What do you think?
Rate this book
Unplugged: My Journey into the Dark World of Video Game Addiction
WARNING: This video game may impair your judgment. It may cause sleep deprivation, alienation of friends and family, weight loss or gain, neglect of one's basic needs as well as the needs of loved ones and/or dependents, and decreased performance on the job. The distinction between fantasy and reality may become blurred. Play at your own risk. Not responsible for suicide attempts, whether failed or successful.
No such warning was included on the latest and greatest release from the Warcraft series of massive multiplayer on-line role-playing games (MMORPGs)—World of Warcraft (WoW). So when Ryan Van Cleave—a college professor, husband, father, and one of the 11.5 million Warcraft subscribers worldwide—found himself teetering on the edge of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, he had no one to blame but himself. He had neglected his wife and children and had jeopardized his livelihood, all for the rush of living a life of high adventure in a virtual world. Ultimately, Ryan decided to live, but not for the sake of his family or for a newly found love of life: he had to get back home for his evening session of Warcraft.
A fabulously written and gripping tale, Unplugged takes us on a journey through Ryan's semi-reclusive life with video games at the center of his experiences. Even when he was sexually molested by a young school teacher at age eleven, it was the promise of a new video game that lured him to her house. As Ryan's life progresses, we witness the evolution of videogames—from simple two-button consoles to today's complicated multi-key technology, brilliantly designed to keep the user actively participating.
As is the case with most recovering addicts, Ryan eventually hits rock bottom and shares with the reader his ongoing battle to control his impulses to play, providing prescriptive advice and resources for those caught in the grip of this very real addiction.
324 pages, Paperback
First published April 23, 2010
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
October 28, 2011
While this book is about video game addiction, and I do agree that there are addicting elements to gaming, the book is more of a cathartic purge for the author for his many other issues. I can't say that I enjoyed this book, but I could relate to it. What I can't relate to is the personality of the author as described by himself; his issues seem more based in anger and other disorders that may have predisposed him to game addiction rather than the title disorder as the cause of his problems. Overall, the book was at the same time whiny and arrogant, not a good combination for a reading experience.
December 12, 2012
Inadequacies abound. Decent read, mildly insightful, but I wish it would've touched on positives of gaming in healthy doses. Though, I did recognize some things in myself when I first starting playing CoD.
July 19, 2012
I acknowledge that video games can become an addiction for some people, but I was slightly disappointed that much of this book didn't seem to have much to do with video game addiction. Van Cleave spends so much time trying to right all the wrongs in his past that a lot of the descriptions I was hoping for got pushed to the side. Van Cleave's story is definitely compelling, but perhaps it should have been called something like, "An Apology to Anyone Who Ever Mattered in My Life: How Video Games Proved to be More Enticing than Reality."
September 26, 2017
I don't know when I've read a book as unflinchingly self-exposing and honest as this one. Van Cleave's account of his life and circumstances leading up, into, and through, his years-long video game addiction was riveting to me. I've barely played video games, not finding them compelling. But this memoir WAS compelling; I see how the addiction works, and my blood runs cold to imagine what's going on with millions of gamers right now. I highly recommend this book.
February 2, 2022
4.00 out of 5.00
The first 150 pages of this book were good, no doubt about it, but it hardly touched on the concept of the book itself. The last 100 pages are exactly what I expected this book to be. That’s one of my only critiques about it, but I think it’s a large one.
Otherwise, I do think this was a very well written book. The first chapter grabs you quite quickly; it deals with him about to end his life over his addiction and it pulls you in quickly. Then, it starts to deal with a myriad of other problems that has gaming sprinkled into it, like drinking, sex, etc. Again, it’s not bad, but it just felt odd.
The last 100 pages or so really takes you into a deep dive of what can be addicting about gaming. It really kicks off with the horribly depressing story about all of his dogs dying within a year (which is probably the most I’ve cried reading a book). And then, we get into the meat of his addiction and what he was going through.
The actual crux of the story was worth the wait. It was an incredible deep dive into this world and proved the title factual by the end of it. It’s always been a subject I’ve been interested in and I’m glad there’s been a book written about it finally. It even inspired a potential fiction piece that was only a nugget before I read this. Another cool thing is that it ended with a Robert Frost poem who I was reading alongside this book as well.
