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How Warcraft Really Does Wreck Lives
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Oct 18, 2006 09:37 AM
from the something-to-think-about dept.
from the something-to-think-about dept.
An anonymous reader writes "There's a great blog post about how World of Warcraft can ruin lives, it's written by a person that was for a long time a member of the largest council on what is now one of the oldest guilds in the world." This is a story that is very familiar to a lot of folks. I know people who are actively wrecking their lives and risking their jobs by playing too much of a video game.
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How Warcraft Doesn't Have To Wreck Lives 274 comments
robustyoungsoul writes "From the same guild leadership as the fellow who started an internet storm with his post about his experience in WoW comes a different point of view: it doesn't have to consume your life." From the article: "I got a Masters degree in policy from one of the most difficult schools in the country while at the same time playing WoW and working a part time job. I would come home from a busy day and think about how to use what I learned to make the guild work better. It was a way for me to practice what I was learning and to discover what was involved with leading people (mostly getting all the blame and no thanks, it seems :P). I've learned the lessons of clear communication, sacrifice, compassion, tough love ... and balance. I plan to use these skills in my professional life. So in short, I play the game because I get something tangible out of it."
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I need help (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I need help (Score:5, Funny)
My name is eldavojohn. I am a WoW addict and I need help. Yes, this is a real addiction, I have sucked dick for monthly payment cards.
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Funny)
Are you cute?
and
I have some unused play cards, maybe we could make a deal?
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything can be an addiction, and video games are no different. However, with the advent of MMO's, game addition has become much more social and mainstream than before.
From the article...
This is true of Blizzard, however, it should be noted that this did not start with WoW. EverQuest(EQ) was the pioneer of the 'mainstream' MMO. Every heard of the phrase 'EverCrack'? Anyone who's played EQ has. There was a group formed called EverQuest Widows [wikipedia.org] that comprised of people who left their husband / wife because of their game addiction. Or Husbands / Wives who had an affair with someone they meet playing this online game.
Of course, it isn't just EverQuest, it's an MMO thing, or possibly just restricted to the Fantasy genre as I've not heard of these same issues nor have I ever been as addicted to MMO's such as City of Heroes / Villans, Star Wars, or Matrix. I've seen these issues in EQ, Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC), and World of Warcraft (WoW).
During my time in DAoC, I actually experianced a real life situation where a wife who recently left her husband due to his game addiction. A wife I met playing DAoC with her and her husband. She joined DAoC to try and spend more time with her husband only to be left to level her own toon, while her husband ran off to do 'end game' raids.
This couple had other problems that an MMO addiction amplified. And their story will be familiar to a vast number of people. WoW, did not start this kind of 'extreme' addiction, but being the largest MMO, it will introduce it to the most number of people.
MMO and game addiction for myself, almost killed my college education. Of course, I've been addicted to Nintendo since I was 8 (and Pong and Intellivison before that). I hated sports until I was 12 when I started Football, despite my parents forcing me to wrestle between 8-12 year of age. I was overweight when I was a kid and I didn't get out and play with a lot of kids. My favorite gifts where Tiger Electronic hand held games. So, suffice it to say, I've been an 'addict' for a long time. However, the MMO and it's 'vitual' reality and the ability to actaully people with other people (co-op multi-player games where my favorite however you had to find a friend to play Nintendo with you) pulled me deeper than ever before. Dusk to Dawn game sessions. Skipping class (in college), passing oppurtunties to party (in one of the US's highest rated party schools), little to no studying. 10 mins reading a book, and I'd be thinking "If I kill these mobs, I can get this item! I can just farm those and level!"
It was after DAoC experiance that I had to regain control. Then I studied in Europe for a year with no outlet to really play video games at all. It was a great way to break the habit. When I returned from Europe, WoW was released. I still bought and played it on release day. I even had some long game sessions. However, it was much easier to pull myself away than before. My GPA went from 2.0 to 3.4. I went out at least twice a week with friends and visited my family more often.
The beauty of WoW is that it's extreamily easy to get a character to the 'end' level (whatever that may be at any given time). while all the other games I played make it so hard and difficult, that I've never actually 'maxxed out' a character in any other game.
