The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized video game addiction as an official mental health condition and will include it in its next revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), coming in 2018.

It will classify it as “gaming disorder”, “(…) characterized by a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behavior.” This would include not feeling like you have control over how much you play, putting gaming over other life priorities, and continuing to play games despite negative consequences.

The entry reads:

“The behavior pattern is of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning”.