Not every gamer is like Cartman in that South Park episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft” (pictured above), but with games becoming increasingly longer – Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt are both well over 100 hours in playtime – it’s not implausible for a gamer to end up that way. While this could categorically be considered gaming addiction, a new report suggests that more than half of the survey’s participants disagree with the notion that excessive gaming can foster a similar addiction to alcohol, drugs, and gambling.
Qutee, a website dedicated to bolstering online community discussion through analytics and data, conducted a survey polling from 886 comments and 4,500 votes. The participates were asked 251 discussion topics, including issues of community, stress, skills, friends, hobbies, enjoyment, and various other problems related to games. And it seems the survey has produced some staggering but expected results. According to the survey, 89 percent of gamers feel gaming is beneficial to society, with 44 percent saying that the most important benefit of gaming is improved emotional well-being. This can be attributed to games like Gone Home and That Dragon, Cancer, where the focus isn’t violence but rather the emotional connection between the characters. In regards to the conflation between video game violence and real-world violence – which has resurfaced from the debates of the late 90s and early 00s &#...