It’s not a perfect book, but I do think it’s mostly good. Every page was rife with heavy emotion and read pretty easily.
The first 150 pages of this book were good, no doubt about it, but it hardly touched on the concept of the book itself. The last 100 pages are exactly what I expected this book to be. That’s one of my only critiques about it, but I think it’s a large one.
Otherwise, I do think this was a very well written book. The first chapter grabs you quite quickly; it deals with him about to end his life over his addiction and it pulls you in quickly. Then, it starts to deal with a myriad of other problems that has gaming sprinkled into it, like drinking, sex, etc. Again, it’s not bad, but it just felt odd.
The last 100 pages or so really takes you into a deep dive of what can be addicting about gaming. It really kicks off with the horribly depressing story about all of his dogs dying within a year (which is probably the most I’ve cried reading a book). And then, we get into the meat of his addiction and what he was going through.
The actual crux of the story was worth the wait. It was an incredible deep dive into this world and proved the title factual by the end of it. It’s always been a subject I’ve been interested in and I’m glad there’s been a book written about it finally. It even inspired a potential fiction piece that was only a nugget before I read this. Another cool thing is that it ended with a Robert Frost poem who I was reading alongside this book as well.
It’s not a perfect book, but I do think it’s mostly good. Every page was rife with heavy emotion and read pretty easily.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 20, 2026
My high-level understanding of an addiction serves as a coping mechanism to avoid intense feelings.
The book felt more like a personal catharsis of the author's experiences. The author does admit:
"it's a confession clear and simple.". It's how I am coping. I don't see a therapist these days because I can't afford it, I don't have health insurance and haven't worked full-time in a couple of years now" (Pg 200)
and quotes from author Jane Taylor McDonnell (Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Writing Memoir) :
"Writing is a second chance at life. Although we can never go back in time to change the past, we can re-experience, interpret, and make peace with our past lives. When we write a per-sonal narrative we find new meanings and, at the same time, we discover connections with our former selves. I think all writing constitutes an effort to establish our own meaningfulness, even in the midst of sadness and disappointment. In fact, writing sometimes seems to me to be the only way to give shape to life, to complete the process which is merely begun by living." (Pg 235-236)
I found this passage to be quite poignant.
The author seems to be intellectually aware of the potential root causes but his writing lacks a deeper sense of self-reflection or vulnerability.
The other thing I hear a lot about video game addiction is that it's only the symptom of another problem: usually loneliness, depression, self-loathing, a broken sense of self-esteem, or something along those lines. So the real answer, in this view, is not to deal with the video games but to deal with the root cause. Fine. But that's the same as a drug addict or an alcoholic, in many cases. The reason they got hooked was that they too had issues of lone-liness, depression, self-loathing, a broken sense of self-esteem, or what-ever. We acknowledge that there are problems at the root of their alcohol and drug abuse, but we correctly label the drinking or the drug abuse as an addiction and deal with it promptly, because it's down-right dangerous.(Pg 238)
The author spends an inordinate amount of pages describing what it's like in the throes of an addiction, his early string of casual relationships whilst root causes like childhood sexual abuse, abandonment and grief are mentioned in one-liners.
