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The Journal of Gambling Issues encompasses video gaming papers

A few months ago, the Journal of Gambling Issues announced that it was opening its doors to papers on other behavioral disorders and in particular to papers on video gaming. Video gaming is a rapidly growing industry that attracts a worldwide audience and therefore a worldwide impact, but few journals that specifically focus their attention on video gaming. According to a quick internet search, the worldwide video gaming industry is valued at $151.06 billion US in 2019 and, according to the same web page, is expected to grow at a rate of about 13% per year (Grand View Research, 2021). In addition to its size, the video game industry has rapidly changed from an emphasis on console gaming machines and computers to mobile devices. This shift means that video gaming is increasingly becoming available almost everywhere. If we view excessive gaming as an addiction, owning a smart phone is like walking around with an open bottle of alcohol all the time, a bottle that never becomes empty (unless you let your battery die).

There has been an ongoing call for more research on video gaming and Internet gaming disorder with methodological rigour (Colder Carras et al., 2020; Darvesh et al., 2020; Petry et al., 2014). More broadly, discussions surrounding involvement from industry and frameworks considering the risk of problematic technologies are also underway (Griffiths & Pontes, 2019; Swanton et al., 2019). It is yet unclear whether one framework or research model can encapsulate all that we need to achieve a full understanding of gaming disorders. As research is well underway, clinicians are adapting practice to treat new referrals who experience problems with video gaming. It is our hope that our scientific forums will provide evidence to help those who need it.

At the same time, gaming is becoming increasing relevant to our journal’s original mandate because the gaming and gambling technology are converging in a number of ways: (1) both are increasingly based on the internet and on mobile devices, (2) in both fields, the technology is rapidly changing which in turn makes it difficult for researchers to keep up on developments or develop harm reduction strategies, (3) gambling-like activities are being included in video game such as loot boxes and other micro transactions and unlike traditional gaming, these micro transactions have an unlimited spending potential, and (4) the gambling industry is also adding elements of video games into gambling games in order to attract younger gamblers who are not interested in the traditional games such as slot machines (Turner, 2019).

This issue is the result of our call for papers on video gaming. The papers we present offer a wide range of perspectives on the study of excessive technology use, including smart phones, various related electronic gaming devices, the Internet, and video gaming. The studies include general population studies, cognitive laboratory studies, explorations of the concept of escape and flow, personality, clinical studies, papers that explore the links between gambling and gaming, psychometrics studies, subtypes of players, a paper on big spenders (whales), and a paper on policy. We are particularly delighted that the papers included in this issue come from several countries in four continents.

It is hoped that this collection of papers will generate sharp and commanding interest in this new and emerging field of studies, and establish accordingly a strong scientific basis for the study of behavioral addictions.

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