Other activities may begin to take on a diminished significance in consequence. Deeper interest: gaming begins to take up a position of greater significance in the individual’s life, perhaps requiring growing investment in hardware, software and time.Initial exposure: an individual’s early experiences with video gaming, during which enjoyment of and perhaps a fascination with such games may develop very quickly.Nevertheless, some key stages might be as follows:

Furthermore, because each case is unique and may involve an entirely different game or games from another, any such list should only be considered as a rough guide to how the condition may manifest. Once again, because there is no unanimity within the medical profession about how to categorise gaming addiction, no generally agreed list exists of the stages through which the condition develops. Treatment for anyone suffering from such a combination of compulsions would be of necessity more bespoke, but would likely contain elements of the treatment now typically provided to gaming addicts. The lines between such compulsions and gaming addiction per se may not be clear, and in any given case it may well be that multiple addictions are in play, or that these compulsions are symptomatic of a broader and more complex disorder. Similarly, certain adult-themed games feature pornographic content, the compulsive viewing of which may form part of a pornography addiction rather than a gaming addiction specifically, while in others still, it may be certain social-media-related elements which drive compulsive engagement, possibly betraying a social media addiction (currently an area of significant study).

Some video games include elements of gambling (whether with real-world or in-game currency) and thus playing them compulsively may, in reality, be an indication of gambling, rather than gaming, addiction.

Mobile games are becoming gambling