There are multiple missed instances where this could have been insightful to be more vulnerable like:
"People leave me suddenly. It's happened so often that I don't even register it as odd anymore." (Pg 43)
"I played WoW for three days straight at one point just so I wouldn't think about how much suffering my little dog knew.i drowned myself in gaming. At one point, I stopped eating for two days and didn't shower for a week. (Pg 142)
"People sometimes ask me why I played. It's hard to come up with a satisfying answer. The answers are legion. My wife is disgusted with me for losing my tenure-track job at Clemson University after four years and seethes with a slow-burning anger that keeps her from talking to me, which is a situation I want to get away from. "(Pg 171-172)
"World of Warcraft (WoW) is predictable - meaning safe. For someone like me, the concept of a safe zone holds appeal." (Pg 172)
"WoW doesn't threaten you with divorce." (Pg 172)
"In real life, you're stuck with what you are, how you feel, and who you are." In real life, I felt plain stuck." (Pg 173)
"My real life was uninteresting, at best, and stunningly unpleasant and unexciting at worst.... Some type of idealized projection of myself." (Pg 177)
"Guilt was part of the play experience for me...when one my characters died ingame. The last thing I needed in my life was more blame and shame" (Pg 178)
"I have an anger issue from time to time... Half a dozen broken computer nice in the hallway closet - although usually I keep things well under control" (Pg 180)
"Playing WoW makes me feel godlike: I have ultimate control and can do what I choose with few real repercussions. The real world makes me feel impotent and constantly frustrated. The littlest hitch in daily living feels profoundly disempowering." (Pg 181)
"I rewired my brain to work like a computer with a bunch of external hard drives(how ironic- using a computer analogy to talk about my computer gaming addiction) many of these hard drives have remained unplugged for years, and in some cases for decades. I'm sure that any psychologist worth his or her salt would recognize that it's a defense mechanism. If things get too scary, just snip the cord to that particular hard drive. Unplug it. Turn off the power. Voila, you're cured, even if it's still sitting there like a ticking time bomb."(Pg 194)
"Games give me a place in which i do feel as if i belong, and i'm terrified of giving up that lifeline." (Pg 240)
The problem is that I never get much better, no matter how much time and effort I put into any of these pursuits. I start disproportion-ately high on the ability level, but I simply do not improve much there-after. I suffered through eight years of piano lessons with a lumpyGerman woman old enough to have shaken hands with Hitler (no joke-she had), but I peaked ability-wise around eighteen months into it. I took guitar lessons for six years, but I was arguably about as good
after six months as when I stopped. It's like some unseen ceiling thatstops me from climbing higher on the mountain of success.
With WoW, though, I was a monster. No matter what the class, the race, or the gear, I tore that game up. Sure, I had my learning curve, but when I really dedicated myself to the game, I mastered it. The game keeps track of your kills-not how many mobs you've wasted, but how many players. All told, I've taken out more than 75,000 players. In are-nas, in battlegrounds, or just out in the realms, I've ganked, blasted apart, burned alive, frozen to death, decapitated, strangled, flattened, smashed, mashed, and shredded so many players that in some realms, my toons had a kill-on-sight edict from the opposing factions.
Being that good at something-it didn't matter what it was-gave me a sense of accomplishment that kept the adrenaline flowing and the dopamine coming. It's the elusive buzz that I first knew thanks to Mrs. Monroe, although if it hadn't been with her, I would've found video games on my own, for sure. (Pg 242)
My own emotional reward wasn't satisfaction, in this case. It was me versus me, and I was so frustrated. I threw the game controller and screamed at the TV. I hated it. My guy kept dying, and I was going crazy trying to overcome the feeling of hating the feeling I was going through. I was trying to fix it-some-thing in me that seemed not good enough, not capable enough.
Something I've also come to realize is that anytime people or events in life push my buttons and get me to react, causing me stress, I realize it has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with my own inner conflict that I'm trying to resolve that they're simply reflecting. With video games, it's the same thing, when it's just you versus the Xbox, though I still feel the same emotion I feel by being stressed by others.
With these massive online games, it's all amplified. I'm deal-ing with people I might actually know, so there's more at stake to "lose" if I don't look good or perform well. How are they going to look at me? People addicted to the global gaming sys-tems have a heavier amount of internal strife. In general, peo-ple are either trying to look good or avoid looking bad, and I think that's what's playing out, too, in video games. These games are just an extension of our consciousness. It might seem like an escape, but it's not.
If the video game affects my real life in any form-[if] my emotions are tied to it, my thoughts are tied to it, or my inter-actions with my family or friends are in any way affected by it and the frustration over winning or not winning, looking good or not looking good, or conquering or not conquering-then the addiction is pretty obvious. Players aren't addicted to the video game as much as they are to the emotion of passivity that the video game [gives] them. (Pg 286)
This paragraph was especially haunting to me.
