Video Game Addiction

My mom was watching the channel E! last night. The show that was on was called Too Young to Kill: 15 Most Shocking Crimes. On the countdown, there was a teenager by the name of Daniel Petric. Here is his story that got him on this countdown:

So this kid, Petric, got injured while snowboarding and had to stay at home for a certain amount of time. He was introduced to video games, more specifically the Xbox 360 and the game Halo 3, when he was at his friend's house. His dad didn't like him playing such violent games, but Daniel did it anyway. He eventually went out and bought the 360 console and Halo 3, something that his parents asked him not to do. While he was stuck at home due to his injury, he would sometimes play for almost eighteen hours with no breaks. When his parents confiscated and locked the game away, Petric decided the game was a necessity. After about a month, he stole back his game from their lockbox, along with his father's 9mm handgun. He came up from behind his parents and shot them point-blank, killing his mother and severely injuring his father. When the police found him, he was in the driver's seat of family's van with Halo 3 in the passenger's seat. In the trial, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison; he is up for parole in 2031.

Can video games really cause that big of an addiction? I mean, I myself may have been addicted to them when I was younger, but never to that extent. I guess it shows how reliant (in case, addicted) some people are to our technologies that surround our world today, and what would happen if it were taken away.