Slashdot Mirror
40 Percent of World of Warcraft Players Addicted
Heartless Gamer writes "MMORPGs and game addiction. If you're suffering from dry eyes, headaches, back aches, erratic sleep patterns, it may be more than just your average hangover: according to Dr. Maressa Orzack, you could be suffering from video and computer game addiction. A clinical psychologist, Orzack is founder and coordinator of Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital in Newton, Mass., and is also an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Computer Addiction Services is one of the few outpatient clinics in the U.S. that provides specific treatment for game addiction." but I'm feelings much better now.
now excuse me while I go on my first of 5 weekly, 3hr long raids
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
The actual % varies but I think it floats at about 99.40%.
This is purely speculation mind you.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This is news...why? We all know it's addictive, that's kinda the point to these games; To make them as addictive as possible.
So the real story here is that only 40% of the people playing are addicted. This indicates to me that
1) Blizz isn't doing their job correctly if they are capturing under half the population in this way
2) These docs need a new yaht
3) The study is bogus and was carried out incorrectly, invalidating the results.
Guess which one I'm a fan of? ( that's right, all three, for those of you keeping score at home )
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Personally I refuse to play games like World Of Warcraft, because I know I would be sucked up in them in no time. It's too risky for me
When I found out that my brother in law bought the game I warned him about the game. He shrugged it off. He's only 14 (my wife is 11 years older) and he clearly has no control. He lives alone with his mother, has done allnighters, has already skipped school because of the game but his grades seem still to be unaffected. His mother has no idea what to do because she has absolutely no idea about anything related to computers. When I suggested she'd take away the DSL router, hell broke loose. I think she gave it back after a mere 2 days because his behaviour became unmanagable. He didn't come to the last BBQ we organized. He spends all his days (and nights, I guess) behind his computer playing WoW.
The thing is: I can't critisize him all that much. When I was his age, I was all the time using my computer. Playing Test Drive (CGA version) for hours, or programming in Pascal. It just depended on my mood. Still, it was much easier to break away from it because there was no social component.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
If you're suffering from dry eyes, headaches, back aches, erratic sleep patterns, it may be more than just your average hangover: according to Dr. Maressa Orzack, you could be suffering from video and computer game addiction.
Or perhaps you're just in need of a new monitor?
You say that like it's a bad thing....
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
...Just as long as it does't affect my raid schedule. I need that DKP, you know. And if Elementium Reinforced Bulwark drops while I'm not there, I'll be upset.
If you're suffering from dry eyes, headaches, back aches, erratic sleep patterns, it may be more than just your average hangover: according to Dr. Maressa Orzack, you could be suffering from video and computer game addiction.
/cast Abolish Disease
/dance
No problem.
And all this time I thought it was my three year old giving me the headaches and sleep problems...
This is very true. I played in a small raiding guild. When I quit, I had been playing that character for 9 months. I had 7/8 tier 2 gear. For about 2 months prior to quitting, I wasn't even enjoying it. I was showing up because we had a schedule and we had to make it. Systems are in place in major guilds to perpetuate that (DKP/Loot Priority/etc). So I was spending 20-30 hours a week playing a game I was bored of.
Now I've quit. But I still read all the WoW news, I read my guild's website and forums regularly, and I still have the account. I even consider if I'm going to play again when the expansion hits. I haven't played for over 2 months, and I'm still thinking about it many times a week.
That alone is probably enough reason to never play it again.
While I don't like to see friends suffer any addictions they're getting by just fine. My only concern is that politicians will use these statistics to legislate gaming. There's no direct evidence that violence in games leads to violence in real life. But if they can use the valid label "addiction" and quantify it who knows what kind of crazy legislation they may try to pass. Any negative word they can apply to gaming is fuel for their pointless causes.
Maybe I'm going overboard. But it angers me to no end when I see one of my senators giving BS speeches about how games should be regulated.
Developers: We can use your help.
My brother lost his job 5 weeks ago. He's been playing WoW for about a year prior to his layoff, and his addiction to game did not cause him to lose his job.
He has no motivation to go and look for a job, he only eats maybe once a day, and his house is pig sty.
He came by yesterday asking for $150 to pay his rent or he was going to be kicked out. I loaned him $40 two weeks ago, and I am sure that he used that towards his cable bill or his WoW account.
