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Harmless

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There are horror stories out there of people who become addicted to online (and offline) games. Some people have lost their jobs, dropped out of school, had their marriages end in divorce, and traded a real world social life for a virtual one.

Though World of Warcraft often gets the finger pointed at them these days, other MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) have suffered from the same bad reputation. Everquest was often referred to as Evercrack', Ultima Online had its share of addicted players, and hundreds of other lesser-known games have their share of addicts.

Back in the late 1990's, before graphics-intense games came along, MUD's existed. These were text-based roleplaying games similar to the MMORPGs of today. I used to play one where one of the main goals was to get to the highest level possible. Once you reached this goal, you could remort', a term which meant that you'd start over again at level one but your character would be slightly more powerful this time around. A character could remort over and over again resulting in an endless cycle of leveling. Most players were content to go at a plodding or moderate pace but there was one character who left everybody else in the dust. Rumors circulated about him. Was it five different people playing one character?' some wondered. Others heard that he would delete his character in an attempt to break the addiction and then get the moderators to reinstate his character after a week or two. Addicts do exist in the gaming world.

But, for the average player, World of Warcraft and games like it are simply a harmless form of entertainment. Out of its 10 million subscribers, a very small percentage of players exhibit these behaviors. Most people play it for two or three hours a day. They may participate in a raid or chat with friends or just take their time slowly leveling to the level cap and exploring the game world.

There's another point as well, though. I suspect MMORPG players may come under more attack than other addictions because of how they're played. One of the most effective ways to improve your character in World of Warcraft is done through raiding or "running instances". A group of 5-40 characters fight their way through a dungeon until they either "wipe" and call it a day or reach the end boss and defeat it. These instances can take anywhere between one to six hours.

Now, here's the important point. Since it's often difficult to find a group member who's willing to replace your spot, it's hard to simply stop in the middle of one of these instances . At least not without a tremendous amount of guilt for abandoning the other 4-39 players who have already battled through part of the dungeon. Family members and friends who don't understand the nature of online play may accuse somebody who only plays 10-15 hours/week of being an addict. It's easy to put down a book or tape the rest of the television show or pause the single-player console game. And that's not at all true when you've finished 3/4 of Karazhan.

While I'm not excusing the true addicts for their behavior, the average person can handle their impulse control perfectly fine.

Learn more about this author, Kayla Weller.
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