I ran across a link to Soul Kerfuffle’s post on DM Osbon from a friend of Soul’s who was at the top of the world, in the World of Warcraft, but at the bottom of life. His friend was quitting WoW and was asked to write about his Warcraft experience. His post titled [tag]The View From the Top[/tag] is the most illustrative, in-depth personal account of what can and will happen to someone who truly gets sucked into the game and alternative reality that is World of Warcraft.
Read it and make darn sure this ISN’T you.
The top of what you ask? The height of World of Warcraft greatness.
A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine quit playing Warcraft. He was a council member on what is now one of the oldest guilds in the world, the type of position coveted by many of the 7 million people who play the game today, but which only a few ever get.
————————————————————————————–Every week I read though email or I would run into one of my “real” friends and I’d hear “Andy, what’s up, I haven’t seen you in a while.” I looked in the mirror and in a cinemaesque turn of events and a biblical moment of clarity, told myself “I haven’t seen me in a while either.”
Again, read it and make darn sure this ISN’T you.
[tags]WoW addiction, MMORPG addiction, hitting bottom[/tags]
Ah wow two blogs that have now picked up on this thread from a post I made earlier today…it is indeed a very good post about ‘addiction’ to a game and the results it has on your daily life.
Do you know the guy who runs that blog?
No, I don’t, but I think I might have to read some more posts to see if HE writes as good as the guest poster.
I have read this so called “View from the top”. It seriously seems that the author had more problems then a “WoW addiction”. The game as it is does not exhibit any negative effects on a person. It doesn’t cause one to give up exercise and healthy eating or relationships. This person gave up these things to play a game, a game made for entertainment. The fact that he say’s he lost all these things speaks to something more going on beyond the game as a cause. A game does not make you stop exercising; a game does not make you stop eating. A game does not prevent you from getting off your ass and breathe some fresh air outside. Attributing all these effects to a game only confirms that there is a deeply rooted problem with this person’s emotional and mental health. Blaming a game or anything external for that matter, for one’s inability to regulate one’s entertainment vs. living a life to the fullest is a cope out. Unless there is in fact some “addiction” waves generated by this particular game, I only see a sad person that found temporary satisfaction with the time=reward system of this particular game and when that wasn’t enough he quits it and blames all his woes on said game. This guy needs to take responsibility for his actions in choosing to put aside all that was “good” in his life for a video “game”.
A game can only effect you in any way if you start to think that the game is more important then the real life you have. Which means “you” make a decision, “you” create a life where the game is all that you want and need. CHOICE. It’s always there, thats what makes us the beings we are. We are the choices we make and resonsibility lies with each of us as to what form the consequences will be.
I agree with your assessment of:
It is the people that do not find satisfaction in life that are more attracted to the satisfaction they find in the binary accomplishments of the game’s reward system that fall to addiction. The game is not addictive in and of itself, but it does play into the factors of the weak-minded getting torn away from real meaning in life.
Those who study religion will find this a good comparison. It is not that “the devil made me do it.” The reality of the situation is that the devil influenced your thinking and in a weakened state from exhaustion, stress, or a low self-esteem you dwelt on those thoughts and they became rational or less sinful.
“The game didn’t make you do it.” It merely becomes the object of one’s thoughts and the desire of one’s free time, and then can take over one’s responsibilities and obligations.
I get concerned when people start using the word addiction. I do not doubt that certain people allow a game to conflict with real world obligations, however I do not see this a fault of the game. Such people would likely find something else to do the same thing, and I do not believe this classifies “addiction”.
I work in the ‘system’ and deal with real addicts with real chemical addiction. It seems to minimize the effects of real addiction to qualify playing too much WoW as addiction. I’m not trying to say that people shouldn’t take a break if they’re playing too much, but call it what it is “I was playing too much WoW”, not “I was addicted to WoW”.
I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you on that on that last line. My ex-roommate was mentally/physically unable to leave the game to go do something else because some thing was happening in the other world that he didn’t want to miss. On Easter, we invited him to my girlfriend’s house for lunch, but he had to be home because most of the guild was going to be home to run two or three raids. He had to politely bow out by 2:30 to get home to log in. No movies, no going out to dinners, or anything that would interfere with either a raid, instance helping, or needing to farm before a raid to get mats or money for potions for the raid.
When you had a “conversation” with him, it was almost as if he couldn’t wait for you to stop what you had to say so he could say what loot dropped or how he took on way more mobs than he should have been able to.
Would you agree that those with a chemical addiction are bombarded with thoughts about their addiction? All an alchoholic thinks about is their next drink, smokers; their next cigarette, and crack addicts where their next $200 will come from to pay for their next rock. That is exactly what he was, and I might suspect, still is, like. I am encouraged by not seeing anyone from my old guild online at 8pm on a weeknight. Maybe they all did go out for a movie. 🙂
I have recently started to compile a list of the different “addictions” I have been reading about on some of the blogs. So far I have encountered the following dependencies: drugs, alcohol, porn, oil (as in petroleum), gambling, food, exercise, love, video games, comment addiction (i.e., checking the comments on one’s blog), TV addiction, yarn addiction (not a misprint!), Internet addiction, blog addiction, Technorati addiction, information addiction, addiction to technology, knitting addiction (no joke!), Bloglines, taco addiction, stichin addiction (i.e., stitching), sex addiction, publicity addiction, email addiction, sugar addiction, , addiction to online gaming, addiction to MySpace, window shopping, thrill seeking, and now addiction to War of Warcraft.
While addiction to War of Warcraft isn’t viewed as one of the more “typical addictions” such as alcohol addiction or drug dependency, it seems that the withdrawal symptoms a person experiences when he or she stops playing WOW can disrupt a person’s entire life.
Let me add one Internet addiction “horror story” to point out how devastating online addictions can become. More precisely, in 2005, a 54-year-old male addict, unable to take a break from his online world, died from starvation. How was this possible you ask? Easy. For 7 weeks before his death, he posted comments on one forum after another every 30 seconds while refusing to eat.
Since online gaming is typically included under the “Internet addiction” umbrella, I am now a firm believer in the unhealthy and the destructive consequences of Internet and Internet-related addiction.
DenMan7
http://www.about-alcohol-rehab.com
Many of these remarks are typical of people in denial. Sad state of affairs. Let’s face one central fact – If one wants to excel in WOW then the only way to do that is not to have a life. How else can you play a game 5-8 hours per day – ZOMG – That is a full time job! You really need to face your addiction and any damage you are doing to yourself. consider this – there are may drug addicts and alcholics who think they have no problem.
There are 2 great impulses driving people.
1. Sexual desire.
2. The need to be useful and/or important.
In real life it is a lot harder to satisfy the latter one.
Wanna know why there is more than 7 million people playing this game?
Blizzard has created an environment where anybody can feel himseful useful and/or important.
Well it is a fantasy game after all isn’t it? Maybe you have something there Winston..I trully play now for entertainment & really don’t feel the need to be on all the time!
Sure it does give a ‘fix’ to those requiring refirmation that they are liked or useful in someway but if WoW got dropped by Blizzard something else would replace that ‘fix’.