It's hit the internet again that World of Warcraft is an evil and destructive MMO, and, of course, everyone's jumping on the bandwagon by giving themselves pats on the backs for not trying it because they don't want this to happen, and that the game is designed to be a "drug" and entice people to keep playing, and blah-blah-blah. Good ol' modern mentality showing forth! "It's not MY fault for lacking self-control, it's Blizzard's fault for making the game a time-sink!" Hello, Earth to Moron... Games are usually time sinks, but it's entirely up to you how much time you assign to it at any given time.

This time, WoW has "caused" a divorce. No, it's not the husband's fault for playing too much, it's Blizzard's fault. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions, and everyone, including "professional" head doctors are quick to blame the addictive properties of a game over the true causes. Don't you think that if World of Warcraft wasn't there, it'd be something else? Heck, let's say it would have been Halo 3, because that's the latest and greatest time sink. It's also a murder simulator! That's bonus points.

And the coup de grace:

“I’m real, and you’re giving me up for a fantasy land. You’re destroying your life, your six-year marriage, and you’re giving it up for something that isn’t even real. [Blizzard] build it in such a way that you have to keep putting more and more time into it to maintain your status. I remember thinking when I was married that it was downright exploitative to people who couldn’t control themselves in that way. It’s set up like a drug.”

Yeah, she started off well enough, but then it degenerated into a "Blizzard did this on purpose, and they're being bad guys by destroying my marriage!" No, ma'am, it's not Blizzard who's destroying your marriage... It's your husband. He's made a choice to ignore you in favor of a game. The game didn't gain sentience and suddenly decide to snare your husband and force him to ignore you. (If it did, it'd be Skynet, and we'd all have far worse troubles to deal with than your husband leaving you.) Also, I might also point out that there are very, very few (if any) parts of WoW that requires you to maintain a status. Sure, there's the ever present quest of collecting more equipment so you can fight in better areas, but if you stop playing for a week, guess what? You're still going to have the same equipment. If someone brings up the fact that a guild will leave you behind if you stop playing for a week? Then that guild is stupid, and you need to find another. There are plenty of casual guilds out there. The only thing I can recall ever being a constant struggle to maintain a status was when you could get military ranks by killing the opposing faction. Back when it was introduced, you had to spend a colossal amount of time just KEEPING your rank, not even considering getting a higher rank. But, you know, they got rid of that, because WoW is designed to be a casual game, meaning it's specifically NOT designed to make you feel you have to keep playing.

Luckily, FileFront seems to know common sense:

... His addiction could as easily have been pot, liquor, porn or meth - if she were to have brought them into the house it would have been a different addiction instead of gaming. You have to go to the underlying source and peel back the layers. Was he unhappy in his marriage to begin with? Was he miserable at his job? Was he highly depressed? Was this form of escape a way to keep from coping with the living hell that his life had become? All of these plus family history can become contributing factors to any sort of addiction.

At least someone realizes that there are underlying faults at play here that nobody is willing to deal with. If it wasn't WoW, it would have been something else, I guarantee it, and there's a very fine chance that it would have been something more destructive. Yes, WoW can be "destructive" in the sense of allowing yourself to neglect daily duties, but if he would have taken up drinking, he would be neglecting daily duties and trashing his body and mind at the same time. It all boils down to why he's addicted, not how, when you want to fix something, and, no, Blizzard is never a proper "why". It's just the tool used to hide from something, if you let it.

Good ol' Digg (which I now use for reading articles, not reading comments, except I had to read the comments for this one) rose up and someone cracked the line "I don't think there's a way to play responsibly in WoW once you hit 60 or 70." What a complete and total lie. I have a level 70 character and I've been in a few raids, but, hey, guess what? I'm also a college student with a 4.0 grade point average. WHILE playing World of Warcraft... If that doesn't shoot your argument out of the sky (and give me a chance to plug my brilliance *coughahem*) then you're just ignorant and closing your mind to the honest facts that just because you can't control yourself and stop playing doesn't mean that WoW is evil and that the rest of us are hopelessly addicted.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 11:48 am and is filed under World of Warcraft.