The Burning Crusade begins
The World of Warcraft expansion The Burning Crusade has been unleashed upon the world today. This $40 expansion pack (the most expensive expansion I’ve ever seen) augments the game currently played by over 8 million subscribers worldwide. For Blizzard Entertainment, it’s a license to print money. It’s basically a required purchase for any of the people who are seriously into the game, so it’s going to sell millions of copies.
If this were about a year and a half ago, you wouldn’t be seeing any of me for awhile, and then eventually I might get on here and write my first impressions and an overall review. But I’m not going to. I quit playing World of Warcraft in the middle of 2005, and I never looked back. I must admit this expansion is slightly tempting, but ultimately it’s not enough. In the six months that I played this game I played way too much of it, and I prefer to save my time for more worthwhile pursuits. Besides, I have just one more semester of college left and I have to pass all of my classes to graduate. I’m not going to screw it up over a game.
Forbes Magazine has an article on video game addiction titled “Why Video Games May Be Hard to Give Up”. They explicitly state the obvious that any video game addict would find self-evident: we get addicted to games because they satisfy deep psychological needs, not merely because they are fun.
The researchers found that the games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn’t keep gamers as interested. Players reported feeling the best when the games produced positive experiences and challenges that connected to what they knew in the real world.
And that is where the addiction comes from. The game is a little bit fun, at least when it’s new. But when you’re going through your tenth Molten Core raid, it’s not for the fun of it. It’s for all of these other things. And when all of these other things stopped really motivating me, that’s when I quit. Luckily I have a secret weapon against video game addiction: video game ADD. I just can’t play the same game for too long. I get bored, and I look for something else to play. I couldn’t be one of those people who plays World of Warcraft for years on end. Frankly, I’m rather surprised that they still have 8 million players. How many of those people are seriously addicted? How many lives are being ruined? It’s tragic.
