This commentary responds to Aarseth et al.’s (in press) criticisms that the ICD-11 Gaming Disorder proposal would
result in “moral panics around the harm of video gaming” and “the treatment of abundant false-positive cases.” The
ICD-11 Gaming Disorder avoids potential “overpathologizing” with its explicit reference to functional impairment
caused by gaming and therefore improves upon a number of flawed previous approaches to identifying cases with
suspected gaming-related harms. We contend that moral panics are more likely to occur and be exacerbated by
misinformation and lack of understanding, rather than proceed from having a clear diagnostic system