Speaking to The Telegraph, one British psychiatrist has revealed that he plans to start offering addicted players help within game worlds like World of Warcraft.

London-based Dr. Richard Graham will use Blizzard's initially, and has asked the game maker if he can have free or cut-price access to the game in order to help players battling addictions.

"We will be launching this project by the end of the year. I think it's already clear that psychiatrists will have to stay within the parameters of the game. They certainly wouldn't be wandering around the game in white coats and would have to use the same characters available to other players," Graham explained.

"Of course one problem we're going to have to overcome is that while a psychiatrist may excel in what they do in the real world, they're probably not going to be very good at playing World of Warcraft."

He believes MMO addictions can be dangerous because the victim becomes too isolated, due to the nature of the experience. "Because we can't get through to them in the traditional educational environment or intrude on their actual bedrooms, we need to turn to the internet itself to tackle these problems," Graham concludes.

By Luke Guttridge