"Seahawks Cut Pitcock" & "Pitcock Sheds More Light on His Trouble with Videogames"

The first article at http://gamepolitics.com/...">http://gamepolitics.com/2010/09/08/seahawks-cut-pitcock]http://gamepolit... (WARNING: This, and the related link below, are to a mostly pro-gaming site) says:

Quote:Quinn Pitcock, the defensive tackle attempting an NFL comeback following a self-diagnosed bout with videogame addiction, was cut from the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday (thanks sister site GameCulture).

Pitcock managed to survive until the final round of cuts after a preseason in which he appeared in four games, accumulating the same number of tackles.

The second article is one of the included links (in the first article) at http://gamepolitics.com/.... ">http://gamepolitics.com/2010/09/02/pitcock-sheds-more-light-his-trouble-... It says:

Quote:Pitcock also opened up to the Dayton Daily News (he attended Ohio State University) about his trouble with videogames, labeling Call of Duty as his game of choice. Pitcock indicated that on a "typical day," he would wake up at 3 PM and then play until 6 or 7 AM the next day.

Playing as Randy the Random 1, Pitcock said, "First-person shooter games were my thing. I was ranked at one point 55th in the world."

He added, "But it just consumed me. It's a world I shouldnaEU(tm)t have been into."

While he has since eliminated the Xbox 360 from his home and hasn't played in three months, Pitcock, who called games "his drug of choice," detailed the downward spiral he was once in, saying:

I signed up for a success school, going down to Texas for a weekend. But I had played so many video games right before my trip and wasn't ready and had no sleep. I called off my flight and trip, and stayed in the next couple weeks. I was calling off a lot of different things for video games. ... That's when I knew it was a problem.

He was apparently a victim of game rage as well, as Pitcock said there were five "broken or burned or cracked" game discs hanging on his apartment wall. "I got so mad at myself for playing again and broke 'em. But then a couple days later, I'd go out and buy a new one," he explained.

I personally believe that the large majority of the stories on this site (and other related sites) accurately describe details about addicted gamers, but the stories may not feel as "personal" due to the general anonymity of the members. It is great that somebody who is as relatively well known as Quinn Pitcock has publicly come forward about his video game addiction problems as it helps to publicize that this problem can have significant consequences, that not all addicted gamers are teens or young adults living in their parent's house or basement, that it can affect celebrities as well as more "average" people, and that people can recover from it (although he, unfortunately, did not make the later cut).