Engl. transl.: Computer games and addiction

The paper presents an overview of different research traditions dealing with the issue of videogames and addiction such as neurophysiology, clinical psychology and sociology. Apart from certain sociological studies, most of these approaches apply a definition of addiction taken from other fields such as pathological gambling or internet addiction and do not distinguish between different types of viodegames and videogame players. For this reason, the paper continues with an alternative strategy focusing on the way studies in videogame economies, genres and playergroups may shed new light on problematic playing patterns. It becomes obvious, that potentially problematic timeconsuming playing patterns have to be studied in the light of the broad technological and cultural spectrum videogames represent and the everyday life and contexts within which they are being played.

Overview of existing research in the area