In 1981, a political bill called the Control of Space Invaders (and other Electronic Games) Bill was drafted by British Labour Party MP George Foulkes in an attempt to ban the game for its "addictive properties" and for causing "deviancy". The bill was debated and only narrowly defeated in parliament by 114 votes to 94 votes.In August 2005, the government of the Peoples Republic of China, where more than 20 million people play online games, introduced an online gaming restriction limiting playing time to three hours, after which the player would be expelled from whichever game they were playing. In 2006, it relaxed the rule so only citizens under the age of 18 would face the limitation. Reports indicate underage gamers found ways to circumvent the measure. In July 2007, the rule was relaxed yet again. Internet games operating in China must require users identify themselves by resident identity numbers. After three hours, players under 18 are prompted to stop and "do suitable physical exercise". If they continue, their in-game points are "slashed in half". After five hours, all their points are automatically erased.In 2008 in the United States (US), one of the five Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioners, Deborah Taylor Tate, stated that online gaming addiction was "one of the top reasons for college drop-outs".
The prevalence was found to be 5.06% among a high-school student population from Sri Lanka, suggesting an increasing trend in low- and middle-income countries as well. A longer time spent on video games predicts a tendency towards pathological gaming in the future. The studies, however, used various methodologies and definitions, which renders consensus difficult to achieve and may explain the wide range of prevalence. Research
Debates on the classification
A meta-analytic review of pathological gaming studies concluded that about 3% of gamers may experience some symptoms of pathological gaming. The report noted problems in the field with defining and measuring pathological gaming and concluded that pathological gaming behaviors were more likely the product of underlying mental health problems rather than the inverse.Barnett and Coulson expressed concern that much of the debate on the issue of addiction may be a knee jerk response stimulated by poor understanding of games and game players. Such issues may lead both society and scholars to exaggerate the prevalence and nature of problematic gaming, and over-focus on games specifically, while ignoring underlying mental health issues. However, Problem gamblers have a higher chance for getting mental illness as well.Other scholars have cautioned that comparing the symptoms of problematic gaming with problematic gambling is flawed, and that such comparisons may introduce research artifacts and artificially inflate prevalence estimates. For instance, Richard Wood has observed that behaviors which are problematic in regards to gambling may not be as problematic when put into the context of other behaviors that are rewarding such as gaming.