Immersion and addiction

Literally a few minutes ago I read this article :

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-12-16/world/japan.virtual.wedding_1_virtual-world-sal-marry?_s=PM:WORLD

Pretty much about a man marrying a video game character, "...Hiroshi Ashizaki, an author who writes about Internet and game addiction, doesn't think Sal 9000 is an extreme case. What is healthy about Sal is that he can communicate with people enough to do an interview on CNN and webcast a half-serious wedding, Ashizaki said."

This brought my thoughts back to what we learnt in the last lecture about immersion. Well in the case above, realism and immersion into the game play must have blurred the lines between real life and game play - even though he says he is fully aware that she is merely a character, yet she's not a machine. I guess this is the down side of making games realistic and immersible. With a book or a movie, when we are interacting with it we may enter the world they create for us, yet we are forced to leave when its ends, unless we revisit continually but even then it will just be a repetition of content. Yet with a game, we can play for as long as we want, and depending on which game we play, it can be never-ending. The more time we spend playing, the more prone we are to getting attached to that game, addicted. Yet maybe its not just the amount of time we spend on it. Like with immersion, we have to want to get into the feeling of the game. We have to open ourselves up to it with addiction too. If someone was disciplined enough to only play a few hours a week, then like our lecturer said, its not like the game is going to come out and "shlirp" up your brain as you walk past.

Any thoughts on this? Or on the article perhaps?