"It's important to have the ground rules and the consequences clear from the get-go," says Walsh. "The time to discuss this is not when you're trying to impose the limits" after things have gotten out of control.
The video game industry agrees that the onus is on parents to monitor their children's playing time.
Jaysen Perkins says he's back to playing basketball and engaging in other activities since his mother got him into therapy for a gaming addiction.
(Wanda Benvenutti For The Washington Post)
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"Parents who supervise their children need to make sure that [video games] are used appropriately," says Carolyn Rauch, senior vice president of the Entertainment Software Association, the trade group that represents U.S. computer and video game publishers.
But gaming addiction isn't limited to children.
According to Maressa Orzack of Computer Addiction Services, located near Boston, adult gaming addicts "have other issues like depression. . . . These people are avoiding their own problems. Some of them want excitement, some of them want relief."
Orzack also believes the population of adult gaming addicts in the United States could be significantly high, though exact figures are difficult to ascertain. (The study of gaming and its effect on players is a specialized and still-developing field.)
Liz Woolley didn't wait around for more studies to emerge on the issue. She founded Online Gamers Anonymous in 2002, after losing her son, Shawn, to suicide that same year. He had become addicted to EverQuest while being treated for depression.
Devastated and angry, Woolley didn't know where to turn.
"I found out that [gaming addiction] is an underground epidemic," Woolley says. "A lot of people were going through the same thing, and there was no place to go for help."
So Woolley turned to Alcoholics Anonymous and adopted its 12-step program. "That was the best support group that I knew, with a success rate," she says.
Now, according to Woolley, the group's Web site, www.olganon.org, gets more than 300 visits a week.
"We want people to know that they're not alone," she says. "This can be a life-threatening addiction and it should be taken seriously."
When it comes to younger gamers, Kim McDaniel recommends traditional group therapy.
"For children under 10, social skills groups are an excellent resource," she says. "For adolescents, getting into a peer counseling group could be extremely helpful."
Jaysen Perkins hasn't joined traditional group therapy, but he has benefited from joining a group -- he's been attending a church youth group with friends and reclaiming old hobbies.
"I used to be heavy into basketball," he says of his days before Socom. "Now I've been playing basketball again, I've been going to high school football games. I've been going to that youth group with friends. . . . We're trying to keep my schedule busy."
