Video Game Addiction - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

  • In the Step by Step episode "Video-Mania", Frank Lambert buys his son Mark video games to relieve his troubles of his "horrible" grades (which were A-averages instead of A-pluses). Quickly, he begins displaying indications of video game addiction. However, the conclusion was not as grisly as other examples. This would be the first showcase of video game addiction in popular culture.
  • In the Boston Legal episode "Word Salad Days", a mother sues a video game company after her 15-year old son dies of a heart attack due to exhaustion from playing a game for two days straight.
  • In L.A. 7 episode, Game Boy, Bradley becomes addicted to a game, forcing Tina, Hannah, and Paul to go look for Spike, the teen game designer who created the game.
  • The South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" parodies many aspects of game addiction.
  • The South Park episode "Guitar Queer-o" features a made-up game called "Heroin Hero", to which people develop a drug-like addiction.
  • In The Simpsons episode "Marge Gamer", Marge suffers from overuse of an MMORPG.
  • In The Simpsons episode "Lisa Gets an "A"", Lisa becomes addicted to a fictional video game called Dash Dingo (a parody of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back).
  • In the CSI: Miami episode "Urban Hellraisers", a suspect is found dead after playing a game for seventy hours straight.
  • The King of the Hill episode "Grand Theft Arlen" features Hank addicted to a game called Pro-Pain, A parody of Grand Theft Auto series.
  • In the iCarly episode "iStage an Intervention", Spencer becomes addicted to a game called Pak-Rat (a parody of Pac-Man), forcing Carly to take extreme measures to get him to stop.
  • In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Game", William Riker brings a video game from Risa. It stimulates specific parts of the brain, and almost all of the Enterprise crew become addicted to it.
  • In The Big Bang Theory episode "The Barbarian Sublimation", Penny becomes addicted to Age of Conan.
  • In The Suite Life of Zack & Cody episode "Tiptonline", Zack and Mr. Moseby are addicted to an MMORPG.
  • In the Suite Life on Deck episode "Goin' Bananas", Woody becomes addicted to a game called Better Life, a parody of Second Life.
  • In Pure Pwnage, Jeremy becomes addicted to World of Warcraft and plays it continuously for six days before passing out and being taken to a mental hospital. He explains his character in the game to a psychologist, who appears to believe that Jeremy is psychotic.
  • In the Law & Order: SVU episode Bullseye, addiction to a fictitious MMO leads a mother and her boyfriend to completely neglect their daughter, while trying to protect their virtual online son.
  • In the series Pair of Kings, Mason becomes addicted to a video-game with a warrior.
  • In the Japanese manga and anime series NHK ni Youkoso, the main character Satou Tatsuhiro becomes severely addicted to the online role-playing game "Ultimate Fantasy".

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