Video Game addiction is a serios thing that gets little attention due to it's 'taboo' idea or possibly sound 'silly'. I don't th
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that there isn't anything inherantly wrong with the game, or playing it, for most people. The vast majority will be able to balance their play time with the rest of their life with no trouble whatsoever. When we focus on the relativly few cases of real obsession with the game, we miss the point. It makes it look like Blizzard is at fault, and that anyone who plays their evil game will become addicted and suffer the consiquences. Attatudes like that are of no help to anyone. What we should be asking is: "What about this person made him become addicted to a game?" Not: "What about this game made this person become addicted to it?"
I agree that game addiction is a real issue, but the focus should be the person, not the game, since that is where the problem lies.
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Insightful)
there is no chemical addiction going on here.
That's not quite true, though many would accuse me of picking nits. In this case, the chemical addiction is to a chemical produced by the body, not introduced externally. Either way, it's chemical, though.
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Interesting)
Over twenty years ago, when I was in college, I was introduced to a group called the SCA [sca.org], "a medieval history re-enactment group," that had, at the time, been around about twenty years. Over several years of various levels of involvement with the group, I watched many of the same impacts described in TFA happen to people's "real" lives. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent on gear for tournaments over some people's lives; there were affairs and break-ups, alcoholism and job loss. I remember people going off to events without their spouses, having a weekend fling while they were there, and writing it off to an excuse of "being in character" for their chosen persona. In the worst cases, I've witnessed people draw "live steel" against one another, meaning real, sharpened blades came out and challenges were made over some perceived insult to a made-up character.
The SCA isn't the only group that this sort of involvement happens in, though. People in our society want, in the worst way, an escape from mundane reality; they want some sort of control over their environment, and want to be appreciated for the things they do. Take any area of interest (Civil War, Star Wars, News for Nerds, etc.), and somewhere there is some sort of group dedicated to its advancement. Get enough people doing it, you have a society. Concentrate hard enough, you have an alternate reality.
Chances are that we're never going to be able to create a real-world society where everyone is happy with their lot in life and how they integrate with the world around them. Until then, we're going to come up with more and better ways to escape the reality we're in, and those escapes are going to have their addicts. It's kind of unfortunate, and, as TFA points out, can be destructive. I've identified my addictive side, and deal with it as best I can. Through force of will, I only delve into addictive things to a certain degree and get out before I get really hooked (though I've recently discovered that my internal clock, otherwise very accurate, stops working when Civ IV is running; I need mechanical assistance). For those that can do the same, or don't have such addictive behaviors, great. For the others, those who pour their lives into something that doesn't add value in the outside world, well, Darwin calls.
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Funny)
[shift]-[tab]F132
[shift]-[tab]
th at the same time.
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hey, don't be too hard on him. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Interesting)
The MOMENT my GF said "You should spend more time with me and less with WoW" (cliche'd but true), I dropped WoW. Didn't take me a moment.
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot to mention your enormous penis and your luxurious mansion.
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Insightful)
I play about 2-3 hours a day at a sitting but definitely don't play every day.
My wife growls at me for the time I watch playing wow but I'm able to have a conversation with her and watch tv at the same time (my tv and PC are in the same room).
Why is it (generally in the minds of non-gamers) that time spent with the TV is somehow "better" than time spent gaming?
I suppose that if you completely coccoon into the game vs. remaining aware of the outside world it's a problem but that applies to anything.
I often play wow with both my girls on my lap telling me what to kill and which quests to run. (most of my toons are also female because the girls name them).
Seems like yet another media sponsored backlash against time spent away from the tv.
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Re:I need help (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a non-gamer, non-TV owner (and no, I don't claim that makes me better than you or anyone else, just the choices I've made) so I can't answer the exact question you asked, but here's some differences:
TV is more or less an extension of the passive entertainment offered by reading. There's not much correlation between the nominal effort you put into it and what you get out of it - in the case of a few shows (Farscape) you have to make some kind of commitment to watching and understanding the entire ark, but most TV shows you can watch any one episode and generally understand what's going on. MMORPGs on the other hand, by their very nature, tend to reward the amount of time spent on them. Someone who plays one hour a week will be much worse off in the game world than someone who spends one hour a day. This leads to a different relationship to the user where people who have self control issues (very often the types drawn to MMOs) can be sucked into online games in ways that interfere with what society has deemed "normal" life.
