The Funeral of WoW Gold

In a famous scene in the first Matrix movie, a character takes a bite out of a juicy steak. He knows it’s not real, but enjoys it anyway. In some ways, a video game — just moving pixels on the screen — is a similar virtual reality experience. No, the aliens in Halo 3 are not real, but we pretend they are. That is how a game can pull you from a living-room couch into a foreign realm.
For some, though, video games are too compelling — too addictive. The warning signs are obvious: compulsive playing, scorning friends and family in the real world, an inability to think about other subjects. Ten million people have signed up to play the PC role-playing game world of Warcraft In Halo 3, the wildly popular first-person shooter for Xbox 360, almost 7 billion people have been killed online since its debut, and 11 million die each day, according to ITwire.com.
Sobering statistics? Or maybe just a lot of people having a really good time?
Whichever view you hold, the fact remains that video game addiction is a real problem. According to Kimberly Young, who wrote the book Caught in the Net, online games like World of Warcraft can be more addictive than single-player video games; collaborative elements and chat features make it especially hard to put the controller down. A first step is to just admit the problem. One site, WoWdetox, acts as a community support group for players who want to quit the habit. Users post their pleas, rants, and stories.

Many posters on WoWdetox decry the value of the game compared to real life: “Over half a year wasted,” says one. “Please God, somebody help me, I don’t know what to do,” says another. A few explain that they have decided to cut down, not quit cold turkey; some aim to play only 30 minutes per day. I asked Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, to comment on the problem, but they did not return emails inquiring about WoW addiction.
“WoW addiction is a problem as it can interfere with people’s real-life relationships and responsibilities,” says Jessie Johnson, who runs WoWdetox. “Not only that, but real life seems to take a back burner to WOW for just about everything except the bare necessities for some people.”
If you think you might be addicted to video games, you can find information and (offline) counseling centers via the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery.
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Cynthia Murdock caught the “world of Warcraft
” bug from her husband, and at first it was just a matter of survival. Brad, Cynthia’s husband, had played the hugely popular video game for years before he introduced his wife to it in 2007, when an expansion of the game, “World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade,” was introduced. “When we first started dating, I didn’t play, and he played a lot,” recalled Cynthia. “I started playing because I got sick of just lying around watching TV and trying to crochet.”Besides, noted Brad, “We’re sitting side by side while we’re playing, so we can talk to each other. We’re talking about what we’re doing and how our day was while we’re playing.” (Here’s how serious they are about the game: They’ve removed their dining room table and replaced it with an L-shaped desk capable of supporting two computers.)
Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard Entertainment, the game’s developer and production company, believes he knows why couples such as the Murdocks might prefer staying in all weekend playing Warcraft to going out. “There’s a huge social element to the game. We’ve had this huge, massive community grow out of the experience,” Pearce said. “The community is really a big factor that draws people into the game and keeps them in the game as well.”For the uninitiated, “World of Warcraft” is what’s known in the trade as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG. People from all over the world participate simultaneously in these games in which participants are integral characters in a virtual world. The game has 10 million subscribers worldwide. Unlike most video games targeted at younger men, Warcraft has succeeded in bringing women to the game with a diversity of features. “It’s a social experience; it’s not just an entertainment experience,” Pearce said. In fact, many women play because of the social aspect.
“It’s real-time interaction with other people, and you’re not just sitting there fighting against some boss [enemy] that doesn’t have a brain behind it,” said Cynthia. “I really, really like playing with other people.”The latest expansion of the game, “World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King,” is rumored to be coming within the next year, although Blizzard would not give a specific release date. “We typically try to avoid launch windows until we’re pretty sure we can achieve them,” Pearce said. The Murdocks said that “World of Warcraft” has brought them closer together and saved them a ton of money (wow gold ) in the process. Of course, some wives of gamers aren’t buying. Michael Akers, a waiter at a Kennesaw, Ga. , restaurant, prefers to wait for his wife to fall asleep before logging into the “World of Warcraft.” A self-described recluse, Akers seldom ventures out of the house, other than to go to work, but he still wants to be connected to the outside world. Playing the game allows him to do that. “My friends all know that I don’t like talking on the phone or going to parties. I’m a bit of a hermit,” Akers said. Akers has yet to persuade his wife, Andrea, to purchase an L-shaped desk for their dining room and pull up a chair alongside him to play the game. “It’s funny, because her twin sister plays world of Warcraft
with her husband all the time,” he said by phone.Los Angeles Times
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