When Warcraft Becomes Your Whole World
Posted by anastasia on 03-14-2005
My husband is always telling me I would love Everquest…maybe it’s because I fell so hard over the Lord of the Rings trilogy — something I don’t think any of my girlfriends completely understand. I’ve always loved the King Arthur stories and have a sweet spot for Ren Fairs (no I don’t dress up, but I do get a big kick out of them). For some people this type fantasy becomes reality in multi-player online games where gamers literally lose themselves in the game, playing for hours even days straight. A teen I interviewed recently talked about video games with disdain because she felt like she had lost a friend to a game.
Clive Thompson, who writes a brilliant blog called Collision Detection and reviews games for Slate, wrote a great piece about what game makers are doing to actually discourage people from allowing these games to take over their lives…
“The humanitarian developers behind World of Warcraft have also discovered a way to bribe gamers into turning off their computers and going outside. If you log off for a few days, your character will be more “rested” when you resume playing, a mode that temporarily speeds up your leveling. In my experience, a half-hour of battle when well-rested advanced my character as much as an hour of unrested fighting. This is probably the first video game ever created that rewards you for not playing—what a genius idea!”
Categorized under: Gaming