Tolerance, dependency and withdrawal are all ugly parts of addiction that many face when dealing with alcohol and drugs. The formal definition of addiction is a compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance. In this particular case, that need is for a video game.
Many people, through playing World of Warcraft - the massive multiplayer game commonly known as WoW - experience similar effects to those common with drug addicts.
"Don't start playing WoW or it will consume your life if you're not careful," said Matt Noble, a junior English major. Noble was logged into the game while making this cautionary statement.
Noble refers to himself as a "closet WoW addict" and does not deny the game's powerful hold on its players.
"Yes, it is very much addicting. Everquest has nothing on WoW," he said, referring to the similar multiplayer online role-playing game that premiered two years before WoW.
Noble says it was his friends who got him into the game and that he had never played any MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) before.
"I haven't played for too long. On this character I have 30 days played, not too bad," he said.
To break it down, multiplying 30 days clocked in by 24 hours in a day yields a total of 720 hours. That is play time calculated for only one of Noble's characters.
World of Warcraft literally offers its players a never-ending story, while allowing them the ability to play alongside other people from all over the world at any time of the day.
"It does get boring and repetitive at times. Boring, and yet you still play it for some odd reason," he said, as he continued to move his character onscreen.
Many gamers who play World of Warcraft become dependent on the challenges, the obsessive engrossment making it increasingly difficult to quit or stay off of the game. The need to play more and more grows as these players' characters gather more hours, seeping deeper into this virtual world of orcs, dwarves and gnomes.
Sound like a drug addiction? It's not far from possessing all the same tendencies and effects.
Withdrawal is what eventually makes overcoming addictions so hard. WoW is no exception.
"When I finally quit, it was a relief, but it took time," said Andrew Van Roo, a junior architecture major. "It left my mind blank and took time for my mind and body to recover. I felt like a zombie."
Van Roo quit playing the game on three separate occasions, discovering that a social life was more important.
"Don't play it. It's definitely not worth the time," he said. "You put more time into that game than money, and you can't get time back."
As of August 2007, Blizzard Entertainment, the World of Warcraft developer, made an announcement that their number of subscribers worldwide had reached 8 million.
Blizzard released the game's first expansion, The Burning Crusade, in January of 2007 and has announced a second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is in progress.
While the original game was large enough for people to lose themselves forever, these expansions only make the adventure deeper and the gameplay less casual.
"You can't play that game casually and expect to be involved," Van Roo said. "If you play casually, you are missing out on 90 percent of the game. You're never going to get anywhere, and the task becomes daunting when other players are way ahead of you."
One student who wished to remain anonymous admitted that he plays the game at least five to six hours each day. While Matt Noble had 30 days of playtime clocked in on one of his characters, this anonymous source claimed to have over 50 days with one character. He admitted that the game is addictive, and that its gameplay causes him to lose sleep, skip class and stay up all night playing the game and nothing else.
These instances of 30-50 days' worth of play time are nothing compared to the many players who have hundreds of days logged into the game.
The fact is that World of Warcraft is addicting and many of its players admit it. It takes time from a person's real life and deposits them into a virtual fantasy world.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
