time.  Is that really the ONLY alternative?  I think not.  I could easily tolerate it if it was just a hobby.  But even a hobby doesn't consume that much of your life.

Spending more than 2 hours on games when you are a grown man with several children is obsurd!

I'm somewhat a gamer (Playstation, Nintendo) but I only play a few hours at most a week. Usually when the baby goes to bed the wife and I may play for an hour or so. We play the Wii.

 But to play on the PC for 80hrs a week is disgusting. A 34 yr old man should be spending 8 hrs a day looking for a job, to support his wife and kids.

This guy is an idiot!

I'm a 36 year old housewife who's also an avid gamer. My husband and I both play online roleplaying games, we both play Xbox360. We grew up playing Atari and Nintendo, so it's nothing new for us. We actually met at a tabletop roleplaying game.

We have a home, we have pets, I hike 3 days a week for two hours a day with my dog, I cook, I clean, I do laundry, I PUT IT AWAY :D, and I take care of all the shopping and errand running. I also read like a fiend, I have my own library. My husband works 9-5, 5 days a week. We go out to dinner, we eat at the table every night together. We also play games together or apart maybe 20 hours a week. I don't think any of my characters are anything but pixels, I know for sure they're not real people.

That being said, I've come across people who are addicted to these games in my time playing. I'm glad there's help out there for them. Games can be fun but they can also take over your life if you let them. If you're one of those people, please get help. I'm hoping Fred will see that a video game life should never be a substite for real life.