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Warcraft Destroys Marriages

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By aeon | Sat, 2008-02-16 20:57
A 28 year-old woman known as Jocelyn (who briefly worked for Blizzard) has divorced her husband of six years after he became so obsessed with World of Warcraft that he ignored her and caused her marriage to crumble.

"He would get home from work at 6:00, start playing at 6:30, and he'd play until three a.m. Weekends were worse -- it was from morning straight through until the middle of the night," said Jocelyn. "It took away all of our time that we spent together. I ceased to exist in his life."

Jocelyn bought the game for her husband in Christmas of 2004, and by May the game had disrupted their relationship. That September she moved out after he stopped paying bills and doing housework, and ignored her.

"I had set aside 30 minutes for us to watch a television show together, and he couldn't," said Jocelyn. "He was stuck on a raid, and completely failed to understand why I was upset."

"I'm real, and you're giving me up for a fantasy land," she said. "You're destroying your life, your six-year marriage, and you're giving it up for something that isn't even real."

Jocelyn, who briefly worked for Blizzard, added "They 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."

Read the entire story here

I designed this t-shirt not so long ago after hearing about WOW addiction ruining relationships.

Do you have any experience with WOW or addiction to other online games causing relationship problems? Chime in below!

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Submitted by Tzuriel on Sun, 2008-02-17 03:57.

I always chime in first, but I guess that's just part of being a college student (no kids, hehe).

Anyway, my mom actually works as a teacher assistant, helping out a lot of kids with poor or dysfunctional families. I remember her telling me one time of one such kid, who was going through 4th grade for the 3rd time. He told her that his parents spend all day playing warcraft on the computer, and barely pay any attention to their kids at all. They get mad at him if he interrupts their play, they take it out on their kids when they're stupid enough to kill of their characters, etc. And this isn't just some sob story told by a creative kid with a need for attention. He has barely any clothing - and it's always dirty cause his mother never washes it. Heck, he was given a coat by his teacher. A couple days later, it was dirty, and has remained so ever since. I understand the whole thing about people doing this to themselves, that you can't blame the game, but that's bull crap when it gets this bad. It's like saying crack is only addictive when you let it be. This stuff is meant to be addictive, it's meant to use up all your time, to suck your money right out of your pocket, what with expansions, and little extras you can buy. It's pathetic, and it's disgusting. I'm all for entertainment, especially roleplaying. But my roleplaying ends, eventually, my roleplaying doesn't dominate my life and keep me from living. This stuff does.

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Submitted by Lorthyne on Mon, 2008-02-18 02:46.

I'll have to disagree, here. Granted, people do get addicted, and they certainly shouldn't, but I would have to say that people who allow a video game to ruin marriages didn't have their priorities straight in the first place. The WoW addiction is not the problem, its a symptom of an already screwed-up life. These people are the same type of people who commit suicide because their Vampire LARP character is killed, or that log thousands of hours into beating Final Fantasy VII while adhering to the Solo Character, Initial Equipment, No Materia, No Accessories, No Escape guildeline. (see http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/game/197341.html for similarly ridiculous "challenges"). These games are not meant to be played in this way, but people take them to extremes. These particular instances of "Warcraft runied my life" are just more apparent than obessive behavior linked to other forms of entertainment because WoW is a lot more accessible and legal than, say, heroine.

I also have a hard time with the idea that Blizzard builds WoW to be addictive. I could see them making it enjoyable, but addictive? Blizzard gets paid the flat rate for unlimited usage per month, which means that a casual player spends just as much in dollars as the hardcore, 20+ hours a week player. I don't see a true benefit to creating a game that's designed speciically to make people spend that much time on it. Any product that is designed to be so addictive that its consumer loses their job is a poorly designed product (it's hard to get paid if your primary consumers are deadbeats).

Also, interestingly enough, one of the stated design goals for the most recent expansion was to make the game more accessible to casual players, evidenced in the fact that in a recent patch, experience point rewards for low-level quests have been doubled. If Blizzard was intending this to be a crack-inspired video game, they would make it harder to reach the endgame, not easier.

I do have some examples. I picked up WoW shortly after its original release, and played it for just under a year before dropping it because I wasn't getting enough enjoyment to warrant paying $15 a month. I've recently picked it back up, (now that my paycheck can support that), again playing casually, and I haven't found it at all addictive.

Similarly, I have a friend who was a hardcore WoW player, became "rogue leader" (a title that always makes me smile, if only because of the Star Wars geek in me) for his guild, and was for a long time ranked as #7 in worldwide, cross-server PvP. He decided it wasn't worth the time, and now he only gets on occasionally to mess around in PvP arenas. In fact, the only reason he's still registered is because one of his former guildmates won the lottery, and is currently paying for his account. I know it sounds like I'm making this whole thing up, but I swear by it.

These aren't the actions of addicts. Lots of people have problems fitting into mainstream society, and the fact that they chose Warcraft over real life doesn't make Warcraft an evil game, it just makes them messed up people. Dungeons and Dragons had the same bad rap back in the 80's because a select few number of people took it to an obessive extreme.

Besides, it's a lot better to be addicted to WoW than to any street drug. Your fix only costs you $15 for unlimited usage for a month, it doesn't have any direct physical downsides, and pregnant mothers who use WoW won't screw up their baby's life until at least after birth. At least the addicts are interacting and befriending others who share their addiction. It's like heroine and Alcoholics Anonymous, all rolled into one tight little package ;)

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Submitted by Tzuriel on Mon, 2008-02-18 19:09.

