Fanaticism or addiction: where to draw the line?

Video-games can become an addiction. They set a trap and once you have fallen in it, the way out is not easy to find. Kids and teenagers spend hours on end glued to the television or the computer playing games. Games that allow you to escape your mind-numbing, everyday life and become whoever you want. You can be a gangster looking for vendetta. You can be a soccer star playing for the invincible team on Earth. You can be a member of a rock band playing along with rock-star legends. You can be a soldier fighting against the enemy. Or choose to be a civilian who kills zombies. But what strikes me the most are simulation games. Those who play these games stop having face-to-face interaction and replace it with virtual interaction. This is a paradox.

Video-games are no laughing matter either: there is so much money at stake that the industry does not dare risk losses by producing a humorous game. The reason behind this is that the target audience has changed over the last decade and videogame industry is gaining so much importance that it is being compared with the film industry: games have just the same expectations as blockbuster movies. Over the years, grown-ups have become the new big consumers of videogames. This may be one of the reasons why the genre of video games has also expanded: unreal sceneries where you can interact with other people, share a drink or even flirt and have an interactive significant other. Some XXX video games have entered the market, such as Playboy Mansion or Seven Sins.

Video-games cause such addiction that some people even forget about their physiological needs. They lose track of time and they can spend several hours without food or without going to the bathroom. Games are so addictive that they will not let you stop playing them. Every once in a while there are stories in the media that tell about someone who died after playing for umpteen hours straight.

There is nothing wrong with video-games but we need to know where to draw the line .It does not matter whether you are a kid or an adult, there is one very important issue that we need to be aware of: videogames may be addictive. No matter how exciting your virtual or internet life may get, real life is and always will be definitively more rewarding.