In the blink of an eye, the year 2023 came to an end. However, it brought with it some pleasant surprises. Game Transfer Phenomena was featured in various media outlets, including academic and governmental ones.
The year started with GTP being featured in a piece about the “Tetris” film in the Red Bulletin magazine. The “Tetris” game has been key to the research on Game Transfer Phenomena, as it is well known for provoking seeing images from the game and mentally arranging objects as tetrominoes (Tetris effect). “I played for five minutes, I still see falling blocks in my dreams” is a dialogue in the film.
The term I coined to refer to gamers re-experiencing sensory perceptions, thoughts, impulses and actions related to playing video games was included in the Dictionary of Hallucinations published by Springer.
Research on Game Transfer Phenomena was included in the report “Metaverse” by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, at the request of the JURI Committee, which mentioned my research on Game Transfer Phenomena among the challenges and opportunities of interactive media technologies.
The year 2023 was also a good year for understanding GTP in a clinical context. I had the pleasure of presenting two of our studies on Game Transfer Phenomena at the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP 2023) congress in Perth, Australia. News about the congress was covered by news.com.au.
Together with my colleagues, Huu Kim Le, Annabel Callan, Daragh Poynton, Daniela Vecchio and Wai Chen at Fiona Stanley Hospital, Australia, I published a case report on GTP: “Game Transfer Phenomena in a Clinical Case with Psychosis and Gaming” in the journal Psychiatry International.
Later in the year, my colleague clinician Alex Basche and I presented a clinical case at the 8th International Conference on Behaviour Addiction in Icheon, Korea (ICBA2023). Here you can hear a podcast where Alex discusses GTP: Podcast: Addressing Game Transfer Phenomena in clinical practice.
At the ICBA2023, I presented two other studies on Game Transfer Phenomena. One focused on the relationship between joining esports education and chasing the dream of becoming famous and rich and the relationship between cognitive distortions and gaming disorders, and the other focused on investigating GTP in gamers who have mental disorders and experience using drugs.
It was great to see key actors in the field of behavioural addictions attending my presentations. These included Andrzej Cudo, Daniel King, Joël Billieux, Hans-Jürgen Rumpf, Vasileios Stavropoulos, Annika Hofstedt and Maria Ruthgård.
In terms of publications, we published validation studies, clinical cases and some pending data on the relation between GTP and general intrusions collected during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I published a validation of the GTP Scale in a sample of Mexicans with my colleague Dr. Adrzej Cudo. “Adaptation of the Game Transfer Phenomena Scale into Spanish: Sensory-Perceptual Changes, Intrusive Thoughts, and Involuntary Behaviors in Mexican Video Game Players” at the Revista Internacional de Investigación en Adicciones.
Dr Laura Maldonado-Murciano, together with Dr Georgina Aguilera, presented preliminary data on our validation of a Spanish version of the short GTP Scale (The GTP5-SF) at the European Congress of Methodology (EAM 2023) in Ghent, Belgium.
I also published the study “Sensory and cognitive intrusions with and without media content during the COVID-19 pandemic” in the journal of Telematics and Informatics
The events of this year have prompted me to reflect on various topics, such as: “Who has the right to modify our reality?” One incident that stood out to me was when I noticed that Icheon, Korea – a place I had visited earlier in the year for the ICBA2023 – had been included as a map in the video game “Battlefield 2042”.
I also played “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” from start to finish, and it amazed me how commercial video games could effectively promote learning. To top it off, I ended up the year by hearing “go go gooo” when waking up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night!
List of publications in 2023
- Ortiz de Gortari, A. B. (2023). Sensory and cognitive intrusions with and without media content during the COVID-19 pandemic: Isolation, media use, sleep and stress factors. Telematics and Informatics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2023.102095
- Le, H. K., Ortiz de Gortari, A. B., Callan, A., Poynton, D., Vecchio, D., & Chen, W. (2023). Game Transfer Phenomena in a Clinical Case with Psychosis and Gaming Disorder. Psychiatry International, 4(3), 286-296.
- Ortiz de Gortari, A. B., & Cudo, A. (2023). Adaptation of the Game Transfer Phenomena Scale into Spanish: Sensory-Perceptual Changes, Intrusive Thoughts, and Involuntary Behaviors in Mexican Video Game Players. Revista Internacional de Investigación en Adicciones, 9(1), 6-21.
- Ortiz de Gortari, A. B; Wasson, B and Diseth, A (2023) Gaming patterns and mediators of problematic gaming in esports students. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 11, 232.
- Ortiz de Gortari, A. B (2023) Gaming disorder, unusual experiences, and Game Transfer Phenomena among gamers with and without a psychiatric diagnosis, and experience using drugs. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 11, 232.
- Basche, A and Ortiz de Gortari, A. B (2023) The Impact of Game Transfer Phenomena on Cravings in IGD-ADHD Adolescents. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 11, 232.
- Ortiz de Gortari, A. B., & Panagiotidi, M. (2023). The Role of ADHD and Dissociation Symptoms in Gaming Disorder and Game Transfer Phenomena. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 57(S1), 3-198. [Abstract].
- K H Le, H. K. C., A; Poynton, D; Ortiz de Gortari, A. B; Chen, W. (2023). Game Transfer Phenomenon (GTP), Gaming Disorder and Psychosis. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 57(S1), 3-198.
- Ortiz de Gortari, A. B., & Chen, W. (2023). Updates on how problematic digital media use affects youths with ADHD. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 57(S1), 3-198.