"Aren't you going to play your game anymore, Daddy?" She asks, understanding the connection between the two things with the amazing sense of intuitiveness that kids often exhibit. Sometimes she hugs me, saying, " it'll be okay, Daddy." I hug back, but still I worry.
The author eventually arrives at a hardstop and recognizes:
1) His family is being impacted by his addiction
2) His vulnerable admission that he's still not healed.
I'm not healed.
Every time I pass a World of Warcraft game in a store, I buy a single copy. This used to be because I could resell it overseas to gold farmers for mice pocket money and cover the cost of my own gaming. But then I started keeping a few around, even after that money-making scheme went belly-up and I quit playing Wow. Then it was more, and even more. I've got shipping boxes full of unopened games right now. At $20 a crack, there's probably $1,000 worth just sitting around upstairs-the world's most expensive doorstop. With the U.S. economy in the crapper and my unemployment money long gone, I should be stockpiling cash and cutting back on expenses, but just yesterday I walked through the electronics section of Target and saw the Burning Crusade on the top-veller display rack.
I slapped down my Discover card.
Buying another copy of the game is like a tiny way to hang on to the whirlwind of profound completeness I feel when I immerse myself in WoW, Buying these games is like standing a bit too far on the edge of a cliff just to feel a rush. buying them is a crutch, i realize, but it's a much more acceptable option than playing again, which i cannot afford on any level. (pg 250)
The book felt more like a personal catharsis of the author's experiences. The author does admit:
"it's a confession clear and simple.". It's how I am coping. I don't see a therapist these days because I can't afford it, I don't have health insurance and haven't worked full-time in a couple of years now" (Pg 200)
and quotes from author Jane Taylor McDonnell (Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Writing Memoir) :
"Writing is a second chance at life. Although we can never go back in time to change the past, we can re-experience, interpret, and make peace with our past lives. When we write a per-sonal narrative we find new meanings and, at the same time, we discover connections with our former selves. I think all writing constitutes an effort to establish our own meaningfulness, even in the midst of sadness and disappointment. In fact, writing sometimes seems to me to be the only way to give shape to life, to complete the process which is merely begun by living." (Pg 235-236)
I found this passage to be quite poignant.
The author seems to be intellectually aware of the potential root causes but his writing lacks a deeper sense of self-reflection or vulnerability.
The other thing I hear a lot about video game addiction is that it's only the symptom of another problem: usually loneliness, depression, self-loathing, a broken sense of self-esteem, or something along those lines. So the real answer, in this view, is not to deal with the video games but to deal with the root cause. Fine. But that's the same as a drug addict or an alcoholic, in many cases. The reason they got hooked was that they too had issues of lone-liness, depression, self-loathing, a broken sense of self-esteem, or what-ever. We acknowledge that there are problems at the root of their alcohol and drug abuse, but we correctly label the drinking or the drug abuse as an addiction and deal with it promptly, because it's down-right dangerous.(Pg 238)
The author spends an inordinate amount of pages describing what it's like in the throes of an addiction, his early string of casual relationships whilst root causes like childhood sexual abuse, abandonment and grief are mentioned in one-liners.
