Nicol may seem like an average twelve-year-old logged on to the latest extension of his MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) on his computer, with a Razor sticker overlooking him like a talisman.

His friends in South Korea, America and the Netherlands are planning for a ‘raid’, which is gamer’s lingo meaning a coordinated mission to defeat high-level enemies. Nicol and his gamer friends spend the next three hours on the ‘raid’. To their delight, it is a success. “Great job, guys! We did it in record time. Gotta post dis on d forum,” exclaims Nicol. He then bids farewell by informing his friends, “I gtg. Time 2 change 4 sch or teacher will own me.”

And Nicol logs off the computer at 6 a.m., much to the chagrin of his mother who has awoken to discover he has forgone a night’s sleep yet again to engage in a cyber fantasy world. “At least I’m not smoking cigarettes or drinking, right or not, Ma?” is what Nicol usually rebuts when either of his parents advises him not to spend too much time gaming on the computer.

But what Nicol claims may not be accurate. In 2009, a team of researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging, a state of the art brain imaging method, to study the brains of people with online gaming addiction. When compared with a group of similar individuals who were not addicted to gaming, these researchers found that the active brain areas of online gaming addicts were significantly different, appearing similar to those of substance (or illicit drug) addicts.

This means that the addiction to online gaming is as strong as that of illicit substances, and has already led the academic and medical community at large to acknowledge the seriousness of online gaming addiction. In fact, a recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) lists Internet Gaming Disorder as a new entry into the bible of psychiatry, suggesting that extreme conditions of gaming addiction may be almost as detrimental to an individual as the abuse of substances such as alcohol and cocaine.

Countries have also realised the potential serious consequences of online gaming addiction, and some have already started taking action. In China and South Korea, there are military-style boot camps for online gaming addicts and the latter has even considered controlling popular online games through legislation, like what they do for alcohol and drugs.

Is this just a panic created to ensure that online gaming addiction does not ensue? Unfortunately not, according to statistics collated by companies which sell these games. It was recently reported that there was a drop in the number of subscribers to World of Warcraft (WoW), and the final number of subscribers was 8.3 million – a staggering number that exceeds the total current population of Singapore.