WoW the Next "Golf"?

TheGrapeApe writes "1up has an article about the possibility of World of Warcraft becoming the next "Golf": A place where friends, acquaintances, and perhaps even business partners will meet up to "talk shop" and swap stories. Personally, I can't wait until I have my next job interview in the Deadmines. " I demand extra healing and mana pots from all my employees.

Comments

Uh, no

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry.

new tool for HR

[joejor]

it would be the perfect way to determine if a prospective hire is a team player or a lone wolf

The Future of MMORPGs, rather, Virtual Socializing

[snotclot]

Very interesting. Signs indicate, then, that MMORPG's are becoming Role Playing Games for our REAL lives? People play MMORPG's and RPG's to escape, not to role play their own lives... Perhaps we will see two types of MMORPG's: one where you remain 'anonymous' (like the ones nowdays) and ones where its a virtual reprentation of the REAL YOU. In that sense, the latter is basically a VERY fancy virtual chatroom. No different from nowadays. Except maybe instead of *just* chatting you can chat over a friendly game of, virtual golf, virtual fishing, etc. The latter idea has already been explored, and I don't think it has caught on. I doubt it will until the graphics become SO good and there are so many "virtual" socializing activities that people cannot resist it. Also, chatting via typing SIMPLY will not do... how about integrated N-way Skype-type chat (like those headset thingies for Counterstrike).

Stick with Golf

[no_pets]

I'd suggest sticking with golf if you plan to go into management.

Nobody asked me, but...

[squidguy]

...this has to be one of the dumbest and most inane posts I've seen in a long, long time.

OMG who thinks of this garbage?

[Tweekster]

Yeah right a video game is gonna replace the real life experience of being on a course...not to mention the fact they are two different games. Jesus, who is freebasing in such large quantities to think of these idiotic rantings?

Gee, I'll bet

[courtarro]

Let me start by saying "yeah right". The next golf? The reason businesspeople play golf is not for the game, but to chat and talk politics (office or government) while having some sort of distraction outdoors. WoW is hardly a decent place to have an office meeting. Face it, most people (will) grow out of video games.

Far too involved.

[HaloZero]

World of Warcraft is far too involved, compared to the game of golf. In golf, you can sit back, take the game at your pace, your parties pace. You all are doing roughly the same thing, and can find common ground. A warrior and a mage have no common ground, save for, well... literal space sharing. WoW is far too fast-paced in comparison.

It's also an effing cartoon, for those nubs who haven't yet realised.

So... No. Not happening.

*silence...*

Next question, please.

Re:Far too involved.

[DdJ]

World of Warcraft is far too involved, compared to the game of golf. In golf, you can sit back, take the game at your pace, your parties pace.

Ever been on a Molten Core raid? Often, people spend half the time AFK, and when they're not, half of them can get away with just hitting a few keys over and over. (This is not true of the front-line melee types, and for a few boss fights it's not true of some other classes either -- eg. hunters vs. Magmadar.)

And that's a high-end raid.

Exploring the countryside, hunting relatively weak beasts, these things just don't require much attention and are not that fast-paced. Now, an on-target 5-man instance run is another matter, but presumably if you were connecting with someone in order to chat, you'd do something like... explore the Barrens.

This is a Joke Right?

[sielwolf]

Golf is standard issue for the managerial class: folks who being extroverts is a job requirement. For peons/techs/engineers there's still the time honored Afterwork Beer. Getting excited to run off into isolation and talk to people through magical cat-5 ain't the same. It implies a discomfort with being in the proximity of other meat popcicles and people notice that. Most people live out there in the Big Blue Box.

Re:This is a Joke Right?

[DigiShaman]

It's called evolution.

Nature seems to think the human race is more adaptable at surviving through obtaining and keeping close social ties. The fact the majority of humans are extroverts proves it. Obviously intelligence is important too. But a dumb extrovert is better at surviving with the help of friends than a lone intelligent human (introvert) out on his own.

Face it. Unless you can play the social game and kiss lots of ass, don't look to cutting a fat paycheck over your extroverted brethren. Unless of course, you're truly a unique and gifted geek that stand out among the rest of your peers.

Re:This is a Joke Right?

[bnenning]

Face it. Unless you can play the social game and kiss lots of ass, don't look to cutting a fat paycheck over your extroverted brethren.

Or more to the evolutionary point, getting the hot chick.

differences

[[cx]]

The biggest difference is golf is actually a sport, and you communicate face to face. WoW is a niche so small it makes lawn bowling look like a national sport.