He looks like a crack or meth addict (having been around those types of people myself), and he doesn't care about anything but playing that damn game.
I almost got into to playing that game shortly after he started a year or so ago. I am glad I have not purchased the game, and I have no interest in WoW after seeing my brother play the game for three days straight with no sleep (yellow jackets were used to keep himself awake!).
I know it's not the game that is the problem, it's the person with the addictive personality. How can we recognize, and then treat video game addiction? Is it recognized as a real problem, or are they told to just grow up? 12 steps have been proven to NOT work for ALL people, and my brother is one of them.
"Fortunately, I'm adhering to a very strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber..."
"Doctor with vested interest makes sensational statement to support business model" shocker.
"I once counted to a million. Missed the entire Ford Administration. But I'm feeling much better now."
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
"RW: What about self control and willpower? Should players take some responsibility for their heavy play? Dr. Orzack: This isn't about willpower or restraint. These games are very elaborately designed to ease you in gently, entice you, and keep you there. And it's a cycle: people begin to spend too much time playing and their careers and personal relationships begin to deteriorate. Then they begin to withdraw more into the game because it's an escape from their real world problems" The part about willpower is completely wrong: If you exercise willpower and self control, then you can keep the addiction under control. Everything in moderation. Orzack is basically saying that no matter how we act, we will get addicted, and that is simply not true. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?
TFA:
it's a cycle: people begin to spend too much time playing and their careers and personal relationships begin to deteriorate. Then they begin to withdraw more into the game because it's an escape from their real world problems.
RW: So what's the solution?
My solution: let nature take its course. In a few generations there will be no gamers left.
I RTFA, and I didn't see anywhere that they did a poll of WoW players and came up with this statistic. It seems more like a wild assed guess than anything else. Surely there are some people addicted to WoW, but I seriously doubt the number is anywhere near as high as 40%.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
They have to be -- anyone who raids as much as they do has to be turning down sex.
In WoW it's possible to set a schedule for the playtime.
So it's easy to prevent the kids from playing at schooltime or during the night.
Check the FAQ at their site for more information.
Don't answer me. Moderate. Slashdot is about moderation, not discussion.
The question is, do the creators deliberately make them addictive? I know that there is some argument that Gambling institutions do, by making them noisy, give free food and drinks (so your body doesn't have an excuse to leave) and having lots of flashing lights.
Is there even a difference between making a game enjoyable to play to some people (easy to get learn, fun to continue) and addictive to others?
The woman is in one of the silly sciences, and almost all of what she says can be discounted, but this was interesting:
What? From the article:
A clinical psychologist, Orzack is founder and coordinator of Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital in Newton, Mass., and is also an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.
I don't even think that needs explaining, but I'll do it anyway: Clinical psychologists are probably the most pragmatic people in the social sciences (what you call the silly sciences). Her work has absolutly nothing to do with Freudian psychoanalysis (there was nothing in there about gaming addictions meaning that you want to have sex with you mother and kill your father), but instead on the scientific method.
I play WoW (yes, a real girl with boobs and everything playing WoW! Who'da thunk it!), and at first, it was kind of addicting. There was so much to explore, so many things to see and do. I think that first weekend, I played til 4 or 5 AM both nights. When I realised how unhealthy that was, I stopped, and vowed that if I EVER refused a social engagement in real life to play WoW, or neglected my real life duties for it, I'd uninstall it immediately. I'm now in a casual raiding guild (we raid once a week on Fridays), and log in at other times only to play with (local) people I know if they need some help.
But I'm one of those people who's lucky enough to not have an addictive personality. I didn't get addicted to IRC or the 'net. I can go weeks without logging into a computer outside of work without any problem. When my laptop (my only computer) crashed at home two months ago, I puttered for a few weeks before even bothering to reinstall the OS; WoW got reinstalled a few days later when I felt like it. I can even go without coffee for days on end if I choose to.
Honestly, I'm thankful for that. The LAST thing I want to be is one of those people who lives and breathes on a videogame. It's scary to think that it's so addicting; I have to wonder why, though? There's nothing physical there to draw you in. It isn't like alcohol or nicotine. Is it the social aspects? Being able to completely control your surroundings, as you can't in real life? What is it about a videogame like WoW or Everquest that sucks people in so completely that it makes them ignore friends, family, and real life?
