Posted by Snow in 
If there is a mother, father, grandparent, or caregiver whose child is learning or participating in Warcraft, apply a magnet to their computer, snip the power cord, and press a curling iron against the CPU of the respective game playing computer.
If you are a corporate hiring manager or human resources associate, filter those Warcraft driven resumes into the round file. Those employees will be using their sick days battling Witan the Ogre on the Iron Axe Plain.
The BrandX piece notes that people heavily invested in World of Warcraft game play take a week off of work to strategize new releases and enhancement packs for the game. In what universe is that a plausible concrete use of resources?
Who is paying for those days off? Why does a corrections office need more verve, excitement and drama in his day enough to go home and play fantasy sword and sorcerer role play games at night? Who is minding the kids? Can people not pay their mortgage because they miss work after sluggish weekends spent warring online?
World of Warcraft is not sustainable. It requires the amounts of time, attention, and technical computer equipment that could launch a small business.
But Warcrafters don’t wanna. They selectively apply their volitional attention span to Gormath the Warrior, saving planet Rautha, or wrassling with the Lich King. I believe skateboarding and surfing are similar escape hatches, but they don’t suck time and energy at such toxic levels as World of Warcraft.
As a coping mechanism, I have yet to hear of any psychiatrist or psychologist prescribe the World of Warcraft as a viable recovery strategy for any trauma.
WoW is addictive as any drug, and intervention kits should be sent out with every new WoW license. Now that’s bundled services.
Hours spent in front of a computer for progress to a goal that has no tangible reward. Friends with no real relationship skills except the foundation of fantasy and escape the game is founded on. Sacrificed time and energy spent on…code.
Mutual weeks long gameplay that leads to…more game play. These are worthless, non-sustainable wastes of energy and resources. The human mind is meant to create, achieve, and contribute. Not stuff burgers into their mouth on their eleventh hour of Warcraft. Not build a cocoon against reality they can activate when the real world crowds in.
The opportunity cost of one session of World of Warcraft could be a job, a planet, a project, a million dollar business success. A new relationship. Real interpersonal interaction. The opportunity to give back to others. The rest of your life.
I know one collaborator who spends way too much time on Warcraft. He is in debt, between jobs, and can’t remember project imperatives, because his mind is so driven by his Warcrafting it just doesn’t appeal to him anymore to buckle down and get to work.
In a curiously sympathetic effect, his work and enterprise schemes have gotten more and more outlandish and pie-in-the-sky. I recently realized I hadn’t had a productive conversation with him in months. I don’t think anybody is going to look back and say “I should have played more Warcraft”.
But it is the commitment adults are bringing to the World of Warcaft that disturbs me. Adults only want to pay attention to what they want to dream about, using World of Warcraft like an escape hatch like cocaine or alcohol or food, except it’s legal.
How will they function in the real world as they become more invested in the fake Warcraft World? If your health, mind, body, job, and psyche are controlled by the World of Warcraft, it’s time to put down the mouse.
Get out into the sun and smell the earth while you still can. Because when the sun is gone and Earth is cold, and landfills taint every piece of ground left above overrisen waters, there will be time for Warcraft. And then you’ll really need the escape.
RSS Feed