Gaming Disorder
World Health Organization (WHO) held the assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, May 25, 2019. At the assembly, the eleventh revision of the International Statistical Classification of Disease and Related Health Problems (ICD-11) was accepted unanimously and it will be applied in 2022. ICD is a standard that can check and report the worldwide health level. Also, it defines all of the disease, disorder, injuries and some others that related health. Also, it finds the factors of the health problem. ICD-11 is a new updated version of ICD. It is first updating after ICD-10 in more than 10 years. ICD-11 is made for 21 century. It reflects new technologies in science and medicals. The members of the WHO are looking forward to combining information and communication technology.
In Korea and some other countries, however, take the opposite part of ICD-11 because it defines gaming addiction as a disorder. WHO adds the category called Disorders due to addictive behaviors. Gambling disorder and Gaming disorder are included in that category. WHO says that playing the game makes people treat games more important than daily works and people make not get out of the game. And it also explains playing the game make people decrease their social relationship. Furthermore, WHO divides the list of sorts of game and defines the problems that each sort of game makes. For example, the hazardous game is listing in the category called problems associated with health behaviors.
Although WHO defines the reasons why playing games is the disease, some countries oppose the decisions that the WHO decided. ICD-11 will be applied in 2022. Then, most countries apply it in their countries. They should take the solutions or sanctions that can solve disease problems. Playing the game also will be prevented from some kinds of policy. So, most game companies reject decisions to protect their economies.
In the case of Korea, the game cultures are developing more and more. Also, Korea is the strongest in e-sports and the fans of the e-sports are growing more and more. So, nowadays, the businesses of e-sports are taking a center stage. Most of Koreans enjoy playing games. Playing a game sometimes causes troubles but it can remove the stresses that most tired people have. So, Korea’s pc room businesses are better than any other country. Therefore the game industry is a very important part of economics in Korea. ICD-11 can give Korea economic very strong and bad influences. That can make Korea’s game export down. And it also makes the number of employees who work in the game industry or the staff of the e-sports decrease. To prevent that situation happen, some companies start the campaign that argues to reject ICD-11. For example, NCSOFT that is one of the most famous game companies uploaded the words that argue that the game is our friends in SNS. And most companies argue that WHO doesn’t have any scientific pieces of evidence that prove the game is the disease. They said that if they can’t change the decisions that WHO decided, they must prevent the policy that made in WHO is applied.
The game can cause a problem with social relationships. The game can give people bad influence. People must know that fact, but why do people like playing the game? Why do people enjoy playing the game? The modern people are living in a very busy life. They get stressed all the time and they don’t have much time or much money to remove that stresses. So, people choose to play a game because it doesn’t require much time or money. It is not a good way to prevent people to play the game by defines the game as a disease. The world should think about why people playing the game and find the other alternative about the game. Do not always prevent.
SeoHyeon Kang, Gafl 16