There are multiple missed instances where this could have been insightful to be more vulnerable like:
"People leave me suddenly. It's happened so often that I don't even register it as odd anymore." (Pg 43)
"I played WoW for three days straight at one point just so I wouldn't think about how much suffering my little dog knew.i drowned myself in gaming. At one point, I stopped eating for two days and didn't shower for a week. (Pg 142)
"People sometimes ask me why I played. It's hard to come up with a satisfying answer. The answers are legion. My wife is disgusted with me for losing my tenure-track job at Clemson University after four years and seethes with a slow-burning anger that keeps her from talking to me, which is a situation I want to get away from. "(Pg 171-172)
"World of Warcraft (WoW) is predictable - meaning safe. For someone like me, the concept of a safe zone holds appeal." (Pg 172)
"WoW doesn't threaten you with divorce." (Pg 172)
"In real life, you're stuck with what you are, how you feel, and who you are." In real life, I felt plain stuck." (Pg 173)
"My real life was uninteresting, at best, and stunningly unpleasant and unexciting at worst.... Some type of idealized projection of myself." (Pg 177)
"Guilt was part of the play experience for me...when one my characters died ingame. The last thing I needed in my life was more blame and shame" (Pg 178)
"I have an anger issue from time to time... Half a dozen broken computer nice in the hallway closet - although usually I keep things well under control" (Pg 180)
"Playing WoW makes me feel godlike: I have ultimate control and can do what I choose with few real repercussions. The real world makes me feel impotent and constantly frustrated. The littlest hitch in daily living feels profoundly disempowering." (Pg 181)
"I rewired my brain to work like a computer with a bunch of external hard drives(how ironic- using a computer analogy to talk about my computer gaming addiction) many of these hard drives have remained unplugged for years, and in some cases for decades. I'm sure that any psychologist worth his or her salt would recognize that it's a defense mechanism. If things get too scary, just snip the cord to that particular hard drive. Unplug it. Turn off the power. Voila, you're cured, even if it's still sitting there like a ticking time bomb."(Pg 194)
"Games give me a place in which i do feel as if i belong, and i'm terrified of giving up that lifeline." (Pg 240)
The problem is that I never get much better, no matter how much time and effort I put into any of these pursuits. I start disproportion-ately high on the ability level, but I simply do not improve much there-after. I suffered through eight years of piano lessons with a lumpyGerman woman old enough to have shaken hands with Hitler (no joke-she had), but I peaked ability-wise around eighteen months into it. I took guitar lessons for six years, but I was arguably about as good
after six months as when I stopped. It's like some unseen ceiling thatstops me from climbing higher on the mountain of success.
With WoW, though, I was a monster. No matter what the class, the race, or the gear, I tore that game up. Sure, I had my learning curve, but when I really dedicated myself to the game, I mastered it. The game keeps track of your kills-not how many mobs you've wasted, but how many players. All told, I've taken out more than 75,000 players. In are-nas, in battlegrounds, or just out in the realms, I've ganked, blasted apart, burned alive, frozen to death, decapitated, strangled, flattened, smashed, mashed, and shredded so many players that in some realms, my toons had a kill-on-sight edict from the opposing factions.
Being that good at something-it didn't matter what it was-gave me a sense of accomplishment that kept the adrenaline flowing and the dopamine coming. It's the elusive buzz that I first knew thanks to Mrs. Monroe, although if it hadn't been with her, I would've found video games on my own, for sure. (Pg 242)
My own emotional reward wasn't satisfaction, in this case. It was me versus me, and I was so frustrated. I threw the game controller and screamed at the TV. I hated it. My guy kept dying, and I was going crazy trying to overcome the feeling of hating the feeling I was going through. I was trying to fix it-some-thing in me that seemed not good enough, not capable enough.
Something I've also come to realize is that anytime people or events in life push my buttons and get me to react, causing me stress, I realize it has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with my own inner conflict that I'm trying to resolve that they're simply reflecting. With video games, it's the same thing, when it's just you versus the Xbox, though I still feel the same emotion I feel by being stressed by others.
With these massive online games, it's all amplified. I'm deal-ing with people I might actually know, so there's more at stake to "lose" if I don't look good or perform well. How are they going to look at me? People addicted to the global gaming sys-tems have a heavier amount of internal strife. In general, peo-ple are either trying to look good or avoid looking bad, and I think that's what's playing out, too, in video games. These games are just an extension of our consciousness. It might seem like an escape, but it's not.
If the video game affects my real life in any form-[if] my emotions are tied to it, my thoughts are tied to it, or my inter-actions with my family or friends are in any way affected by it and the frustration over winning or not winning, looking good or not looking good, or conquering or not conquering-then the addiction is pretty obvious. Players aren't addicted to the video game as much as they are to the emotion of passivity that the video game [gives] them. (Pg 286)
This paragraph was especially haunting to me.
"Aren't you going to play your game anymore, Daddy?" She asks, understanding the connection between the two things with the amazing sense of intuitiveness that kids often exhibit. Sometimes she hugs me, saying, " it'll be okay, Daddy." I hug back, but still I worry.