I think, as someone who's not an addict, I'll never really understand it.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
If you were the least addicted to WoW, you would be WAY BEYIND looking for pickup groups to UBRS, lul =P
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
First, is it just me or did she seem to pull that 40% number right out of her ass? How many of the 6 million users did she interview. If you work at a place where all you see is people who are addicted then I am pretty sure you are going to think that a lot of people are addicted. Secondly, she seems to be immediately discounting true emotional problems really quickly in her example. Oh there's this 18 year old kid who plays all the time and doesn't get along with his family. Well does he not get along with his family BECAUSE he plays all the time or does he play all the time BECAUSE he doesn't get along with his family. Seems that she is not asking the question. She's an adiction specialist, of course she thinks it's an adiction. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Anything, if taken to extremes, can become an addiction. It is true that MMORPG's (World of Warcraft being far and away the more successful) encourage this. You have monthly fees that (aside from paying for the infrastructure, bandwidth, etc) entice you to play to justify the ongoing and mounting expense. Grouping makes sure you show up at given times, etc. The random rewards of epic loot in advanced dungeons is similar to random reward studies (which show it's the most powerful form of behavior shaping - see slot machines). You have to set limits on it just like anything else, whether it's drinking or TV.
However, there are some differences here to other addictions. There is no physical addiction, and hardly any psychological one. You can put it down, and other than mild obsession (what's going on in Azeroth?), it has no ill effects. Hell, you can discontinue your account, and they keep all of your character info, so you can completely unplug, and return at some point in the future when you're interested again, much like an offline game. There's also a limit - you may play a lot to reach level 60, but then you do stop. Sure, you can join raids, get gear, but the drive to constantly improve falls away (other games, like Disgaea, are far, far worse in this regard).
The most important difference is that if handled well, it can be a positive social tool. I play, but only with people I know in real life. That way we can talk about other things and it allows a set time for us to get together, without having to drive out to each other (I live over an hour away from many of them, and that's just suburban sprawl!).
Mostly, this is a lot of fuss over nothing.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
You can look forward to these types of stories getting more coverage. Mainly because the major media outlets stand to lose from non-television entertainment.
I feel like I'm reading an article from 1950 about the dangers of Rock and Roll.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
That 40% number was ripped from the daedalus project . I also doubt it's accurate since people who fill out that survey or seek help are more likely to be addicted then those who don't.
MMO addiction is nothing like a Gambling addiction. In MMO addiction you may have issues of identifying with your character, but you don't have the same harmful financial damage that a gambling addiction will cause.
Quitting MMO's is fairly easy, or at least it was for me. I just deleted WoW, and that was it. I still keep in touch with my guild via their website, which was really my only reason for playing twards the end, along with e-fame.
I was addicted to WoW. It got to the point where it was interfering with taking care of other things around the house, and occasionally paying attention to my kid. I finally quit cold-turkey a few weeks ago, and I'm glad I did. The game's fun, but it's just a game; I kept looking at it as "gotta accomplish more, gotta get all these characters to 60, etc."
One train of thought that helps kill my desire to play goes like this (it's sort of a mantra I run through every so often):
1. Wouldn't it be cool to play WoW in god mode, and have all the best equipment, skills, be able to kill everything in 1 hit, etc.?
2. Yeah, for about five minutes, but then it would get boring like god mode always does in games. It's better to accomplish things honestly, within the limits of the game.
3. Wait, accomplish? What accomplishment is there, exactly, in manipulating an interface that is essentially flipping bits on a hard drive somewhere? It's a game, it should be for entertainment; not some kind of to-do list.
4. WoW is still a little entertaining, but I've played two characters to level 60, and one each to 57, 55, 50, 48, 46, 33... I've seen pretty much all the content that doesn't require hours of raiding. Okay, I think I'm done.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
As opposed to 100% of /. readers? ;)
All games are supposed to be addictive. The symptoms stated by the article sound more like the result of overdose. I would say that what makes WoW player play the game more than they should, even when their eyes are tired for example. Is the DARN MONTHLY FEE! . I met online guys that have the need to play WoW really frequently otherwise they feel like they are wasting their money. You have to accept that 12 $us for just a few hours per week is not worth it so you better extract all the juice of it.
I hope next "service" games have an hourly fee instead of monthly, I really do
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
You just really like the game a lot.
