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Today, a variety of video games has successfully launched with innovative game-related technologies. Video games are popular leisure activities, and an interactive video game can provide a number of opportunities for competitive and cooperative play (Williams, Yee, & Caplan, 2008). However, video games easily result in an addictive tendency to play habitually (La Rocco, House, & French, 1980; Lemmens, Valkenburg, & Peter, 2009). Video game use may assume the form of out-of-control behavior. Heavy use of video games has been classified as problematic and addictive (LaRose, 2010).
Most studies have argued that video game use leads to pathological signs that are psychologically related to addictive disorder symptoms (Kuss & Griffiths, 2012; Petry, 2012). This new diagnosis only refers to gaming and not to other Internet-related problems, as most research has focused on gaming specifically. However, some other studies have argued that the addictive use of video games and other Internet applications like social media differ from each other theoretically (Young, Pistner, & O’Mara, 1999). The dramatic increase of game users, fostered by the technological revolution in games, has given rise to problematic issues like game addiction. This has occurred throughout society and expanded to all users—children, teenagers, and adults.
Interestingly, there is a huge body of research about game addiction in children, teenagers, and even adults, but there are not sufficient academic research studies that empirically tests employees’ game addiction and its impact in the workplace. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine organizational behaviors related to video game addiction. The first step is to investigate organizational factors that encourage video game addiction. Next, we investigate how video game addiction influences employees’ organizational and social attitudes. Finally, this study identifies significant factors for managing video game addiction in the workplace.