The author eventually arrives at a hardstop and recognizes:
1) His family is being impacted by his addiction
2) His vulnerable admission that he's still not healed.
I'm not healed.
Every time I pass a World of Warcraft game in a store, I buy a single copy. This used to be because I could resell it overseas to gold farmers for mice pocket money and cover the cost of my own gaming. But then I started keeping a few around, even after that money-making scheme went belly-up and I quit playing Wow. Then it was more, and even more. I've got shipping boxes full of unopened games right now. At $20 a crack, there's probably $1,000 worth just sitting around upstairs-the world's most expensive doorstop. With the U.S. economy in the crapper and my unemployment money long gone, I should be stockpiling cash and cutting back on expenses, but just yesterday I walked through the electronics section of Target and saw the Burning Crusade on the top-veller display rack.
I slapped down my Discover card.
Buying another copy of the game is like a tiny way to hang on to the whirlwind of profound completeness I feel when I immerse myself in WoW, Buying these games is like standing a bit too far on the edge of a cliff just to feel a rush. buying them is a crutch, i realize, but it's a much more acceptable option than playing again, which i cannot afford on any level. (pg 250)
October 18, 2013
If not WoW, this guy would have found another addiction. (I was pretty impressed by his drinking, too.) He warns you that you won't like him, and you don't. Every time you start to feel sorry for him, he gives you another fact about himself, like how he dumped the love of his life because she got diabetes, or how he enjoys the music of Creed and Nickelback.
I'm glad I read this book, though. I can see some parallels with my own use of social networks. I'm happy to say I've never gone on a 24-hour jag like this poor guy! WoW sounds like a fascinating universe that I will never visit.
I'm glad I read this book, though. I can see some parallels with my own use of social networks. I'm happy to say I've never gone on a 24-hour jag like this poor guy! WoW sounds like a fascinating universe that I will never visit.
September 18, 2018
As I read this book, thinking about how I might review it, I kept telling myself that video game addiction was a very real thing. Because it is. We've all known people. We've all had games we can't put down. I believed that until the very last Q&A of an interview stuffed in the back of the appendix made me rethink that whole idea.
A video game developer suggested that it's not so much single-player games that people get addicted to. Those have beginnings and ends. It's the social ones, where the challenges change and the competition and social engagement are what keep people coming back. And that's when it hit me. Video games themselves aren't universally addictive. It's one part the internet itself (think Facebook, WoW, Farmville, Twitter, Google, etc.), which is ultimately just a digital enhancement of face-to-face interactions. It's also one part the concept of gamefication itself. Games are inherently addictive, like Bingo, or scratch-off lottery tickets, or Dungeons and Dragons. Setups of achievements and tests of skill, prowess, and luck, and competition is too irresistible for many. And lastly, it's old fashioned storytelling. Stories are the key to engagement and just about everything. And video games are one of the few mediums in which all of these components can be combined to lure a person in and keep them coming back.
That said, this book is somewhat important in starting a dialogue about these topics; however, the structure of the narrative is muddled. It begins with Van Cleave considering suicide over his addiction, and at no point does the story revisit this scene. We never know what moment pushed him to that brink. In fact, as he talks about WoW--the only game that sounds like it truly addicted him, while the rest were just games he just really loved--he tells us about his addiction and what he did, but the "showing" part is lacking. There's one scene where two crying kids compete with his attention after he's been kicked from a server, which is refreshingly manic, but other than that, he only describes the hours he logs, the money he invests, and the way he feels when he plays, but outside of that once scene, we never really see it impact his real life. He says he argues with his wife. He claims it distracted him from being a better writer and professor, but it's not really shown through vivid anecdotes or through the reactions/eyes of those most affected by it.
I guess it's part voyeurism, but also because if you're going to tell me you have a story about how video games ruined your life, and all I get is various metrics and metaphors on how it did, I'm going to miss that story.
