The difference between Starcraft and heroin is that the vast majority of Starcraft users do not become addicts. In fact, only a very, very small portion of users do - heroin has no claims to the same.
This also brings social gaming in as a concern - what is the moral stance on games what have been specifically and deliberately engineered with said biological and psychological pathways in mind, with addiction as an intended outcome as opposed to an accidental and marginal one?
It's morally wrong to trick someone biological and psychological in order for them to play games in order to generate income for a game company. But I think there's a way to balance between making users like the game thus generate income for the company and making users biologically and psychologically rely on the game.
In the end, is there really any difference between making a game that is fun and a game that is addicting? I really don't think there is even if they went in with the idea of "lets make this game addicting".
I've never once seen a game that is not fun, but is addicting. Although my friends have said Master of Orion 3 fits that description, but I never actually saw them ever play it so I think it was a joke.
There's a great talk about this from some guy at Digital Illusions. He found some definition of what a "game" is and compared that definition with Farmville, it failed on every single bullet. I can't remember the exact details but it contained things like it has to be challenging, a skilled player should easily beat a newbie, not requiring grinding. What's interesting is that the definitions are not designed with the sole purpose of bashing farmville, all of them really make sense and origin from even before computer era.
If somebody knows where to find the talk please post it, my google-fu is weak today. He also compares the iphone to a swiss army knife and the ipad to a "swiss-army-kitchen-utensil" (i.e too bad to be really useful and too big to fit in your pocket). The talk was just a few weeks after the first ipad release. It also contains alot of other talk about the future of gaming for the general masses, facebook games and gaming anything in life(like shopping), etc. If that's enough to trigger anyones memory.
A very small percentage of people who have ever tried heroin are current users. Of course, it's much, much smaller for everyone who's tried to play Starcraft, but the point remains.
There is a clear difference, though. Heroin and other addicting drugs create a physical addiction. If you are addicted to heroin, nicotine, caffeine, etc., your body really does need the drug to function normally, and you will go through physical withdrawal if you can't get the drug.
Activities that people get addicted to (like gambling or videogames) are only psychologically addicting. Yes, of course psychological addiction does have physical effects (dopamine levels in your brain, for instance), but we can still clearly differentiate addictive drugs from addictive activities.
Before anyone talks about addiction everyone needs to understand what they mean by physical and mental. Most people think they do but don't.
To be addicted simply means one will seek out the thing they are addicted to at great cost. They'll neglect all sorts of important things and put the object of their addiction above all else.
To be dependent means ones body needs a substance to function normal. Usually this means keeping withdrawl at bay.
You can be dependent but not addicted.
The only difference between drug addiction and an addiction to, say, playing games is that you are not dependent upon the games. In reality however the cost of both are just about equal. The one difference being that many substances will cost you your health directly while games will cost you your health indirectly. In both cases however the psychology is the same and so is the neurobiology. But because games don't literally replace already existing neurotransmitters you don't get dependence. But what you do get with games, just like substances, is your reward pathway being excited to the point where you begin seeking out the thing that excited that pathway over and over. Nothing else excites that pathway as much and so you then crave that thing.
People look at gaming and drugs and think its a no-brainer that they're so clearly different but they aren't. Addiction is addiction no matter the object of addiction.
You know what the real difference between gaming addiction and drug addiction is? Stigma. What everyone thinks they know about addicts/addiction.
Sounds right. Note: caffeine physical addiction lasts only a day or so. Similar with nicotine. The psychological addiction is far stronger and longer-lasting.
Depends on how much you're used to (http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press_releases/2004/09_29_04....): Typically, onset of symptoms occurred 12 to 24 hours after stopping caffeine, with peak intensity between one and two days, and for a duration of two to nine days.
Anecdotally, I know someone who was on three pots a day, and he had a miserable month when he quit cold-turkey. Some of that was withdrawal, but some of that was also probably him having to adjust to a wake-sleep cycle without the aid of stimulants.
This also brings social gaming in as a concern - what is the moral stance on games what have been specifically and deliberately engineered with said biological and psychological pathways in mind, with addiction as an intended outcome as opposed to an accidental and marginal one?