Game Addiction: Myth or Fact?- Our Responsibility as an Industry

Back in September when I attended the Game Developers Conference in Austin, I had the privilege as a Game Art and Design student to actually rub shoulders with real live actual people in the gaming industry. I have to say I enjoyed every moment and that my only regret was that the conference only lasted for three days.

While there, I opened my favorite Pandora’s Box and asked people about how they felt about creating a product that could effectively be involved with someone’s addiction to games. The stance I encountered in all cases for my impromptu poll was pretty well one-sided. In every case, the opinion was that gamers make the decision to play the games and their type of usage is not really the problem of the game maker. They compared it to the way that a person might consume alcohol. It’s not the fault of the alcohol industry that people are alcoholics certainly. Right?

Carrla is fairly new to the Guild and will be writing periodic articles on her perspective of the gaming industry.  We welcome Carrla to our contributors group. Here is some interesting information about Carrla.

Carrla Leszcynski is a student at Art Institute of Pittsburgh-Online Division pursuing her Bachelor of Science in Game Art and Design. Her expected graduation date for in August 2009. She hopes to purse a career in environmental design and modeling upon the completion of her degree.