Why is World of Warcraft so addictive?

When Paul Sams, the COO of Blizzard (the company that makes WoW), was asked why people play World of Warcraft, his answer was a bit depressing: “How often in your everyday world do you get to feel heroic?” he said. “How often do you get to step into a world and do something big and meaningful? People need an escape from ordinary life. It’s just something people need.”

What’s implicit in this statement is that our normal lives just aren’t good enough. Our life in WoW and other MMOs seem fundamentally better than our real lives.

But not only do we feel like we’re accomplishing something meaningful and significant, there’s a huge community attraction that’s praised by almost everyone I talk to about why they play WoW.

Thirty-year-old Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates writes about his former WoW addiction and says this:

What I came to understand was that WoW was not necessarily an escape, but a surrogate for a community that is harder and harder to find in the real world. I lived further from my parents and siblings than my parents had. I wasn’t raised in the church. In my 20s, I built a shocking amount of community around illicit substances and bars. But with age and a child, that was no longer as attractive or even possible. Into that void, I brought WoW, which instantly connected me with the world—not just mine, but others I could never have imagined or found on my own…. [Now that I’ve quit playing WoW] I miss my guild, Gnomeland Security, a loose cross-section of military guys, history majors, high school students, writers and singers. They were the place where everyone knew my name.

Community might be the number one aspect of MMOs that keeps players coming back for more — to earn a reputation and be accepted by other people.

Through many weeks of brainstorming and even analyzing some of my own attractions to the MMO game, Guild Wars, here’s a list of why I think the MMO gaming genre can become so addictive:

• You can be the best in the world at something.
• Because you are the best, you become valued and needed by your guild and others in the game.
• You are able to earn the admiration and respect of other players and thus make a name for yourself.
• There is a high level of aggression, which feeds a constant flow of adrenaline.
• You have complete ownership over building your character into whoever/whatever you want him/her/it to be (unlike other games that only give you a selection of characters to choose from, like sports games). You develop the character’s strengths and weaknesses, craft armor, build weapons, learn skills, perfect those skills, and, in some cases, even develop their unique personalities. It makes you feel that you have a unique identity, that you’re different and special from everyone else in a crowded world.
• There is a rewarding and satisfactory feeling of conquering and achieving something difficult.
• Interest in the paranormal and supernatural and controlling aspects of them for your advantage is very intriguing to teenagers and young adults. (Christianity even plays off this sometimes, too, doesn’t it?)
• Death is never the end or “game over,” it’s only a development of character or an annoyance, which feeds an internalized feeling of invincibility.
• The only laws/limitations are the laws of physics and sometimes even they can be overcome.
• Fantasy is always attractive. Everyone has fantasies and imaginations to explore and carry out.
• Relationships between real-life people abound and thrive in these online communities.
• All the women are beautiful and all the men are handsome.
• There are no families, only guilds and clans (of real-life people) that adopt members based on skill level, achievements and common goals. Thus, there is again pressure to excel and surpass everyone else.
• The feeling that you’re actually making a difference as the enemy is defeated/eliminated/forced to submit.
• There is no sleep, no need to rest, only the need to be better and stronger.
• There is no mourning, only revenge.
• Strategy and critical thinking are required to outwit and ultimately defeat your opponent. Victory does not always belong to the strongest — it often goes to the smartest and most knowledgeable. (A very attractive aspect for the little guys in real life who are often picked on or feel physically inferior.)

[ Read other “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians” in this series ]

[tags]World of Warcraft, MMORPG, MMO, spirituality[/tags]

What are MMO games?
According to Wikipedia, “A massively (or massive) multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG is a multiplayer computer role-playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the Internet.”

In my own words, MMOs are unique to all other game genres because they are totally based on community. Literally hundreds of thousands of players interact together in real-time in a virtual world. They form little groups and fight battles together, search for treasure and valuable items, and sometimes even intentionally serve as a nuisance to other players. Sub-communities called “clans” or “guilds” are formed as people commit to fight alongside each other, help each other and work toward common goals together. In a clan everyone is (usually) important because everyone brings unique characters with specific skills and abilities that are necessary for defeating the opponents, whether that be a virtual monster in a quest/mission or a fight against people in another guild. Because these guilds consist of characters played by real people, behind the scenes you’ll find a lot of the same drama that often take place in real-life communities (called “e-drama” in the gaming community).

Here’s an example of an in-game look at Guild Wars. (Click the image to see it full-size.) All the people you see standing around represent other real-life people sitting in front of their computer playing in the virtual world at the same time I am. I can privately or publicly interact with any of these people. In the example of this picture, everyone is dancing together to celebrate the end of a successful beta testing event. (See the one guy even doing an in-air cartwheel!)

[ Read other “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians” in this series ]

[tags]World of Warcraft, MMORPG, MMO, spirituality[/tags]

A couple months ago a question showed up in my Inbox (paraphrased):

“What is the game, World of Warcraft? I am in contact with a parent who has a son who is “addicted” to it (4 to 5 hours daily). How can I understand and place this game in a Christian context?”

World of Warcraft (known in the gaming community as “WoW”) and other Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) can be a source of confusion for those who are unfamiliar with the gaming genre, especially for Christians who are sensitive about the spiritual overtones of hexes, spells and enchantments. Over the next several days I’ll attempt to answer some common questions concerning World of Warcraft and MMOs in general, including:

• What are MMO games?
• What is World of Warcraft?
• Why are MMOs addictive?
• Are there any positive aspects of MMOs?
• What are the negative aspects of MMOs?
• What is an appropriate amount of time to spend playing WoW?
• What about the curses and hexes involved? Is this demonic warfare and does it desensitize players to true evil in the world?
• Is this whole place an area that demonic strongholds can affect a person’s life in reality?
• Should a Christian play World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs?

If you have other additional questions you’d like to see included in this series, please feel free to contact me.

I should mention that I personally do not play World of Warcraft due to the $15/month subscription fee and the intensive amount of time required to accomplish anything significant, but I do play quite a bit of Guild Wars, a game that falls into the same genre as WoW. The two games are very similar in many ways, but my purpose here is not to compare and contrast the two games. Rather, I’d like to address the MMO genre in a Christian context.

[ Read other “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians” in this series ]

[tags]World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, MMORPG, MMO, spirituality[/tags]