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On January 1^st, 2018, “gaming disorder” — in which games are played uncontrollably, despite causing harm — gained recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO). Last year, China, the world’s biggest gaming market, announced new rules limiting children to just a single hour of play a day. Clinics are appearing around the world, promising to cure patients of their habit.

Are games really addictive? Psychologists have different opinions. The case for the defence is that this is just another moral panic. Similar warnings have been given about television, rock’ n’ roll, jazz, comic books, and even novels. As the newest form of mass media, gaming is merely enduring (忍受) its own time before it finally stops being controversial.

However, some argue that unlike rock bands or novelists, games developers have both the motive and the means to engineer their products to make them addictive. For one thing, the business-model has changed. In the old days games were bought once and for all. But these days, games are free and money is earned from purchases of in-game goods, which ties playtime directly to developers’ income. For another, games makers combine psychological theory and data, which helps them maximize the playtime. Smartphones and modern video game machines use their permanent Internet connections to send gameplay data back to developers. That allows products to be constantly adjusted to increase spending on games.

The gaming industry should realize that, in the real world, it has a problem, and that problem is growing. Now that gaming addiction comes with an official WHO recognition, diagnoses (诊断) become more common. Clinics are already reporting booming business, as lockdowns have given gamers more time to spend with their hobby. And being put together in the public mind, fairly or not, with gambling will not do the industry any favours.