Comment on the global gaming industry's statement on ICD-11 gaming disorder: a corporate strategy to disregard harm and deflect social responsibility?

Following the announcement that gaming disorder (GD) will be included in the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD‐11), multiple gaming industry organizations (henceforth ‘the industry’) have issued a statement in opposition to GD. The industry advances several arguments, including the notions that: gaming is predominantly enjoyed ‘safely and sensibly’; gaming has various personal benefits; the GD evidence base is ‘highly contested and inconclusive’; and GD would create moral panic and ‘abuse of diagnosis’. We believe that, regardless of whether GD is embraced by all researchers, arguments highlighting the popularity and benefits of gaming and disputing GD should not enable the industry to ignore the global evidence of gaming‐related harms.