A leading U.S. council of doctors wants to have video game addiction officially classified as a psychiatric disorder, to raise awareness and enable sufferers to get insurance coverage for treatment.

In a report prepared for the American Medical Association's annual policy meeting starting Saturday in Chicago, the AMA's council on science and public health asks the group to lobby for the disorder to be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. AMA delegates could vote on the proposal as early as Monday.

It likely won't happen without heated debate. Video game makers scoff at the notion that their products can cause a psychiatric disorder. Even some mental health experts say labelling the habit a formal addiction is going too far.

90% of American youngsters play video games: report

Up to 90 per cent of American youngsters play video games and as many as 15 per cent of them — more than five million kids — may be addicted, according to data cited in the AMA council's report.

'He would threaten us physically. He would curse and call us every name imaginable ... It was as if he was possessed.'—Joyce Protopapas

Joyce Protopapas of Frisco, Texas, said her 17-year-old son, Michael, was a video addict. Over nearly two years, video and internet games transformed him from an outgoing, academically gifted teen into a reclusive manipulator who flunked two 10th grade classes and spent several hours day and night playing a popular online video game called World of Warcraft.

"He would threaten us physically. He would curse and call us every name imaginable," she said. "It was as if he was possessed."

When she suggested to therapists that Michael had a video game addiction, "nobody was familiar with it," she said. "They all pooh-poohed it."

Last fall, the family found a therapist who "told us he was addicted, period." They sent Michael to a therapeutic boarding school, where he has spent the past six months — at a cost of $5,000 US monthly that insurance won't cover, his mother said.

According to the report prepared by the AMA's council on science and public health, based on a review of scientific literature, "dependence-like behaviours are more likely in children who start playing video games at younger ages."

Overuse most often occurs with online role-playing games involving multiple players, the report says. Blizzard Entertainment's teen-rated, monster-killing World of Warcraft is among the most popular. A company spokesman declined to comment on whether the games can cause addiction.

Industry group questions addiction classification

Michael Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, said the trade group sides with psychiatrists "who agree that this so-called 'video game addiction' is not a mental disorder."

Dr. Michael Brody, head of a TV and media committee at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, praised the AMA council for bringing attention to the problem, but said excessive video-game playing could be a symptom for other things, such as depression or social anxieties that already have their own diagnoses.

"You could make lots of behavioural things into addictions. Why stop at video gaming?" Brody asked. Why not BlackBerrys, cellphones, or other irritating habits, he said.