Last thoughts: he tells about his childhood in an odd way, about games he loved as a kid and in college, but these seem largely irrelevant and like non-addictions. He also talks about being adopted, being passed over for several jobs, and of being "sexually assaulted" as a kid as these facts might have some impact on his addiction, but again, the connections aren't there. In fact, he (intentionally and fully aware) comes off as a bit of an asshole throughout, to the point where talking about being sexually abused feels less like a shameful, terrible thing but almost a humblebrag. Not saying that it was, but he found the woman attractive, willingly visited her several times (without being directly lured), and was sad when she finally ended it. All in all, the components of an addiction story are there, but this doesn't quite read like one.
A video game developer suggested that it's not so much single-player games that people get addicted to. Those have beginnings and ends. It's the social ones, where the challenges change and the competition and social engagement are what keep people coming back. And that's when it hit me. Video games themselves aren't universally addictive. It's one part the internet itself (think Facebook, WoW, Farmville, Twitter, Google, etc.), which is ultimately just a digital enhancement of face-to-face interactions. It's also one part the concept of gamefication itself. Games are inherently addictive, like Bingo, or scratch-off lottery tickets, or Dungeons and Dragons. Setups of achievements and tests of skill, prowess, and luck, and competition is too irresistible for many. And lastly, it's old fashioned storytelling. Stories are the key to engagement and just about everything. And video games are one of the few mediums in which all of these components can be combined to lure a person in and keep them coming back.
That said, this book is somewhat important in starting a dialogue about these topics; however, the structure of the narrative is muddled. It begins with Van Cleave considering suicide over his addiction, and at no point does the story revisit this scene. We never know what moment pushed him to that brink. In fact, as he talks about WoW--the only game that sounds like it truly addicted him, while the rest were just games he just really loved--he tells us about his addiction and what he did, but the "showing" part is lacking. There's one scene where two crying kids compete with his attention after he's been kicked from a server, which is refreshingly manic, but other than that, he only describes the hours he logs, the money he invests, and the way he feels when he plays, but outside of that once scene, we never really see it impact his real life. He says he argues with his wife. He claims it distracted him from being a better writer and professor, but it's not really shown through vivid anecdotes or through the reactions/eyes of those most affected by it.
I guess it's part voyeurism, but also because if you're going to tell me you have a story about how video games ruined your life, and all I get is various metrics and metaphors on how it did, I'm going to miss that story.
Last thoughts: he tells about his childhood in an odd way, about games he loved as a kid and in college, but these seem largely irrelevant and like non-addictions. He also talks about being adopted, being passed over for several jobs, and of being "sexually assaulted" as a kid as these facts might have some impact on his addiction, but again, the connections aren't there. In fact, he (intentionally and fully aware) comes off as a bit of an asshole throughout, to the point where talking about being sexually abused feels less like a shameful, terrible thing but almost a humblebrag. Not saying that it was, but he found the woman attractive, willingly visited her several times (without being directly lured), and was sad when she finally ended it. All in all, the components of an addiction story are there, but this doesn't quite read like one.
January 18, 2022
This was a book I picked up at a book store closing sale (insert sad face here) that I picked up on impulse because I wanted to read some more nonfiction. Plus, I was curious. Just how dark did this man's journey get?
Well it's pretty incredible, I'll tell ya what. Dr. Van Cleave illustrates how he went from impressionable child fascinated by early computer games to a professor who shirked the rest of his life to squeeze in insane amounts of time in World of Warcraft on multiple accounts and characters. He wasn't a video game aficionado. He was definitely an addict, and all the symptoms of addiction were definitely there. Becoming addicted to a form of media might not seem as bad as, say, a drug addiction, but I think Dr. Van Cleave pointed out how wrong that assumption is. There was a physiological response and a psychological one. He was nearly driven to the end of his life.
I thank him for sharing his story and all the gory details (it does get real graphic real early, including some childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by a trusted teacher).
It was interesting to see how WoW had overtaken his life. I remember other students at college talking about how addicting WoW was but I had never partaken. "You have to pay a monthly subscription to play a game you already own?" I balked, firing up GTA.
My video gaming habits have never gotten to addict status -- but I can see the allure to escape into a digital realm and leave real world problems behind. For that reason, I think a lot of people will need to read this book.
