This article on addiction to MMO games in the Sunday Times was just posted on the DiGRA mailing list by amoss.

Steve Meretzky did a roundtable on the subject at the GDC in 2002, and Wired did an article on it about a year ago. However, to my knowledge, this is the first article on game addiction in the mainstream press.

Are these the first rumblings of a backlash similar to the violence debate? Is the fact that both the Sunday Times and Wired focus on MMO games significant?

Links: An article on ethical issues discussed at GDC 2002 in news.com. Another article on ethical issues discussed at GDC 2002 (in French).