World of Warcraft: Avoiding Addiction

World of Warcraft is an online MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). There are millions of people that play World of Warcraft, and no doubt more will be sucked into the addiction. If you are considering playing, read more to find out some great reasons not to play.

World of Warcraft seems harmless at first, after all, millions of people of all ages play it, so it can't be that bad, can it? Well, considering millions of people shoot up heroin too, not everything people do is in your best interest. Now I'm not saying you can compare World of Warcraft to a shot of heroin, although sometimes it will seem similar, but the concept of addiction between the two is comparable. Here are my reasons, from two and a half years of experience with the game and it's affect on my life, why you should refrain from playing World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is a somewhat expensive game. Nowadays you have to buy the standard edition, which costs $19.99 at Wal-Mart, and to do any of the new things it will cost you $39.99 to get the expansion pack, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade. Up front that's a total of more than $60.00 considering tax. On top of the rather expensive game fee, they also charge you $14.99 per month, which may seem insignificant but to some it's reason enough not to bother with. If you are like me and in college surviving on your own, or you are tight for money, it's a good idea to avoid this game.

I say that, because if you are tight on money in the first place, and you start playing World of Warcraft, and you have even the slightest bit of an addictive personality, you will spend...no, waste, hours of your time which will eventually add up to days of your life on this game. To accomplish anything in the World of Warcraft it takes a rather obscene amount of time. Blizzard, the designer of World of Warcraft generates their revenue on the grounds that it takes a very long time to get anywhere and accomplish anything significant. And while you have to spend months to get to the fun part, which is the "end-game" as it's called, you have to keep coughing up that monthly fee. It's much more sensible to be spending your time working, or participating in real life, especially if you're barely making ends meet.

That's another downfall to playing World of Warcraft. It can completely destroy any social ability a person once had. I've seen it happen, and I kid you not. People literally spend so much time on the game they become scared of the outside world. They neglect their families, their friends, lose their job because they forget to go to it, and do poorly in school. It is so easy to get caught up in the hype of the game, as you are constantly interacting with thousands of other players across the world. Think of it as walking a tight rope, you've got to keep your balance if you want to survive, but if you lose your balance and fall off the rope into the deep end, you're doomed.

I fell off that rope at a point in my life. I spent hours a day playing, frivolously trying to be the best player on my server, and be known to all for my expert prowess in the game. Then one day, it hit me that I was and had been completely wasting my time. I realized there was much more to life than computer pixels, so I canceled my subscription and uninstalled the game.

Rehabilitation is never that easy, not with drugs, and not with World of Warcraft. I went back to the game several times and began to play like I used too, wasting away as I tried to get back into it. But every time I went back, I would quit again, and each time I would play for a shorter amount of time until finally I gave it up all together. I'm not the only one. I know a lot of people who have gone through the same dilemma with this game.

Perhaps I and others like myself just lack willpower all together, or perhaps it's just that good of a game. Whatever the reasons, exercise caution if you are considering a career in the World of Warcraft, I say career because it could very well take over your entire life.