How To Stop A Video Game Addiction

Addicted To Video Games

Dealing with a video game addiction is like dealing with any other addiction. It's a tough and ongoing process that many people repeatedly fail at. If you or you kid is addicted to video games, and you use an online gaming platform like steam or origin, there is a nuclear option. 

KEEP IN MIND AND BE WARNED: Video games aren't cheap, and many gamers have a game library of dozens of video games. When you take these steps, you'll never be able to get your licenses back for those games, so consider this your nuclear option to stop an online video gaming addiction.

There's no denying today's video games offer a virtual world gamers find enticing. Like a moth to a flame, video game addicts can often play for hours on end without feeling like 5 minutes has gone by. So what do we do when the virtual world replaces the real world? You can delete the game, but with today's high speed internet, even the largest of games can be often downloaded again in less than an hour. The answer is simple, and takes only about 2 minutes to implement.

How To Stop An Online Video Game Addiction

Permanently Delete Your Steam Online Gaming Account

Note: You can use a similar process to permanently delete your origin online gaming account.

1. Uninstall and delete any game content from your computer
2. Next, we'll create a terminal email account at guerrillamail.com  - it's an email account that only exists for 60 minutes, and then deletes itself. It's a cool concept, and you don't even have to setup anything, that copy the email address that pops up when you open the page. Make sure you keep this page open while you go through this whole process.
3. Open Steam and navigate to this item in the menu: Steam -> Settings -> Account Settings
4. Click "Change Account Email Address", and paste the email you just copied from guerrilla mail.
5. Steam will send you a validation code, which will pop up on the guerrilla mail page. Enter the validation code to confirm the changes to your account.
6. Repeat the process, and change your password. I recommend changing it to something obscure that is a mix of random numbers and letters - something you won't easily remember. 
7. Uninstall steam. 

In less than an hour, you'll be unable to access your steam account ever again. Now the hard part comes - what are you going to do with all that spare time? Maybe you should become a white hat hacker :)

When I looked at my steam account, and totaled up the number of hours wasted playing video games, I was astounded. More than 3,000 hours of gaming. That's the equivalent of more than 140 days of playing nothing but video games 24/7. If gaming were a full time job, those hours represent almost a year and a half. Such an incredible waste. The good news is, I don't play video games anymore.