Ultimately, I'm not arguing that there is no such thing as wow addiction, or that any level of play is acceptable. I just think your definitions of unacceptable levels of time commitment are aggressively narrow, particularly when compared to equally valueless time sinks that are more socially acceptable.
Again, do I need to explain why addiction is bad?
You still haven't explained how this is addiction.Let me go over addiction.
My father, from the day I was born, until he died two days before christmas last year, was an addict. He cashed in the savings bonds that were supposed to go towards my college education to buy cocaine and heroine. He brought my brother and I to drug deals on the way to school or the way back from restaurants because he couldn't wait long enough to drop us off and go back to his dealer. My parents divorced when I was six, because my father's drug and alcohol induced mood swings were severely violent and unpredictable. He'd often beat my mom in front of my brother and I, and more than once one of them ended up in the hospital because of it. The divorce put my dad into an extremely deep depression - I watched my dad waste away, at a young age, on severe alcohol and drug abuse until he finally overdosed on heroine and went into the hospital.
I watched my dad, nearly dead in a hospital bed, pale as a ghost, shaking and shivering, and I was
six years old. Today, it's one of my most vivid memories. For a few years my dad went sober, fell off the wagon, and began drinking and using again around the time I was 16 - I was living with him at the time. During that time he gave up all other pursuits - he requested a layoff at work (he was in tight with management) so he could collect unemployment and spent the remainder of his time sitting on his ass in the living room watching NASCAR and getting drunk.
He experienced mood swings at the time whenever he came down off his drugs but his inhibitions and common sense were fucked off from all the booze he was drinking, so he started to become violent. On five occasions in two months he attacked me, the final of which he wrestled me to the floor, punched me in the face twice and attempted to choke me out. I left my dad's house that day and didn't come back.
Over the next 8 years I talked to my dad a total of about 15 times - I intentionally avoided speaking to him, seeing him, or calling him because his addiction had ruined my childhood - and years later, came back and ruined the relationship I had built with my father. Talking to him was a painful experience, because if he wasn't high, he was going through the shakes and couldn't carry on a conversation. On three occasions he went into rehab because of heroine or cocaine or both.
In late October/Early november I went to michigan to see my mother. At this point, my father called me - in a drug induced, rambling fit, he insulted me, told me I was a horrible dissapointment, and complained at length about how much of a pain in the ass I was when I was living with him. I hung up. The next day he called and half-heartedly apologized to me, before trying to solicit my help with a computer problem. I blew him off and never called him back. That was the last time I spoke with my father.
That is addiction, Paco, and if you knew addiction, you wouldn't be using this fucking word to define a harmless fucking hobby. Addiction is something that
RUINS LIVES. And I'm not going to argue that WoW hasn't ruined a few - but there is a huge fucking difference between 'Spending a few hours a day playing a game I enjoy' and 'Giving up everything in my life, including friends, family, and work, to play a game I stopped really enjoying a long time ago'. I have met hundreds of WoW players, and of them, only two I've ever considered addicted.
One of them happens to be my own father in law - who quit his job, got diabetes, became obese, and is now developing bed sores because of his addiction. The game is fucking misery to him, but he won't try to do anything else - part of them is because of a severe disability he has had since he was a child, but he won't even try another game. He has to play WoW. Between the game and his medication he is consistently in a foul mood. His life consists of getting up, playing wow until he has too severe a headache to do so anymore, and then either going to bed or watching TV for a few hours - WoW consists of literally 90% of all of his free time. Why, when he is so miserable, does he devote so much time to WoW?
BECAUSE AN ADDICT WILL FOREGO EVERYTHING ELSE TO ENGAGE IN THEIR ADDICTION. THERE IS
NO SUCH THING AS A MINOR ADDICT.
An addict will do something without any concern for their own health or safety, or the health or safety of others, and eschew everything in favor of that addiction whenever possible.
This is the danger of getting addicted to WoW, because it is so cheap and accessible, an inordinate amount of time can be spent pursuing this addiction. One of my former GM's best friends
died because of MMO addiction - they got diabetes from their sedentary lifestyle and eating habits, were obese, got a sore on their leg from not moving enough, the sore became gangrenous, they lost their leg, the healing let got infected, the infection spread and they died.
THIS is the problem I have with you guys throwing around the word addiction. You don't know what it fucking means, and it's fucking offensive to those of us who HAVE had our lives affected by a real addict. There is a huge difference between casual use and problem use of anything - be it illicit substances or escapism. You guys are consistently confusing differences in prioritization between two persons with addiction, and it has to fucking stop.
Edit:
summary? If a WoW player is only engaging in WoW 20% of their free time (15 hours) then they're not a fucking addict by any stretch of the imagination.
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Topic: I Hate WoW! (Read 27426 times)