TV uses the normal human cues for non-verbal expression - eyes, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. MMOs lack subtle non-audio signals and the audio quality I've heard for the voice discussions on WoW have left me unimpressed to the point I suspect that it masks some important tonal information. I've had friends who I've known exclusively online for fifteen years or so and place great value on the electronic communication that allows those relationships, but I also recognize that we miss out on a great deal of the subtle nuances of human expression, that TV at least offers a faximily of.
In what I consider a plus for gaming, TV is a passive activity, while MMOs allow interactivity with hundreds and thousands of other people. Most of my friends that game do so as much to interact with friends who are physically distant as much as they do to play a game per say.
Lastly, MMOs allow for addictive escapism in a way that TV doesn't. TV enables viewers to ignore their lives and daydream about how they could be different, but MMOs allow users to actively create an alternate persona that fills in voids in their life or covers over their own flaws. Whether this is a good thing or not is a matter of debate. On the one hand, I don't necessarily view it as worse than someone who comes home from work and drinks to escape their problems, but on the other, any tactic that allows someone to ignore the problems of their life is problematic to me in that it encourages people to not actually deal with their issues.
But as I said, it's just a matter of the choices we all make for ourselves.
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Yearning Crusade. (Score:5, Funny)
Blame the victims (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't stop playing it, obviously you have issues. Your life is not in balance, and your obsession to the game is just a symptom of the imbalance.
The game is not wrecking your life, you are.
I play World of Warcraft. I average about seven hours a week (four on sundays, and three more on tuesdays, because thats when all my friends can also play). It is fun. It is not wrecking my life. My character doesn't level up at light speed but so what? It is just a game.
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Re:Blame the victims (Score:5, Funny)
Seven hours? Amateur. No wonder you posted AC.
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Broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Broken (Score:4, Insightful)
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Cartman put it best... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh please... (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reminds me... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:did ya read GP post? (Score:5, Funny)
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Let's be frank... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people gamble, some people cheat on their spouses. Some other people do drugs, and others drink too much. Some people are slackers, some people are workaholics. And yes, some people play video games too much.
Whichever way you look at it, people have a choice. They can stay grounded in reality with minor diversions into fantasy-land (whatever form that fantasy may take) and keep their lives balanced, or they can throw their lives away. Saying that World of Warcraft, The Jerry Springer Show or The Devil made you do it is a cop out.
Re:Let's be frank... (Score:5, Interesting)
When people who are obsessed with absolute personal accountability realize that not everything is a conscious decision, then the world will be a better place overall. True addiction, meanwhile, knows no boundaries.
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Re:Let's be frank... (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I disagree with Rand, it's because she lived in a fantasy land of multitalented, competent businessmen whose ethical standards prohibited exploiting others for profit.
Step 1 to quitting is taking personal responsibility. The guy in the article lives for other people's praise, wants to be that crucial guy that always put in the time to get the skills/items/info they needed for the raid, loves having other people dependent on him. He says as much in the article. I'm familiar with that playstyle because that's what I enjoy too.
Posting that article was just another way for him to elevate himself above his former guildmates (you're still playing that old game?) and get a lot of praise from the easily-wooed MMO community. If he doesn't get over that, he's just going to keep going back to the easy fix in a couple months when reality doesn't accomodate him anymore. No one can ultimately stop him from reinstalling and setting up another account besides him.
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Re:Let's be frank... (Score:5, Interesting)
"What the science shows, he says, is that the brain of an addict is fundamentally different from that of a non-addict. Initially, when a person uses hard drugs like heroin or cocaine, the chemistry of the brain is not much affected, and the decision to take the drugs remains voluntary. But at a certain point, he says, a "metaphorical switch in the brain" gets thrown, and the individual moves into a state of addiction characterized by compulsive drug use." [beachpsych.com]
Some drugs--tabacco and meth, for example--are far more aggressive than others in altering brain chemistry in ways that make the choice to quit harder. And some people are far more susceptible than others. But there is no doubt whatsoever that addiction is a perfectly ordinary physiological phenomenon, no different from any other crippling physical disorder, and it affects some people severely enough that they no more have a choice to quit and than a parapelegic has a choice to walk. They literally lack the physiological capacity to do so.
This does not mean that all people are so affected--like any other disease, additions have different effects on different people. Some people get smallpox and live. Others die. No one thinks that anyone has a choice about it.
