…a curious new psychiatric disorder that the authors terms ‘Space Invaders Obsession’

“The intrusion of video games into health related issues has not been restricted to physical maladies. In September 1982 the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a curious new psychiatric disorder that the authors terms ‘Space Invaders Obsession.’ The victims of this disorder were men about to be married, and it took the form of a fourfold (or greater) increase in the playing of Space Invaders in the few weeks preceding the marriage. One man insisted that the honeymoon be postponed for a few hours so that he could get in a few more games. The authors, researchers at the Duke University medical Center, asserted that the principal goal of the game – defending a home base against aliens – took on a special symbolic significance in the face of an impending marriage. (It also reported that, for whatever reason, gameplaying dropped dramatically following marriage.)

– Excerpt from Mind at Play: the Psychology of Video Games (1983) by Geoffrey R. Loftus and Elizabeth F. Loftus, 109