'Situated Immersion'

The discussion surrounding video games and addiction has been trivial to say the least. I would go as far as to say that 80% of the people in this forum have been addicted to some form of game at one point or another. But how far did this addiction go? And how far is the addiction to a simple video game capable of going?  As stated in our lecture Clark and Bakker do not use the term addiction but rather the term ‘problematic use’ which is defined as “The state of powerlessness a person experiences when, despite attempts to stop or reduce their usage, they are unable to walk away from a game (or substance, or behaviour) even in the face of persistent and deleterious effects on their life”. So though 80% of us may have considered ourselves ‘addicted’ to a game at some point or another did it really start negatively affecting your life? When looking at the definition above of ‘problematic use’ I would say I have never been affected as badly as the terms in the definition stipulate. However I have considered myself addicted to a game in the past. I believe that the point made in the lecture about immersion and it being addictive is very valid. The ability to draw one away from reality is perhaps the most alluring of all the qualities found within a game.  I have one example of an old friend from high school who became highly addicted to the game World of War Craft. Previously I did not believe that video games could adversely affect one’s life yet in his case I believe it did. The game literally consumed him to the point where he stopped going to work and stopped going out both at night and during the day. Regardless of whether one wants to use the term problematic use or addiction the outcome and the meaning is essentially the same. I guess this can be called ‘Situated Immersion’.