Customer Reviews

Game Widow

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Video games can be much fun, but too much of anything is a bad thing. "Game Widow" draws on the stories of spouses whose relationships have taken quite the beating due to the others excessive gaming habits. With much advice for neglected spouses who are dealing with either relationships broken beyond repair or having hope for recovery, "Game Widow" is support that many women need when it feels like they've been thrown aside for a video game.

"Game Widow" by Wendy Kays, is about video game addiction, its causes and solutions. She knows about this first-hand. As Kays writes, "Shortly after I married my husband-the week after the honeymoon, in fact - he changed from the love of my life into a bad roommate." Her husband was a developer for the well-known video game SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals during that time worked 14 to 16 hours days then came home and played video games. "Welcome to being a game widow," he said.

Mrs. Kays decided to find out what a game widow was, and that started her research into video games and addiction of them. This book is the result of her investigations into the video gaming industry, additions, compulsive behavior, interventions and treatments. She is not a professional. The book is written in an easy-to-read layman's style with plenty of first-hand stories and practical real-life suggestions.

After overcoming two addictions myself, alcohol and tobacco, I was really curious why video games would be a 'real' or even serious addiction. Between 2000 and 2005, there was only one adult death related to video games in the entire U.S.. Compare that to any Friday night's alcohol related deaths, or the fires and deaths caused by cigarette fires and you see my initial skepticism.

Game Widow not only explains why this can be an addiction, but also brings up political, legal and social issues that some video games such as Second Life are creating. The issue is it is another reality that influences this reality. For example, in World of Warcraft, some gamers are earning money by creating a character and building up its power to sell to another gamer. Barack Obama has even put his Presidential political ads into several popular games. And Pennsylvania lawyer is suing the publisher of the rapidly growing online world Second Life, alleging the company unfairly confiscated tens of thousands of dollars worth of his virtual land and other property.

For anyone who knows people who play, or anyone who doesn't know anything about the video gaming industry, this book should be one to read. "Game Widow" proved to me the real of potential dangers of video game addiction.

I read this book as my fiance (34 yrs) played a silly 2D MMO game, Godswar, or God Swore--I did not make that up fortunately, as I did not get too lost in his actions, but just found more greatness in myself. But I did get into this book as it made me just feel better about it all and I read instead of knocking him to Venus. I write my feelings and all the lies and pain we experienced over these past 3 years, so I wrote my own book:) Publlished soon thru CreateSpace.com!If you feel as if your friend or brother or even mother is lost into these no-longer-fun silly games of any of all 100000s of games now, sit back with a latte and ENJOY feeling better with the knowledge you can gain from this book!

I think this book is okay. I was not impressed with the size of the book. It does not have very many pages. I would not buy this book nor recommend it.