Screaming Penguin

Wired News: Real World Doesn't Use a Joystick: "After a recent three-day binge of playing the Japanese cult hit video game Katamari Damacy, Los Angeles artist Kozy Kitchens discovered that walking away from the game was not as easy as putting down her joystick.

In the game, players push around what amounts to a giant tape ball, attempting to make the ball bigger by picking up any and all objects in its path. Kitchens found that her urge to keep picking things up was not so easy to shake.

'I was driving down Venice Boulevard,' recalled her husband, Dan Kitchens, 'and Kozy reached over and grabbed the steering wheel and for a moment was trying to yank it to the right.... (Then) she let go, but kept staring out her window, and then looked back at me kind of stunned and said, 'Sorry. I thought we could pick up that mailbox we just passed.''

While motorists and pedestrians shouldn't worry too much about rogue Katamari Damacy players, Kozy Kitchens' experience with having a difficult time separating her real-life consciousness from that of her game playing is all too common among hard-core gamers. It's so common, in fact, that game publishers might want to consider warning their customers that they may soon be unable to tell the difference between the game and reality.

...

Taylor also said that after reviewing Quake III he had trouble getting his mind out of the game.

"I'd play it, then walk out into the office corridor and realize I was looking at my co-workers as potential targets," said Taylor. "I was so used to killing anything that moved."

I remember playing Quake 2 incessantly. I would fall asleep and wake up hearing the sound effects going off in my mind. I used to look at places and say "Do camp" and "Don't chase around that corner.". I don't know if I buy that this is somehow a huge "problem".