But why WOULDN'T I accept the notion of 'video games addiction'? People can become addicted to a wide variety of activities. It seems that Hilgard has conducted a perfectly reasonable and well-researched study that correlates gaming motivations with the likelihood of gaming harming someone's life. It may have been 'obvious' that playing to escape would cause problems but even if it's obvious it's good to show that it's true. And that playing socially is a risk factor for overuse is a legitimately important result.