Insight to a WOWaholic

In order to gain an insider perspective of WoW I interviewed a man who played WoW from the age of 14-16. In order to keep his confidentiality, let’s call him Ben. He first learned of WoW from Warcraft 3, the RPG that preceded WoW, when many of his online friends continued to mention the new game WoW.

Ben explained that the game was instantly engaging because the first 30 levels were fairly simply and allowed players to excel quickly. Each level completed results in higher status, better armor, weapons, and an overall stronger character. The instant level of gratification and visible progress of one’s character gives the player a level of satisfaction that is rare to come by in the physical world. WoW makes players feel important and needed through rewards and expectations. Dailies are expectations that other game players have of your character such as organizing raids, or teaching skills. As one gains more skills and advances through more levels, they begin to accumulate more daily’s which requires them to logon to the game and complete those tasks every day.

The creative and some might argue manipulative design of WoW engages players to the extent where they may feel they have greater responsibility in Azeroth than they do in the real world. Luckily for Ben his game obsession never reached this peak. Lack of social life was the main reason Ben originally joined WoW. In the realm of WoW he gained a sense of power as his character advanced because he was able to dominate, kill, and control other people.

Ben described his experience on WoW as a pseudo-social life. There were “a bunch of people who cared that I was online. I had a feeling of belonging and power. But when I experienced real social life, I realized it was much better than WoW.”

Ben escaped the grasp of WoW when one of his football teammates invited him out to a party one Friday night. WoW had just loaded on his screen, and he figured he might as well go out with a real friend as opposed to interact with avatars online. The first night out partying Ben made several new friends, and found a woman who was interested in him. When he arrived home that night the loading screen for WoW was still up on his computer. With one glance at the screen, he decided that real life was much more fulfilling than anything he could play in Azeroth, and with that he quit the game and has never gone back.

Instant gratification, power, belonging, seeing progress so quickly, friends and a community who depend on you and turn to you for advice are qualities that addict players to WoW. Absence of social life leads you to the addiction, but obsession with the game prevents a social life from being created, the longer one plays, the worse their social life in real life becomes, and the greater it becomes online. Therefore the participation in WoW is vicious and can lead to very strong addictions.