Cape Town - Excessive gaming could soon see you being diagnosed with a mental health disorder.
This after the World Health Organisation (WHO) included “gaming disorder” on its list of mental health conditions in the Beta draft of its latest International Classification of Diseases.
WHO included “gaming disorder” under the mental, behavioural or neurodevelopmental disorders category.
The organisation said disorders due to addictive behaviours are recognisable and clinically significant syndromes associated with distress or interference with personal functions that develop as a result of repetitive rewarding behaviours other than the use of dependence-producing substances.
“Disorders due to addictive behaviours include gambling disorder and gaming disorder, which may involve both online and offline behaviour.
"Gaming disorder is characterised by a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour (‘digital gaming’ or ‘video-gaming’), which may be online (over the internet) or offline, manifested by: 1) impaired control over gaming (onset, frequency, intensity, duration, termination, context); 2) increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities; and 3) continuation or escalation of gaming despite negative consequences.”
Gamer and gaming commentator Pippa Tshabalala said that the inclusion was looking at extreme cases. “I think anything done in excess is dangerous, and that can be anything from playing games to taking drugs they are looking at extreme cases, like people letting their children die because of excessive gaming,” she said.
Tshabalala said the average gamer was not doing that and it was not easy to say how much time one person spent playing games. “The average person is not doing that. It is usually a coping mechanism for an underlying problem.”
Globally the gaming industry is worth around R1.3trillion, with around 2 million gamers playing games on various devices.
Serious About Games, a South African gaming community, released a report that said revenue in the industry increased from R29.7 million in 2014 to R100m in 2016.
It said consumers of video games in South Africa are increasingly diverse.
“Across all demographics of race, gender and income, more and more people are playing games on their PCs, consoles and cellphones than ever before."