[always_good]

I'm not sure. When I look at video game addicts including myself in my late teens, I see someone who is addicted to credentializing in a virtual world. Maybe because everything is measurable unlike real life.

Doesn't seem like "addiction" alone communicates what's happening there.

[noobermin]

That may be your experience but that isn't what others experience. It also doesn't match the ICD's definition either.

Credentials in most systems are useless outside of those systems (and even within them in certain cases). Some can be used to gain employment or other things but even those can be abstract and "virtual" in a sense.