You've got a good point, Lorthyne. As I said before, a big part of it is the people - you've gotta have the addictive personality. But there's no doubt in my mind that Warcraft and other games are made to be addictive. Every game out there is made to be addictive. It's not that they think it'll get them more money (once it's bought it's bought), but people that put so much into a product want people to enjoy it, to really spend time on it. I know I would if I spent so much time creating a world like that. I'd wanna make a world where the people in it are constantly thinking about it, constantly wanting to play it. Even D&D and a lot of table-top rpgs are built that way - you want people to enjoy and love your product, and that means making it almost addictive. It's no mistake that there's 80 billion options for your character, campaign, NPCs, setting, etc. It's meant to make you buy as much as possible, spend as much time as possible.

As for what you said concerning that recent expansion, it's easy to see how that can be seen as addictive. It's just like a crack dealer giving first-timers a premium on their goods - you get em hooked with the cheap stuff, then, when they need it, ramp up the price. That's not necessarily what Blizzard is doing here, but it's a tried and true marketing scheme. They get people quickly over the initial frustration of being a weak noob, so they can glory in their dreams of conquest and power. Games like warcraft, and most video games period, are made to make the gamer feel powerful, to make the gamer feel important. That's what makes them addictive. So here, Blizzard is just carrying it's people over the initial rough stages into the true fun.

Of course it's not as bad as heroin. But that's a poor comparison. Just cause something's not as bad as something else doesn't mean it should be ignored. It's like comparing Iraq to the Apocalypse and saying, because it's not the Apocalypse, we should ignore it. It's a problem and it's needs to be fixed. Frankly, however, you can't argue that Warcraft is keeping these people away from heroin, as they have the kind of personality that would keep them off the streets, anyway. It's a different kind of addiction - heroin makes you feel happy, as well as building a biological need, but WoW makes you feel powerful, important. They satisfy two different needs.

For instance, I have a good friend who is frankly, addicted to computers. He has the personality for it, this tendency to addiction (he's never had drugs as far as I can tell, but he's been addicted to a number of things), and this doesn't help. Last I heard, he spent all day long on WoW. When he wasn't working, he was on that. It's true that he would be spending his time on the computer anyway, but it doesn't help at all. It's made to be like this. It's made to trap people like this. All games are. When I'm in the middle of a good game, I feel a drive to play it and finish the story, like right now with Mass Effect. They're designed this way. There's no doubt about it.

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Submitted by foltor on Tue, 2008-02-19 02:43.

I am a recovering WoW addict. It's not WoW, it's me. Mostly. I was only able to quit because of a computer malfunction that lasted long enough for me to regain some sanity and pul the plug.

I have the personality type for it. I'm the kind of person who will play Minesweeper (if nothing better is available) for hours on end to avoid the problems in my life. If it wasn't WoW it would be anime or alcohol or figurine painting or porn or Robert Jordan or drugs or any of the thousand things our civilization offers as an escape from the grind of our lives.

What makes MMO's particularly dangerous is that they never end. I played Neverwinter Nights for about forty-eight hours straight, but then I'd beaten the game with a couple of different reace/class combos with and without NPC help. I was done with it, and it could no longer exert a profound influence on me. WoW (and EverCrack before it) offer almost endless possibilities for exploration and conquest, and if you're anything less than the most hardcore player, you will not be finished with one expansion before they release the next. Like real RPGs, there is no way to 'win' - you can keep going forever. It provides a surrogate goup of players as obsessive as you are, so you're never hindered by others' schedules. It's a surrogate job, a surrogate peer group, a surrogate family - it fills most all the needs of real relationships, except you're also significantly cooler, richer, and improve in an explosion of golden light in quantifiable ways by solving tidy problems. It's better than life - who wouldn't get addicted to that?

WoW is also very shiny for some of us. I pine for it sometimes still.

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Submitted by relliott on Wed, 2008-02-20 01:01.

I tend to dislike MMOs, not because of the content, but because of the players. I played WoW briefly on a private server and I liked it a lot. I tried WoW using a trial CD, and I absolutely hated it due to the idiocy of the general player base.

I have a tendency to get addicted to MUDs; one in particular. I try to limit myself on my involvement with it to a certain degree, just because I'm married and know that I would spend all of my time there if given the chance.

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Submitted by Tzuriel on Wed, 2008-02-20 20:34.

Well, good for you, foltor, for pulling the plug. I gotta say, there's a lot in me that tends to go hardcore on things, and that's why I'm staying as far away from WoW as I can. I go hardcore with games that end, with movies, books, traditional rpgs. The amount of time I spend on D&D alone is really bad, not to mention all my other distractions. So, I get where you're coming from foltor.

However, while you can blame a person's personality so much, you have to sling some blame at the game and those who made it. With any addictive thing, there has to be something addictive about it in the first place to get people addicted. Minesweeper is one thing, WoW is another. It's like comparing beef and crack. Yeah, you can have people who eat way too much stake. But it's not nearly as bad as the other. Well, that's my view, anyway.

Don't bash Minesweeper, man. That's my calm down game - it doesn't matter if you lose. ;)

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you notice a well hidden secret message! +50 experience points. yeah, I know.