My Love Affair with Mafia Wars Has Ended

I'll confess. I was addicted to Mafia Wars; a popular Facebook game. When I first heard about the game, I wasn't the least bit interested. After watching my husband enjoy playing the game for hours on end, I couldn't resist and had to find out what was so intriguing.

In the beginning, Mafia Wars was fun. When starting the game you can choose to be a Maniac, Mogul or Fearless. Depending on your choice you can accrue money or weapons at a faster rate. I opted to be a maniac because I love collecting money.

While I never fully understood all the strategies of Mafia Wars, I enjoyed doing the jobs, collecting money, buying properties and weapons, and obtaining the special loot. I earned many of the achievement awards and was particularly proud of receiving a badge for staying on the hit list for more than sixty minutes.

Mafia Wars hit list is used to "kill" people off by depleting their energy. In a way it's like real life. Nearly everyone knows someone who is an energy sucker. They are the people who whine about everything, but never take action to change their life circumstances. My daughter calls them "Debbie Downers" and my husband refers to them as "energy vampires." Regardless of the name, you don't want energy suckers in Mafia Wars.

Mafia Wars can only be played as long as you have sufficient energy. Once energy points are depleted you have to wait until it refills. This is accomplished by receiving an energy pack from another mafia member, completing a level, or waiting for the system to give you energy points.

The more powerful you become, the more people start attacking you. That's when the fun started to dissipate. I'm a peaceful person and never initiated a war or attacked a player unless they attacked me numerous times.

I realized things were spiraling out of control when one player came after me for days on end and I spent nearly $100 million placing him on the hit list. His relentless behavior sent me into a tailspin and I was on a mission to destroy him. I would literally lay awake at night planning strategies of how I could take him down.

After four days of engaging in warfare with this character, I attempted to track him down. Mafia Wars displays players Facebook profile page by hovering your mouse over their picture. The link did not work for my attacker, but it showed a name. I searched through more than 5,000 names and never ran across his profile.

Then it dawned on me, Mafia Wars was probably using dummy accounts to send people like me into a frenzy of spending their money trying to knock out a player. I vowed that day I would never spend money on a hit list again and soon after my attacker went away. That's enough evidence to prove my point, isn't it?

I last played Mafia Wars on Christmas Eve. As I sat there doing jobs and raking in money, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps I was taking things too far. After all, it was a holiday and I was busy playing a silly game on a social network. Something must be missing from my life or I must be terribly bored.

I pondered this question for a few moments and realized I wasn't alone. My husband was sitting on the sofa playing Mafia Wars as well. In reality, Mafia Wars had become another bonding experience for us as we talked strategy and discussed the way the game progressed based on your initial character selection. All was well in my world!

Then tragedy struck. I attempted to login to Mafia Wars on December 26th and received a blank white screen. I used different browsers and different computers. Nothing. I contacted Mafia Wars tech support and was given a few suggestions. Nothing. The second response included more instructions including removing the application and reinstalling it. Two hours later, nothing.

By this point, I was becoming angry about the situation. I began researching online to determine if others have experienced the white screen of nothingness. Sure enough, plenty of people were talking about the "glitch" and they were not happy about it. As I read through the comments, I began losing hope that Mafia Wars would ever be restored for me.

Today, I officially threw in the towel and realized life without Mafia Wars is a good thing. Although I limited my play time to an hour or less each day, that is time I could spend doing something productive or enjoying time with my husband and friends. One hour a day becomes seven hours a week, which quickly turns into 365 hours per year. Just think how much I can accomplish with that much extra time!

It feels good to be free from my Mafia Wars addiction. Now, if I can just let go of Bejeweled...