From TFA -
RW: What about self control and willpower? Should players take some responsibility for their heavy play?
Dr. Orzack: This isn't about willpower or restraint. These games are very elaborately designed to ease you in gently, entice you, and keep you there....
How the hell does this woman stay employed? It is ONLY about willpower and restraint. ANYTHING can become an addiction. Sure, MMORPGs may be easier to become addicted to than say, brocolli, but I'm sure it can happen. However, neither are a problem if you can maintain some restraint. The difference between people like you, and the 14 year old who skips school to play, is that you have the self control to pull yourself away. It is ALL about the self control.
Why can't they make raids scale to the number of people in them? So if 20 people show up, the difficulty is 20. If 40 people show up, the difficulty is 40. That way, there is no requirement for people to stay in the raid, and no requirement that people HAVE to show up. Whoever has free time can join in, and whoever doesn't have free time doesn't have to join in. There is no way that that is too difficult to impliment.
FTFA: "I think there needs to be warning labels on MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, similar to warning labels on cigarettes. People should know that these games are potentially harmful."
t m
Comparing a video game to tobacco on any level is one of the most irresponsible analogies I have ever heard anyone in the medical community make. When a video game starts to have even 1/10th the social impact as cigarettes then maybe, just maybe, we should revisit this ridiculous topic. By most estimates tobacco kills approximately 1 million people just in the U.S. per year. And according to the CDC costs about $92 billion in lost productivity. http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/Media/pressrel/r050630.h
Trust me, I am fully aware of the "dangers" involved with gaming addictions. For me it resulted in C's and D's for two semesters in college while hooked on a MUD back in the early ninety's. But getting a bad GPA because I cannot pull myself away from the monitor to go to class and huffing gasoline or Krylon are two completely different animals.
"All those moments, will be lost in time...like tears in rain..."
Now, excuse me while I grind up the installation DVD and snort the powder like crack.
Current State: Pirates > Cowboys + Ninjas + Robots Yarrrr
Come on, the "founder and coordinator of Computer Addiction Services" thinks gamers suffer from Video Game addiction? Guess what? If you report those symptoms to a chiropractor he's going to have a different prescription for you! I don't doubt that there are a lot of similarities between addiction to drugs/pills/alcohol and excessive gaming, but this is absurd. I do think that the idea of "video game addiction" is interesting, but I think "addiction" is the wrong word.
I was spending every possible moment I could playing the game. I mostly enjoyed it but like you said I was neglecting everything else so I finally decided it was time to stop and pulled the plug. To prevent any relapse I gave my account to my guild and the toon was butchered to the point of no return.
About 3 months after I quit I started a mage on a friends account which I play maybe 3-4 hours a month. (no raiding)
Blizzard actually help me quit because I got so pissed off that I couldn't progress past rank 10 in a reasonable amount of time. I mean with a full time job and family, how can I compete with the college kids that are skipping class and playing in shifts. I was even in our top pvp group for a couple months.
Using wowguru's calculator it would have taken me 8 weeks of #1 to get to high warlord. I can't imagine how many weeks it would take to get to warlord in the top 15-20 spot.
Anyway, it was a blast, we were 5 capping ab in minutes but on my server pvp competition was fierce and even 200,000+ honor barely moved but a couple percentage points each week.
We'd even 5 cap naked (in-game) just to be idiots.
With no way to pause progression, one can't even go on a vacation without adding weeks or months of "work" to get back to where they were.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Being a college student when the alpha and beta came out, I was easily able to manage life, school, and wow while no raiding content was in the game. Though, the seeds of addiction were already present in the beta. I would stand in the city, with nothing to do in game other than talk or make money, which was certainly going to be wiped upon release. I did not care though, I kept making money in a game instead of taking another shift at work.
At age 20, when retail came out, I found myself the leader of what was going to become a dominate guild on the server. It is not to hard when you and your buddies know everything about the game from beta - so we leveled, as a group, very quickly, drawing attention and interest from all the soon-to-be addicts.
From that point on, almost everything was second to wow. I had an online legacy to solidify and maintain! WoW consumed every free hour of my time and I went as far as to restructure my life around my gaming. Now that is not normal or healthy. I still went to class and passed with good grades, but only because I was able to make the raid times being guild leader. Raids are almost always a nightly occasion, leaving day classes a possibility. Of course, I planned those classes that way - I needed to have my nights 5pm - 3am free for gaming!
