Video Game Addiction: The Play!

It's no secret that most people think of addiction as a threatening social issue. News reporters, social scientists, and forum-goers have mulled over the notion of video game addiction in particular. Despite all the time and effort, we still don't truly understand the problem.But according to these kids all you need is a stage, some lights, and a few willing actors in order to understand addiction.

The Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School is ready to stage an event the audience won't soon forget. Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom (or N3RD) is a play which revolves around students who've become addicted to the eponymous survival-horror game, Neighborhood 3.

According to the playwright, Jennifer Haley, N3RD "explores video game addiction and the importance of teen-parent communication."

For a few dollars, Haley will treat the the audience to the play, original music composed by the students, and a round-table discussion hosted by Dr. Tom Massarelli, a psychologist for the school district.

If my school's theater program produced plays like this, I might have been on a stage instead of behind a keyboard. Since Hollywood refuses to film anything as interesting as Neighborhood 3, I suppose it's up to high school students to tackle the issue of gaming addiction [The Sentinel via GamePolitics].

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Robert Pilgrim

April 16, 2010

Sounds like the play could be very interesting. Hopefully they treat the subject in a realistic and mature manner. The majority of depictions of "game addictions" are so inaccurate they rub me the wrong way. There is also the issue of people thinking gaming is not addictive. While it takes an addictive personality to fall into the trap of having a gaming addiction, I believe there are a few (not a substantial amount) people out there who are addicted to gaming. I had a former roommate who would play ~50 hours of WoW a week, while maintaining a 40 hour a week job. This left little to no time for socialization with his family and friends. Anyway it was sad to see him like that, but luckily after 2 years of this he quit cold turkey and hasn't looked back.

Lucas Goudie

In before "I CHOOSE TO PLAY WOW 50 HOURS A WEEK I CAN QUIT ANY TIME I LIKE"

Rich McGrath

If Green Day can make it to Broadway, so can this. .www.americanidiotonbroadway.com

Haha for sure Lucas! I have another quick quip about my friend the former WoW addict. Our dreams are typically a reflection of things that are happening in our lives, and can represent our hopes, dreams, fears etc. I once asked the friend whom I referenced in my first post about his dreams. Since he spent so much of his waking days playing WoW I was curious what his dreams were about. He told me that the majority of his dreams (That he could recall) were WoW based, such as finding super rare loot, or finding out his account was cancelled and his progress deleted. He also said even while he was drifting off to sleep after an epic 14 hour WoW marathon (which he frequently did on weekends) he was constantly visualizing characters running around and completing quests. That is a scary thought to me, and definitely shows how much a video game can impact our psyche.

Maybe it would be a good addition to a play about gaming addiction to show that the persons gaming addiction seeping into the persons dreams/subconscious and taking "hold" of them or that the person cant escape their addiction even when they sleep etc.

Ed Grabowski

Wow, I live 20 minutes away from this school. I may have to go so I can constantly interrupt and correct the roundtable discussion. You know it is going to sound something like this "Parents, if your child seems like he is enjoying a game too much, he or she may be addicted. Study after study has shown this to be fact. No, I do not have those study's with me, and yes I just made them up because I really didn't do any research before agreeing to this, but the problem is real."