In the case of addiction, some people's capacity to choose is physiologically limited to the point where they lack the ability to quit on their own, just like some polio patients lack the ability to breathe on their own. I don't see anyone saying, "Whichever way you look at it, polio patients have a choice."
The article I've linked above includes disenting voices, but no one is saying that the brains of addicts aren't fundamentally altered by drug use. They are arguing over what the policy implications of that are, based on some pretty clearly delineated, and extremely stupid, ideological biases on both sides. And non-drug-related things, like compulsive game-playing and compulsive gambling may or may not involve similar physiological changes, but there is no doubt that sometimes people do not have a choice, however much you might want to believe otherwise.
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Re:Let's be frank... (Score:4, Funny)
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game X ruins lives: heard this before (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:game X ruins lives: heard this before (Score:5, Insightful)
D&D requires that you have friends, sit down with them in person (yes, now you can play online, etc), and play for some set amount of time. Usually there's a point where the DM says something like 'I'm going to bed' and everyone stops. It requires that everyone gets together, schedules a time to meet, and that the DM put work in before you start playing.
WoW on the other hand never needs to stop. It plays as long as you want to play, and if you are in a large enough guild, then there are always people around for you to work with. Even without a guild there are people out there looking for a pickup group. MMORPGs exacerbate the situation.
Part of the fun with D&D and any r/l gaming is that you are in a time crunch and know it. How far can we get? Think quick, come up with interesting solutions. Laugh and make. Even if you want to play all night, someone in your group is going to be tired and want to stop, so you all have to stop. MMORPGs take away all the restrictions and really enable you to become 'addicted' in all the ways that you might to something else.
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Re:game X ruins lives: heard this before (Score:5, Insightful)
I beg to differ... It's not so popular now but back in the 80's when a) I was into D&D and b) Mazes and Monsters came
out people like this [chick.com] were everywhere! And this guy is jut one
example (albeit an extreme one).
My opinion then was that it's ridiculous to blame the game/manufacturer and as far as WoW is concerned my opinion hasn't changed.
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WoW doesn't wreck lives. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever heard of a "Golf Widow"? (Score:5, Insightful)
-jcr
Breaking update! (Score:5, Insightful)
Stories effectively identical to the post came out when EverQuest was the big thing, came out when MUDS/MUSHES were the big thing, and have probably come out for every liesure activity developed in the history of man.
The only thing surprising about this is that it continues to surprise people when it happens. If you let your life get consumed, guess what, it gets consumed!
70 days in a year (Score:5, Interesting)
* Ok, maybe the bar is ok..
Good post (Score:5, Insightful)
MMORPG's are like being on a treadmill with someone dangling a treat in front of you. Every once in a while you might get a taste, but they will never let you have it because as long as you want what you can't have (perhaps the feeling of 'winning'?) you will keep paying 15 bucks a month to get closer and closer to and end that keeps drifting further away.
Blizzard has made what is arguably the most addictive MMO ever appealing to human nature's greed, and the need to feel accomplished.
Up until last month I was one of those types too. I played WoW EVERY night and every free moment. I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy it.
But a few things intersecting caused me to take a step back.
First was the alpha for the expansion. After a week of playing that I realized all the godly best-on-the-server epic gear my priest had would soon be shit since at level 70 (in some cases earlier) I would get gear at or better than the current gear I had. This basically meant when the expansion came out not only would I have to "grind" out 10 more levels, but from a gear standpoint it would be like re-starting the game.
Secondly, I enrolled in a couple of classes and had some family stuff come up. Between the alpha making me concerned, and real life keeping me busy several nights a week, I have gotten to the point where I do not even feel like logging in most of the time.
Logging in means raiding. Raiding means farming for consumables etc. Farming means work.
It's at this point you begin to realize WoW is like a second job - but one you pay to work at.
What are the positive things? (Score:5, Interesting)
I played WoW for about a year, running a major guild. What did I learn?
That I'm good at self depreciating humour.
That I can get people to follow me by being the first one to stand up and provide direction.
That leading people is more about knowing where you are going than how you are going to get there.
How to negotiate peace between two people who have genuinely lost sight of what's important.
Which of those skills have turned out to be useful in my current career? 100% of them. I stand up every day knowing that basically the people I work with are no different to the people I played with, that saying something is better than saying nothing, and that if I get fired hell at least I can enjoy my unemployment hunting for epics with some old friends. It's the same confidence that people who lead sports teams at school get... and now it's available to geeks.
