Gaming Special Confessions of an ex-addict

By Kim Hyo-jin

Ms. Lee had lived two lives for two years.

During the day, Lee worked as a marketing officer.

At the stroke of 6, she would dart home to live her other life ― she could become a princess, sorceress or whatever she wanted, all courtesy of online games.

Lee’s Cinderella game would last until dawn, forcing her to report to work, exhausted and sleepless.

She relied on cans of tuna and instant noodles for sustenance. Contact with friends was lost and her parents worried.

At the age of 31, she realizes she was an addict.

She thanked her good fortune for going cold turkey ― well, sort of.

In hindsight, she had no other choice. Her health was frail and she suffered from a severe, inexplicable case of indigestion, which she once thought could be a symptom of a terminal illness.

Thinking back, she said, “I don’t want to destroy my real life anymore.”

Now, she tries to forget about those days.

Lee is among those in the first generation of game addicts who see the current gaming trends with a sense of irony.

She grew up playing “Starcraft” ― a game that triggered an online gaming boom in the late 1990s ― and idolized legendary StarCraft player Lim Yo-hwan.

But it was a different breed of games in the early 2000s that made her an addict.

“World of Warcraft” (WoW) is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that trapped Lee and others.

In that game, one’s chosen character remains active, even when you log out, so WoW addicts find it hard to get over the urge to return to their virtual, yet fancier life.

“I suffered from anxiety attacks biting my fingernails when I wasn’t logged in,” Lee recalled. “You would get respect in accordance with your performance. You could be anybody you want in the gaming world so, once you were hooked, there would be no way out.”

This is the debilitating side of psychology involved in the role-playing game.

The more her online character developed, the more her real character was destroyed.

She suffered through many problems ― indigestion and a neck disc hernia, to name a couple.

On top of that, she endured a difficult five months of withdrawal symptoms.

As the market to play more moderate games has grown, “League of Legends” (LoL) was introduced just in time, around 2010. It demands hyper-mental acuity and agile team play, cunning strategy, predicting opponents’ moves and reacting in milliseconds.

Lee, after working through rehabilitation, regularly plays LoL, the mega-hit online game, for an hour or so at a time.

“It’s now recreational,” she said. LoL is known to be less addictive than MMORPG because it is a one-off game that doesn’t keep track of players.

LoL tops game popularity lists in Korea, largely due to its ability to meet the demand of gamers who are wary of becoming addicted.

“As the games industry matures, so too do gamers” said Lee Moo-hyun, a public relations manager at Gom Gretech, an e-sport content provider.

She said first generation gamers have become more balanced in their consumption of online gaming after they gained first-hand experience of the negative effects of addiction.

A 37-year-old gamer said members of his generation will not play games excessively anymore because they are less allured by the realistic graphics and gory storylines that come with the latest games.

He has already had two-decades of gaming life –20 years – older than most young gamers today.

“There’s nothing more stimulating in today’s games than old games. It is the same plots ― killing people, earning money and outwitting the machine. But after playing dozens of open beta, one’s response loses its spark,” said Park Sung-ho, a first-generation gamer who runs a PC bang.

“It was hard to expect understanding from my parents who didn’t know gaming at all. But as a generation that grew up with games, I would encourage my child to play games as a leisure activity and teach how to moderate the gaming habit,” Choi Jong-il, 34, the father of a 1-year-old, said.

Every morning before he goes to work, Park drops by a PC Bang his breakfast still in his hand, and squeezes in an hour of FIFA, a football game.

“I think it is a balanced way to enjoy my pastime while managing my family life,” he said.