Where are the gamers?

Previously, we talked about how the criteria for the proposed psychiatric disorder of Internet gaming disorder may not reflect the experience of engaged gamers, who might have several of the criteria without having the “clinically significant impairment or distress” required for a diagnosis. These criteria and the proposed questions for scales used to test for IGD in the general population were decided on through consensus and voting, but it wasn’t clear how this was done—it wasn’t transparent.² Researchers do agree on the need to move forward with research in a consistent way across disciplines to develop agreement on topics related to video gaming, including IGD.³ This agreement extends across fields, thankfully—a recent conference of video game researchers also agreed on the importance of standardized approaches to research studies.⁴

One thing is missing, though—an understanding of the gamer culture. In psychiatry, the boundaries between normal and abnormal are fuzzy and influenced by social and cultural factors.⁵ What is surprising, though, is that it doesn’t look like the important research that describes gamers’ experiences with gaming, excessive gaming and feelings of game addiction was used to figure out what game addiction is. There is a wealth of research into the experiences of normal and abnormal gaming in the fields of media studies, communication studies, psychology or anthropology. Outside of public health and psychiatry, the idea of a gaming culture is well-known.⁶ So where are gamers in this discussion?

In medical and public health research, scientists are learning about the importance of including patients or end-users of interventions in the design of research studies. Including these stakeholders increases the value of research by making it more likely that the things that are studied are important to everyone, and that the results that scientists come up with will lead to successful ways to treat or prevent health problems.⁷

1.         American Psychiatric Association:  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association; 2013. dsm.psychiatryonline.org.

2.         Griffiths MD, van Rooij AJ, Kardefelt-Winther D, et al. Working towards an international consensus on criteria for assessing internet gaming disorder: a critical commentary on Petry et al. (2014). Addict Abingdon Engl. 2016;111(1):167-175. doi:10.1111/add.13057.

3.         Petry NM, Rehbein F, Gentile DA, et al. Moving internet gaming disorder forward: A reply. Addict Abingdon Engl. 2014;109(9):1412-1413. doi:10.1111/add.12653.

4.         All A, Birk M, Bourgonjon J, et al. Research ideas: Digital Games Research Workshop. December 2015.

5.         Kendler KS. The nature of psychiatric disorders. World Psychiatry Off J World Psychiatr Assoc WPA. 2016;15(1):5-12. doi:10.1002/wps.20292.

6.         Grooten J, Kowert R. Going  Beyond the  Game :  Development of  Gamer  Identities  Within Societal  Discourse and  Virtual  Spaces. Load J Can Game Stud Assoc. 2015;9(14):70-87.

7.         Khodyakov D, Savitsky TD, Dalal S. Collaborative learning framework for online stakeholder engagement. Health Expect Int J Public Particip Health Care Health Policy. August 2015. doi:10.1111/hex.12383.