Gamers May Plug In, Tune Out

On Tuesday, the sun was out, the air was a balmy 76 degrees, and video game players across Berkeley stayed inside.

In stores like gLab on Bancroft Avenue and Eudemonia on University Avenue, gamers sat in dimly lit rows, looking straight ahead at role-playing games like Everquest and Warcraft.

One college student playing at gLab declined an interview, asking, "Is this important? I'd rather play. Thanks."

But for psychologists and others at the gaming centers, the games do not eliminate social life, but rather they create one. Gamers collaborate and compete with each other over the Internet.

"I guess the same thing that draws young boys to ‘play war' as children draws young adults to Halo," said Sean King, the 20-year-old founder of an online forum for the popular Xbox game. "Halo is a very social game."

Whether this virtual community is a healthy replacement for a more physical community is an issue that leaves psychologists and video game experts sharply divided.

Critics of excessive game playing speak of the appeal of video games in the same terms as drugs-as do some of the gamers.

"It's definitely addicting to a certain extent," said K.G., a third-year UC Berkeley student who declined to give his full name, as he played a role-playing game at Eudemonia.

In addition to the sheer amount of money spent on video games-about $10 billion in the United States in 2004-players in Berkeley said they play games for hours at a time. When asked about their longest video or computer game marathon, responses ranged from five hours to a whole day.

While players praise the interaction the games allow, San Francisco psychotherapist Jeffrey Kaye refers to these connections as a "pseudo-community," with possibly negative effects.

"Some clinicians feel (the games) can provide a way ... to play with making links with others," he said. "However, I think it often becomes kind of encapsulated self-involvement (that) leaves the individual even more isolated and less competent in social relations than before."

Fremont psychologist Jeffrey Bromberg said controlling a video game character can serve as a substitute for having power in the real world.

"I have a few clients who are hooked now," he said. "To me, it's kind of an online theater. It's a way for people to have alter-egos. It gives (gamers) power over the world, because a lot of the time, they feel powerless."

But Laurie Taylor, a graduate student at the University of Florida who has studied the social aspects of video games, said the games foster social interaction rather than replace it.

"They're kind of like a coffee table function," she said. "You talk about work and your day ... while you play."

Taylor said children and young adults are replacing physical recreation with virtual recreation by necessity. Playgrounds are less common, Taylor said, and the rise in single-parent households has left less time for adult supervision.

"Playing with my brother wasn't running around outside. It was running around in Mario," Taylor said.

Because of these changes and an increase in television advertising, she said video games have escaped their "nerd" stigma.

"It's definitely a hip thing to do, though it's not hip to be too into it," she said.

Several gamers agreed, saying that there are groups for the games' most zealous fans. Most people at the Berkeley gaming centers said they don't identify with a sub-culture but find themselves solidly in the mainstream.

"You might think ‘Oh, only nerds play video games,' but that's not really true anymore," K.G. said.

Josh Keller of the Daily Californian contributed to this report.

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