It's a little outdated at this point. This book was published in 2010 and makes references to Playstation 2/3, things like Second Life and MySpace, but it's still relevant. Don't bother going to his website for the Unplugged book, the domain appears to have been bought by someone else in the interim. If you wanna reach him or see his other books, visit: https://ryangvancleave.com
Well it's pretty incredible, I'll tell ya what. Dr. Van Cleave illustrates how he went from impressionable child fascinated by early computer games to a professor who shirked the rest of his life to squeeze in insane amounts of time in World of Warcraft on multiple accounts and characters. He wasn't a video game aficionado. He was definitely an addict, and all the symptoms of addiction were definitely there. Becoming addicted to a form of media might not seem as bad as, say, a drug addiction, but I think Dr. Van Cleave pointed out how wrong that assumption is. There was a physiological response and a psychological one. He was nearly driven to the end of his life.
I thank him for sharing his story and all the gory details (it does get real graphic real early, including some childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by a trusted teacher).
It was interesting to see how WoW had overtaken his life. I remember other students at college talking about how addicting WoW was but I had never partaken. "You have to pay a monthly subscription to play a game you already own?" I balked, firing up GTA.
My video gaming habits have never gotten to addict status -- but I can see the allure to escape into a digital realm and leave real world problems behind. For that reason, I think a lot of people will need to read this book.
It's a little outdated at this point. This book was published in 2010 and makes references to Playstation 2/3, things like Second Life and MySpace, but it's still relevant. Don't bother going to his website for the Unplugged book, the domain appears to have been bought by someone else in the interim. If you wanna reach him or see his other books, visit: https://ryangvancleave.com
February 27, 2026
Wow this sucked. The kind of book you finish out of morbid curiosity.
It caught my eye because I had a friend who had a WoW addiction and I was browsing the stacks on addictions. This book is not about that, it's 2/3 of humble-brag about all the drinking and fucking he did in college, then a memoir about being bad at his job, being a spouse and especially being a father.
To his credit he's self aware enough to tell you that you are not going to like him. I dunno. Maybe I'll bump it two two stars.
It caught my eye because I had a friend who had a WoW addiction and I was browsing the stacks on addictions. This book is not about that, it's 2/3 of humble-brag about all the drinking and fucking he did in college, then a memoir about being bad at his job, being a spouse and especially being a father.
To his credit he's self aware enough to tell you that you are not going to like him. I dunno. Maybe I'll bump it two two stars.
September 5, 2018
I had read this book a few years back and held on to it. It definitely warranted a second reading. Absolutely fascinating!
August 31, 2012
This book was very eye-opening. There is language and sex in it for those opposed to reading about such things. It's the authors ideas on what lead him into video game addiction, and how he has worked to get over the addiction. Though it still calls to him and he constantly wants to start playing again. I find the arguments about whether video games themselves are addicting, or if it's a symptom of other mental issues like depression. This man had enough outside 'problems' (can't think of a better way to describe it) that I think video games became his escape and then the nature of the games, designed that way, sucked him in deeper.
November 19, 2010
Unplugged is a somewhat disturbing memoir about one person's struggle to overcome his video game addiction. I chose to read this book after my dad brought home a copy from a professional training where Ryan G. Van Cleave was a guest speaker. If you are skeptical about the validity of video game addiction being on par with gambling, food, sex, and exercise addiction, read this book and Van Cleave will change your mind.
July 28, 2010
I picked this up since all of my other books I wanted weren't in the library. It's a nicely-written (though somewhat rambling) peek into the emerging category of addiction concerning video games. Cleave takes a really long time to finally get to actually describing his addictive behavior but the journey is still interesting, anyway.
July 31, 2011
This is an excellent insight into the dark world that is so easily snaring those who game. It is an addiction that people don't recognize but that destroys lives just as easily. This book gives excellent advice and practical ways to help. Thanks Ryan.
Want to Read
December 2, 2011I think this is a huge problem in our society and I look forward to reading this book
October 1, 2014
He has a talent for prose style and storytelling.
October 27, 2016
A good story about addition, illustrating the most memorable definition of addiction: a choice between short term gratification n long term deleterious effect.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews