Recently, I've been pondering whether or not my time spent in the World of Warcraft has positively impacted my life in anyway or not. At the beginning I thought having to play WoW for twenty hours was going to be burdensome and a hindrance to all the other work I would have to accomplish this semester. Obviously not. Last week when I checked my time played for the first tie I had logged nearly eighty hours. At this point I thought back to McDonigal's Reality is Broken when she mentions gaming can lose its effectiveness once the player exceeds the window of opportunity. And with her four defining characteristics games embody: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation, I felt I may have been exhausting the feedback system. I arrived at the point where I no longer felt the benefits of the reward system. Before each player level, talents unlocked, dungeon achievement, and so forth completed I felt a sense of accomplishment and pride. But when it started becoming prioritized over other work I needed to get completed, and I couldn't readily pry myself away from the game, but continued playing despite the guilt trip my conscience was giving me.
However, one day, like the spur of the moment feeling when an individual decides to randomly quit smoking, I stepped outside of the addictive personality I'd hitherto been assuming. Fortunately, I knew from past experience that extensive euphoric binges must end eventually. The longer a one-track idea is pursued without accounting for the lack in other areas of one's life, the harder that person will crash. I'm reminded here of the few clips of Second Skin we've gotten to see in class. The man who held his piss in, or used his 2-liter soda bottle as a urinal, that could've been me if I didn't have decency to uphold in a household with others!
Also, when I aimlessly searched on google for WoW related material, I came across www.wowdetox.com, which really helped you see others who have been in the game and spent enormous amounts of time in the game world that no longer was conducive to their lives. On this site I read about others who had top-notch gear, did raids all day long, were in some of the top 10 guilds, etc., and then I wondered to myself, I've been playing this whole time excitedly with the notion that I would somehow reach this ultimate goal at the end with a lvl 85 character and then suddenly become happy and feel I have accomplished something. But when I read the players' blogs that posted on wowdetox, I understood then that this game never really ends, it could be pursued as long as one wishes. Apparently for a lot of people, the game doesn't even get really good until you reach lvl 85! Idiomatically speaking, I was chasing the dragon to no definitive end. And therefore, I hope to return to WoW only when the time is appropriate and I don't have any obligatory projects to accomplish beforehand.
Lastly, I just want to reflect back to last week's class where we talked as a class when technology becomes problematic in the social sphere. And I believe we used the example of having a cell phone out at the dinner table, whether it's at a restaurant or at the home. My thoughts are, there is a general shift in our society where technology is becoming more accepted in settings where they once before would've been deemed unacceptable. For instance, in High School classrooms nowadays, it wouldn't be unlikely to find a class that utilizes online assignments and test taking, and hence, students are permitted/required to submit answers from their cellphones to the online database Blackboard to be recorded. Certainly something like that with our generation would have been unfathomable for us and our teachers (hopefully no one had a preexisting heart condition that was going to be told kids could freely use their cellphones in the classroom!) But I digress (I hope some of my audience is still here with me). And to wrap this all up and relating it back to WoW, I think technology is of legitimate use when it's not abused, which I think is a really hard idea to consider in today's times, but used accordingly there is obvious perks that better facilitate learning in the classroom and as a way of progressing our advancements for civilizations, too. However, taken to extremes like the direction I was heading with WoW can be detrimental when it's no longer providing a positive feedback system. My little WoW escapade eerily reminded me of Victor Frankenstein's obsessive pursuit of science beyond a point of it no longer being a worthy cause, which consequently led to his demise..
At the rate that a game can hi-jack a person life makes me wonder about the fortitude of the human condition. When I realized that we were going to be playing WOW for class, my pulse quickened. People in my life have been playing WOW, or other MMORPG's for years, but I have never drank from the cup. This was for the simple fact that I could all too easily see myself falling into a unhealthy relationship with the game. Over the past few weeks I have only saved myself by playing WOW with one condition, that I would have to be at work in the next two to three hours. No matter how engrossed I became in the game, I would be ripped out of the world to go wait tables. By the time I returned 5-11 hours later, the spell that had been put on me by the game would be broken. I actually fear the up coming summer months when I will not have as many obligations. Long summer days may be spent fighting the Alliance.
ReplyDeleteSee for me, I think it kinds of has to do with biological factors and the linkage to addiction and obsessions. I'm going to relate video games to cigarettes just for the sake of an easy comparison. Some people chain smoke for years and cannot quit, obviously. yet, some people can stop smoking if they want to and have no trouble quitting. Doesn't it depend on the person, their addiction habits, and how involved they are? For me, I can stop playing WoW very easily. A) I get frustrated and B) I find that I have other things that I need to get done that day. But when I am away from it I don't crave to play it. It might be because I am just terrible at the game which makes it less appealing. But it could also be that I, biologically, am not prone to obsession. I think for some people it will be a problem to quit but others I think will be able to quit with no problem. However, I do see what you are saying about being so involved because of what it offers. Maybe I just haven't gotten to the point where I fully see it.
ReplyDelete@ Connor: Thank goodness I have obligations that can pry me away from WoW during the summer months. However, leisure time that could be spent practicing for Praxis exams or spending time with the gf might be constrained if I let this game overwhelm me.
ReplyDelete@ Travis: I definitely agree addiction has roots in biology. I become OCD with certain projects until they are completed. The only difference now is I know what should be prioritized like school work rather than playing WoW. However, down time, like Spring Break, tends to draw me back into the virtual world. On a side-note, the good news is, if you haven't gotten into WoW yet, you likely won't become engrossed in the game. That will save you fifteen dollars each month too.