As to say its the next way people are going to get together and hang out and schmooze it up is ridiculous, because nobody that is a real businessman wants to be dealing with people in a virtual game. If you cant look someone in the eye, why would you discuss anything serious with them?

I doubt anyone over the age of 20 even thinks this is an intelligent assumption.

WoW is the next everquest, not the next golf.

I'm sure a Diablo MMORPG will drop in 07-08 and we will all be like "Diablo is the next Golf" lolzz

Never work

[nickgrieve]

In golf, you can display your wealth and not be any good at golf, and thats fine. They can see your a man of power becasue of the car you arrived in, the dimond tiped golf shoes and the caddie with a mobile drinks bar.

But in WoW if your new to the sport, or suck at it, you'll probably find that others who have less wealth and power in the real world can and probably will, have more in the World of Warcraft... egos don't like that

Time to drag out this old chestnut:

[This Old Chestnut]

"Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has"

Non-verbal communication

[juancn]

I kind of agree with you in that aspect, but what I think is mor important is that in business talks (and all other high-stakes talks) non-verbal forms of communication play a huge role.

Tone of voice, posture, the way the eyes move and all sort of tiny little details about the way a person talks, that you unconsciously recognize are missing in WoW (and in most types of electronic communication).

It's already difficult to assess the state of mind of other people in meat-space, in an on-line game where your 'perceptions' are diminished or can be fooled by other means, it might as well become impossible.

different servers?

[h3llfish]

I've discovered that various people I run into during the course of my day play WoW, but it's impossible for me to "hang out" with them in a virtual way because they are on different servers. Even if I start a new character on my friend's server, I can't run with him, because I'll be a rank noob while he's got 3 epics already.

So the analogy isn't perfect, as many other replies have already said. BUT, I could easily see groups of people who work at the same company gaming together on a regular basis. And if one of those folks happened to be your boss, that would be a major advantage you would have over your non-gamer coworkers. So everyone who is spitting up on themselves about how imperfect this analogy is should probably chill out, and go find out what server their boss is on.

Re:Not Gonna Happen!

[Kadin2048]

I don't think WoW works as a "golf like" game because (at least the part I've played with other people) involve the long stretches of doing nothing that you need in order to prompt conversation. When you're playing golf, especially if it's with a couple of people, you spend most of your time either walking or standing around, meaning you have lots of opportunities to talk. Plus you might have drinks at the club afterwards, etc etc. I just don't see WoW as being conducive to that.

The only game/sport I've done that I think fills the role of golf (for some) is trap shooting. It has most of the same elements -- potentially very slow paced, provides ample opportunities to throw your own game if you're doing better than the boss, lots of standing-around when done in a group, etc. It also has a certain stratifying/filtering effect -- although a basic one doesn't cost much, high-end trap guns can get terribly expensive, so it provides people a way to show off a little if they've got dough, and some trap clubs are not dissimilar to country clubs in terms of having a social atmosphere and elitism (by virtue of being very expensive and/or having a limited number of membership slots that are handed down from one member to another). That's not to say that you can't be involved in the sport without those aspects, but they definitely are there for people that want them.

I'm sure other people can think of similar sports that provide the same things. The only downside to trap as a "business sport" is that (assuming you play safely -- I am willing to bet people in generations past did not) the hearing protection does make it difficult to talk without being rather loud. Although the way I've seen some people play, they don't spend a whole lot of time actually shooting. :-)

Re:Unrealistic representation of a game

[cgori]

If you are in a high-end raiding guild, you can find out a -lot- about someones leadership ability, I assure you.

How they handle adversity, boredom, burnout, etc. is very critical to the success of the guild, especially when you get to BWL-type raiding (or even putting MC on farm status).

We (as one of these guilds) have seen all these problems and more. Running a high-end raiding guild means coordinating 40-80 people's schedules (for MC/BWL/ZG/WorldBoss/etc), getting them to show up dependably and on-time, having a reasonable system for rewarding the members, convincing them to continue to work at an encounter after 6 hours and countless wipes, and managing what most "real" businesses call a supply chain. Except ours consists of Greater Fire Protection Pots, Flasks of Titans, and Dark Iron Ore.

Personally I can tell the difference between people who could be directors or managers that you would want to work for in an IT/Engineering context and those that would have people quitting in droves. Wouldn't that be a useful thing to know in your Engineering organization?