I might point out that being acclimatised to 70 hour working weeks and doing the same boring crap over and over also helps in the real world. Being able to have two priorities and still getting everything done with really limited time isn't exactly bad practice either.
Would I hire ex gamers? Probably. It depends if they have used their time to do something valuable, like learning how to build their confidence, lead, motivate and get along with others - and that's hard to demonstrate.
Like everything else - knowing when you have learned as much as you can and it's time to move on is a big part of determining if online games will be a constructive or destructive thing for you.
no endgame (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't play WoW, but I do play Eve-Online, and it's basically the same thing for a lot of people. They've built big and powerful alliances, they control vast in-game resources, and they're deeply involved in all of the political intrigue in the game. But they're stuck at this terrible point where no matter how much they collect, how much territory they control, there's still tons more out there.
Just like many wealthy people in life spend their money trying to procure more wealth, the means and the end have become basically the same thing, watching a few numbers constantly increase. And since there's an infinite supply of higher numbers, there's no final goal to be reached. You end up playing to win a game that can't actually be won. Not because you're unskilled or aren't working hard enough, but because there is no game-mechanic that qualifies as winning.
Yet it still manages to sweep up lots of people, and stings them along until they burn out. But at least with real life wealth, if you eventually realize what's going on and gain some perspective on life, you've probably got a decent pile of money to support you as you move in a new direction. When you burn out on a video game and decide to leave it, you've likely sacrificed a lot of what you had in the real world.
If it weren't WoW, it'd be something else (Score:5, Interesting)
For my boyfriend & I, we use it as an inexpensive form of entertainment. We raid, but nothing insanely hardcore. 2 nights a week, usually. Other couples watch TV, we play WoW. You can't really beat $15/month ($30 for two) for some quality entertainment.
Kind of related story, maybe even a funny one (Score:5, Insightful)
"World of Whorecraft" [whoresofwarcraft.com] (NSFW, duh)
And judging by the screenshots, I think I found someone I can look down on even more than tentacle-loving hentai freaks.
It looks like regular porn, but the girls are wearing elf ears and leather straps and stuff.
But, OK, that's not the worst part.
The worst part: The ONE, SINGLE attractive mid-20-ish college educated young woman that I've ever had in my classes (I'm an IT Trainer. A geeky, hopelessly introverted one who will probably be a lifelong virgin) is a WoW freak. She's about 5'10", blonde, big eyes, long legs and has a little bit of a fitness-model look. She went rock-climbing in the Andes on her last vacation. She really nice and well adjusted (maybe other than playing WoW...) Seriously good looking girl... And she's a geek of the "Lord of the Rings/Magic the Gathering" variety, which probably means she'd fulfill every possible fantasy for about 3/4 of the Slashdot population.
I told her about the "Whorecraft" thing and sent her a link to the site (We send each other off-color jokes and stuff all the time). This is what she wrote back.
"I have an outfit like that. I use it to get (her boyfriend's) attention when he's been raiding too much."
There is no fucking justice in the world.
That's all I'm going to say.
Well, OK, also, people who play WoW now frighten me more than ever.
Re:oldest? [-1 offtopic] (Score:4, Informative)
And to all you scintillating geniuses pointing out that there are much older guilds in the REAL world: no fucking shit. The "world" to which he refers is obviously the World of Warcraft.
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Re:oldest? [-1 offtopic] (Score:4, Funny)
It's called MUD.
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Re:Wrecking their lives? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wrecking their lives? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wrecking their lives? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fsck heroin, try that with plain ol smokes. It's been almost 4 years and I still want one now and then...
-nB
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Re:Wrecking their lives? (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect it CAN be a real addiction like meth or heroin. I've known many meth and heroin addicts (my father included).
Psychological addictions are no less addictive, yet their consequenses are minute compared with drug addiction. Hell, I know people (myself included) who can be addicted to anger and malice. I find myself looking for reasons to be angry some days. Just like those kids you knew in high school who would do anything for attention (either addicted or have been neglected at home, I've seen both). But like I said, I'd rather be addicted to emotion or WoW than meth any day. I only play an average of 4 hours a week, depending on what else is going on in my life.
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