While leading this guild which raided every single day (Ony, MC, Rag, outdoor) at the time, I had a legion of 100 addicts in my guild. Addicts. Almost every single one played every day for several hours. The biggest concern in our guild was the hardcore players wanting to cut the casual players so we could "cut the dead weight." I was in favor of having a better environment/community in the guild though, so I let the casual players stay, but we arranged some raiding changes to make sure they did not get priority over an addict.
Having ran this guild for a while, I was exhausted from all the drama and logistics of running it. As a friend said, I flew to close to the sun and got burnt out. True be told, my reluctance to continue the drama was not the main reason for quiting, but the complete collapse of my social life and financial situation. I maintained a girlfriend through all of this, which was not easy for her to do. She was a longtime girlfriend and was with me as I gradually became an addict. She gave me the ultimatum of her or WoW and I never played again.
Since then we have split for completely unrelated issues, but I honestly fear the game. It requires massive time investments to advance in a game which has no end. That is the problem. Millions are playing a game with no end. Since leaving I found I enjoy FPS games much more now. I can join a server and play 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 round, 3 maps - whatever I want - There is no requirement to stay for any length of time. Even when on a team and you need to be around for scrims or matches, you have weeks of notice, you can reschedule, have alternates, and they only last an hour.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
The problem isn't that they're trying to make their game super-addictive for its own sake. It's that the very things they do to attract the casual players are the things that make it most addictive. There are no "addict-creating-features" as opposed to "casual-features" in their game. (Certain feature probably support addicts, but that's after the fact.) It's the casual features that are the problem for certain types of personalities.
Goes to show how WoW-centered some people are. It's actually a song from a Broadway show. The people singing are various muppets (or lookalikes). I've been trying to find that video I saw of it for ages but all I can find is that dumb WoW video which isn't half as funny. I have several friends who've disappeared into WoW to never return. If I didn't like that game before, I hate it now. One of my friends play it because her boyfriend is addicted, and thus the bad spiral continues...
Obviously a NOOB. We call them "Crits."
lvl 60 Mage REXAR
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Note that this is "40% showing signs of clinical addiction" not "40% play WoW a lot".
Personally, by these criteria I was addicted to EverQuest for long stretches, but I've never been addicted to WoW. It also says to me that Blizzard has a better business model than EQ; people forget that what a game developer wants is to sell as many subscriptions as possible, not to make people play as many hours as possible. The ideal game would have everyone subscribing and no-one actually playing; players cost you money (bandwidth, server capacity, customer service).
Indeed, Blizzard's master-stroke (from a business point of view) is having compelling instance dungeons which can only be done once per week. WoW is full of "points of diminishing return" in that, it doesn't matter how often you play, your primary toon can only do the current bleeding-edge instance once-per-week. Obviously, the truly addicted max out multiple toons, but their primary toon will only ever be able to get so far so fast. It thus follows that they only need to release one new bleeding edge dungeon every six months to keep a lot of people hooked. This is very bad from my point of view (I hate doing the same content over and over) but it's obviously working well for Blizzard.
It sounds like your mother-in-law might need the services of Cesar Millan. You can reach his website here/. Your mother-in-law needs to learn to be more dominate, and your brother-in-law learns to not be such a little bitch.
What the hell is wrong with our society? I don't believe that such a thing exists as being addicted to non-narcotics (such as games, sex, your friends, a good book). I think that's just called ENJOYING LIFE.
For example: Would we have called Leonardo DaVinci addicted to science because he spent long 20 hour days cutting up cadavers or studying mechanics?
Would we have called Einstein a hopeless physics junkie?
It's called having a passion. Doing what you love. What's so bad about it?
In this work-obsessed culture we live in, if you aren't working and doing something THE MAN tells you to do, you must be doing something wrong. You don't see clinics popping up for people that work at overtime at McDonalds because they can't pay their bills -- we find it absolutely OK to not see your family most of the week because your job makes you work from 8 till 8, but when a person comes home and wants to spend 3-4 hours doing something *they want to do* you have people thinking its some sort of a disease.
I don't get it. Where are the priorities? I really am an advocate of being a professional idler and trying to get out of wage slavery. What's so bad about playing a game for 40 hours a week (something you CHOOSE to do, and ENJOY)? Compare that to working which is something you HAVE to do or else you get evicted by some property owning assholes and end up living on the streets and going crazy!
