Oh, I have my vices, yes I do. Fun little exercises in excess they are, but I couldn't call them addictions. Addiction is where you are so obsessed that you can't work and you can't sustain a relationship. Addiction is when you keep doing a formerly fun thing when the fun has drained out, leaving you with only grim repetition. And I have had addiction—one in which I killed and had magic powers and spent countless hours on. I'm referring to the video game, World of Warcraft.
It would take too long to describe the game and it would bore the bejesus out of you. Instead read this sympathetic article about WOW gold farmers in the New York Times Magazine. It explains an awful lot about the game.
The most illustrative term in the game is called grinding. Basically it's the little quests you do for points and game currency. WOW makes these jobs labor intensive. In order to accomplish a task you need a certain amount of skins, but not all the creatures you kill yield the skins, so you have to keep killing creatures. You have to grind away.
I have some friends who live an hour away. With the dawn of high-speed internet, we could hang out, drink beer and play games, while never leaving our respective houses. We'd play first person shooter games, like Tribes or civilization games like Age of Empires. The games were fun, but really it was the socializing, especially since we can talk over Skype.
And then a good friend, a friend who keeps up on the coolest games, brought WOW to the table. The creators of WOW, Blizzard Entertainment, understand how addiction starts in a social circle; Blizzard gives you a free credit card to give to a friend when you buy the game. The first one is always free. My friend gave me the card and the game to put on my computer. I was hooked.
I'm not whining; the game is amazing, a huge synthetic world, that even after months of playing, still had areas I had not seen. And it was fun. You really jump up in the beginning levels quickly. And there is a lot of eye candy and goofy names, and cool armor. I've made friends with people, whose real names are unknown to me. Believe me, there's a reason why there is around 8 million people playing this game.
But WOW is a great black hole of time. Even traveling in the game can take up to 10 minutes. Add the grinding, the goofing off, the deciding what to wear, and you end up sitting down for six-hour stretches. You babble WOW arcane trivia, while non-players try to hide their yawns. I've seen people spend more time in WOW than at their job. I've seen marriages get rocky over the game, and friendships turn cold. My wrists began to hurt, my eyesight turned weak, I had to stop. What was once fun was now repetitious.
My salvation came when my computer died. When it was fixed, I did not put WOW back on it. Now I go outside. I meet people. I even get laid once in a while. To tell the truth, I don't even miss it. It's a brilliant game, but the real world is satisfying enough.
It would take too long to describe the game and it would bore the bejesus out of you. Instead read this sympathetic article about WOW gold farmers in the New York Times Magazine. It explains an awful lot about the game.
The most illustrative term in the game is called grinding. Basically it's the little quests you do for points and game currency. WOW makes these jobs labor intensive. In order to accomplish a task you need a certain amount of skins, but not all the creatures you kill yield the skins, so you have to keep killing creatures. You have to grind away.
I have some friends who live an hour away. With the dawn of high-speed internet, we could hang out, drink beer and play games, while never leaving our respective houses. We'd play first person shooter games, like Tribes or civilization games like Age of Empires. The games were fun, but really it was the socializing, especially since we can talk over Skype.
And then a good friend, a friend who keeps up on the coolest games, brought WOW to the table. The creators of WOW, Blizzard Entertainment, understand how addiction starts in a social circle; Blizzard gives you a free credit card to give to a friend when you buy the game. The first one is always free. My friend gave me the card and the game to put on my computer. I was hooked.
I'm not whining; the game is amazing, a huge synthetic world, that even after months of playing, still had areas I had not seen. And it was fun. You really jump up in the beginning levels quickly. And there is a lot of eye candy and goofy names, and cool armor. I've made friends with people, whose real names are unknown to me. Believe me, there's a reason why there is around 8 million people playing this game.
But WOW is a great black hole of time. Even traveling in the game can take up to 10 minutes. Add the grinding, the goofing off, the deciding what to wear, and you end up sitting down for six-hour stretches. You babble WOW arcane trivia, while non-players try to hide their yawns. I've seen people spend more time in WOW than at their job. I've seen marriages get rocky over the game, and friendships turn cold. My wrists began to hurt, my eyesight turned weak, I had to stop. What was once fun was now repetitious.
My salvation came when my computer died. When it was fixed, I did not put WOW back on it. Now I go outside. I meet people. I even get laid once in a while. To tell the truth, I don't even miss it. It's a brilliant game, but the real world is satisfying enough.
2 comments:
has World of Warcraft replaced masterbation?
Hell, I'm sure there are people who masturbate to the images on WOW. Have you seen the succubuses? Rwer!
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