Massively Addictive

We spoke to one former Warcraft player who experienced MMO addiction first-hand. Splint, as he asked us to call him, is a well-spoken 20-year-old man who habitually played World of Warcraft from its release in November 2004 until he finally quit last December, just before the release of The Burning Crusade. He was the lynchpin of his guild, which numbered some 70 people, and spent much of his time organizing "raids," assembling large groups of guild members to tackle a particularly tough dungeon or enemy.

How much time is that? Splint owns up: "By the time I finally quit, I had 180 days donated to Blizzard." That playtime took him just over two years to accumulate, meaning his account was logged into the game for nearly one hour in every four. "My friends barely ever saw me. I'd turn down work if it'd run heavily into raid time, and I encouraged my guildmates to do the same."

Splint and his guild kept a heavy schedule. "When the final dungeon before the expansion first hit, [we raided] every night. Every single night, just so we could say we did it first." He'd often skip meals to avoid inconveniencing the group. "If we didn't eat in time, we'd wait until after raiding," he says -- and that could be as long as six hours.

He's keen, too, to share stories of the devastating effects Warcraft addiction had on other players. "One guy turned down a college scholarship because he wasn't ready to go yet. Another had to sell his computer to pay rent, but he continued to play from a friend's house." Another still was forced into marriage counseling (where he and his wife struck a healthy-sounding compromise: no more than 16 hours of Warcraft a week).

Splint doesn't have much trouble explaining the irresistible draw of Warcraft's fantasy world. "It's an escape from reality," he told us. "When you're a retail jockey, you're nobody. When you're Captain 'Purple Items' with the best gear around, you're looked up to. People ask you for advice, encourage you to 'keep up the good work,' or just gush at your equipment in comparison to theirs."

He also lays some portion of the blame at the feet of the game's creator, Blizzard Entertainment, for structuring the game to encourage such heavy addiction. Once your character reaches the game's maximum level -- currently level 70 -- the time commitment required to keep advancing "skyrockets," as he put it. "When you master the game, another patch is released and your work is now obsolete."

Shortly before he quit the game, Splint and some of his guildmates began to question the amount of time they were spending in the game's world. "We compared stories of missing important events to make time for the game, and we sort of sat back and realized how ridiculous it was. We called it our 'WoW Support Group.' It was sort of a joke then, but it's not too far from the truth. They were a large part of the reason I quit."