7 Deadly Video Game Sins - Gluttony

So here we are. We've talked at length now about how the video game industry sees your bank account as their own in multiple forms and how they will try and take every avenue they can to follow excess at all costs, but what about the impact video games have on us outside of these factors?

Well, not to sugar coat it in the slightest, but it makes for worrying reading. Video game addiction is a very real and very concerning threat to certain individuals and can have a huge negative impact on their emotional and physical wellbeing.

None of this is helped by aggressive gameplay loops that seek to reward players at every turn, thereby encouraging them to spend longer and longer with the title in question. By feeding them a level up, a loot box, hell a reward of any kind, these games stimulate our brain in such a manner than it triggers a rush of endorphins, making us form a pretty unhealthy connection, that playing this game makes us feel good.

Forming a habitual relationship with a video game can result in us spending longer and longer stints with it, forgoing regular sleeping patterns, becoming agitated when we lose because this denies us the feeling we crave, and of course, spending money in order to get better items, equipment or other digital finery.

Video game addiction can ruin lives, with people becoming so tied to a title that they push others away, and there have been multiple documented cases of divorce and breakups thanks to prioritising video games over real life situations. In excess, this escapism can become dangerous, and if you need a final, and morbid full stop on the matter, in 2015 a man died in an internet cafe in Taiwan from exhaustion after playing games for three days straight.

Video games are there to be enjoyed, but excess, as with anything else in life, can be truly dangerous.