My first MMO experience was with FFXI. As painful as that game was, it sucked me in. I got to the point where I had to rely on a lot of other people to get anything done. I really hated to be a burden on others so I just gave it up. I vowed not to play another game like that again because it just sucked me in.
When WoW came along, I just ignored it. That is, until my brother stated playing. It looked like a lot of fun so I decided to join him. He stopped playing but I continued, surpassed him, and joined an end game guild. I made all the raids and was probably the most educated and was made a high ranking officer. I then not only wanted to play the game, I was obligated to be there to help run the raids. But some raids had some timing issues...and it really ticked me off. It is really hard to make me mad (unless you are family). I had to step back and say wow...I am getting pissed off at a video game. I was gaining weight and my mind was infested with thoughts of WoW. I finally had to admit to myself I was addicted (even though I did a fairly good job of keeping it under control). So a few weeks ago I told my guild I was taking a break...but, was actually quitting. I just logged off and never looked back. So, while it is addicting, it isn't as hard to give up. I am much happier now since I quit and I know that I will not touch an MMO ever again.
As much as people want to criticize this article...there is a lot of truth to it. It eases you in and as you build social relationships becomes more and more demanding. But you have to look at what you want out of life. Even if you are great and well loved in WoW, it will eventually go away and you will be left with a few people on your IM list that will fade away. Much better off spending that time on something that is more long term. While WoW is a well done game, you really have to becareful. I'd say most people who are in a raiding guild are addicted and should probably walk away. Not that I want to tell other people how to spend their freetime, just because it isn't healthy. In the same sense that I think people should give up smoking (thankfully dropping WoW is so much easier).
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
WoW is plenty fun played casually. I have a friend who still, to this day, doesn't have a level 60 character. He's close, but not there yet. And he's played since a few months after it opened. He has plenty of fun, just plays at his own pace.
If you can't do that, the problem isn't the game, the problem is you. It would be analogus as if at the gym you felt you had to keep up with everyone sports wise, even the pro or semi-pro athletes that played there. That you couldn't have fun unless you were one of the best.
So if you want to play WoW, or any game for that matter, for a couple hours a night, do it. No big deal. Just turn it off when your time is up and go about your business. Don't get all competitive and act like there's an artifical goal you've got to meet. Do what you like in the game, at the pace you want.
But don't go and blame the game if you can't do that. If you can't control the amount you play and/or if you have a need to meet some atrifical goal, that's your problem you need to figure out. Maybe you deal with it by not playing, that's a fine soltuion, but don't think it's beacuse there's something wrong with the game.
With addicts, they're going to be playing all the time. ALL the time. They'll get through the content very quickly, and complain loudly about not having more of it pumped out in each new patch. They'll also use a lot of bandwidth and server time, which Blizzard has to pay for. Chances are these addictive personalities will eventually cause them to jump ship to another MMO to get addicted to, which means less monthly fees.
There are two flaws with this argument. First, the game has built-in timesinks, grinds, and other time traps. These tasks are specifically tailored to increase the time in-game artifically. Despite all this, the addicts grind away...and when they hit the wall, they just start a new character. From scratch they do it all over again. I should know...I have 5 level 60 characters. I consider myself an enthusiast with a cyncial mindset, and I can tell you from playing the game that Blizzard is not angling towards casual gamers at ALL. Quite the opposite...their development philosophy seems to be "be hardcore, or be gone".
The second objection I have regards those level 60 characters. It takes around 240 hours to level a character to 60. Multiply that times 5 (such as in my case) and you have a HUGE investment of time. To leave the game is to lose those characters, forever. All those hours, all that time...and it's gone. I ask you, how does an addict handle this? Quite simply, they don't. They'll be signing over their Social Security to Blizzard in 40 years to keep those characters "alive". The single greatest hook that Blizzard has developed is that attachment. Every person I have spoken to that has thought of quitting has used a variant of this argument to justify continuing. Some even go so far as to continue paying the fees even though they stop playing, just in case they want to come back...and they always do. Netflix can't touch that.
And that is the perspective of a genuine WoW enthusiast. Don't get me started on their development focus...
All too true... There are quite a few people I know whose relationships have broken down over WoW. For one girl, her boyfriend wouldn't even stop playing for sex.