Reality Check 04.03.09: Gamer Widows

Posted by Alexandra Pusateri on 04.03.2009

Relatives and significant others mourn for their addicted gamers, who leave their loved ones behind in favor of games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Alexandra Pusateri dives into the world of gamer widows in the debut of Reality Check!

Well, hi there! This is my very first column on 411mania, so I guess you want to know a bit about me. My name's Alexandra Pusateri and I'm a journalism major at the University of Memphis. (Since it is March Madness, I'll also mention I am very upset about Coach Calipari leaving us Tigers.) I've been playing video games ever since I was a little girl, and I've always been a geek. I write about video games and technology for my college newspaper, The Daily Helmsman, and I run my own Internet radio station geared towards gamers.

But enough about me!

I'm here to give you – drumroll, please – a Reality Check. Did you see what I did there? You liked it, admit it. What I plan on doing each week is giving you a constant reminder that video games affects many things, not just your gamerscore. This week, I talked with a few people about the issue of video game addiction and its social effects. If you'd like to email me, you're more than welcome to, at alexpusateri[at]gmail.com. So here you go – your first dose of Reality Check.

If your relationship is on the rocks because of a little video game called World of Warcraft, a quick Google search shows that you're not alone. There's a support group, various articles, and other resources to help you. And World of Warcraft isn't the only game responsible: it's all games we affectionately call MMOs. MMOs boast over 16 million active subscriptions worldwide as of 2008.

Behind those 16 million subscriptions, there are a percentage of gamers that become compulsive. The women and men who feel as though they have been abandoned by these players have dubbed themselves "gamer widows." The term is "for those who have a relationship with an addicted gamer who pays more attention to the video game than to their partner," says Sherry Myrow, founder of GamerWidow.com, a community of husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, and relatives of addicted gamers. An addicted gamer, by Myrow's definition, is "one who plays video games to excess, be it on a console or on the computer."

Her husband received World of Warcraft as a birthday present in November 2004. She had never seen a game like it and she quickly saw her husband become addicted to the game. Feeling neglected, she bought the domain GamerWidow.com the following January.

"One day, I was reading these message boards for a book club that I was apart of," Myrow recalls about her decision for the domain, "And some girl was complaining about her boyfriend being completely obsessed with Final Fantasy [XI] Online. And then another person posted, ‘Oh, I'm a gamer widow too.' And when I read that, I just felt it described me so perfectly."

Her quest to find a proper home on the Internet to share her experiences with others didn't fit her situation. "The only thing I could find was an email list for EverQuest widows," she says. "I joined that, and shortly after, a woman started a [World of Warcraft] widow Yahoo! Group, which I am a moderator of."

Sherry Myrow started GamerWidow.com as a resource for those dealing with an "addicted gamer."

She tried playing the MMO to please her husband, who hoped it would get her to "understand" his compulsive behavior. Myrow became addicted to World of Warcraft herself for a couple of months, leading to the domain sitting dormant on the shelf of the Internet. As soon as she realized she was addicted, she "drew [herself] into being a widow," and launched the site in June.

Vincent Herr, founder of the GamerPulse Network, was one of those addicted gamers. A relationship of his own ended because of his addiction. "She hated me being on World of Warcraft. She hated it for a long time," he says. "At that time, I was definitely addicted. I was playing 16 hours a day." MMO players don't generally have a good reputation, from inside the industry or out. "I've heard of more breakups, divorces, [and] custody battles because of all these MMOs," Herr says.

Not everyone sees addiction as the true problem. Chris Vicari has been working on his thesis on MMORPGs behind the scenes. "It seems, from my observations, that many first-time MMO gamers run into this issue," Vicari says. "To be honest, I'm in the camp that most gamers who claim they are addicted really aren't."

Keith Bakker opened the world's first video game addiction clinic.

And Keith Bakker joins him in his opinion. Bakker opened the Smith & Jones Centre, Europe's first and only video game addiction clinic, in 2006. "[T]he more we work with these kids, the less I believe we can call this addiction," Bakker tells the BBC, "What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers – this is a social problem." According to Bakker, 90 percent of gamers who seek treatment at his clinic are not addicted. "If I continue to call gaming an addiction, it takes away the element of choice these people have." Vicari agrees: "If a gamer successfully quits a particular MMO, something else will just fill the void anyway."

Games like World of Warcraft affect a small percentage of gamers' families and friends, after they become compulsive.

But some gamers are not happy about gaming being perceived as addictive. Some have gone as far as to brand Myrow's gamer widows as women who nag their significant others about playing too many video games – even though a significant percentage of men participate on the site – or just being against gaming in general. "I actually welcome people like that, to come and join the site and read posts. They'll even discover for themselves that it's actually so not what we're about," Myrow says. There are women who rant and complain, "[but] they wouldn't seek out an online message board if they didn't feel that it was to the point that they needed to talk to someone and put it in writing."

Those gamers who have negative perceptions of gamer widows might be defensive. By Myrow's definition, it's hard to tell if someone is addicted to video games. How much is too much? It's not just when you play for hours on end like some hardcore gamers. "When they're putting this video game above work, health, family, and their friends, when it becomes more than an obsession," Myrow says, "that's when it becomes an addiction." Vicari has simple solutions for those who realize they have a problem: "Cancel the account, remove the credit card information from the account, and uninstall the game."

Relatives or significant others of those addicted gamers might not be able to fix the issue with such simple solutions. "Take stock of your relationship," says Myrow. "The very first question you ask yourself is ‘Is this person worth it?' If the answer is yes, there's a long road ahead of you, but it can be done. If the answer is ‘no,' then maybe you might think of ending the relationship."

As more people become MMO players each year, media outside the gaming industry are quick to call this issue an addiction. Bakker's clinic shows that addicted gamers are in a very small minority: "In most cases of compulsive gaming, it is not addiction, and in that case, the solution lies elsewhere."

Addiction, compulsion, whatever you want to call it – it's an issue that needs to be addressed in the gaming community.

Thank you to Sherry Myrow (GamerWidow.com), Vincent Herr (Gamer-Pulse.com), and Chris Vicari for taking the time to answer some questions. And thank you to Rod Oracheski for the logo!


How do you feel? Is there such thing as a video game addiction? How do you feel about gamer widows?