World of Warcraft 'more addictive than cocaine'

I don't play but I do know people who are really into WOW.
I tend to think most players are reasonable people who know how to control
their playing time so that it doesn't consume their lives.
I'm not so sure that kids (at least not all kids) have this control yet.
I wonder if there should be an age limit to register at WOW.
Maybe there already is, I'm not sure. But, situations like the ones listed in the article make me think that with some people, common sense goes out the window when they play this game and others like it.

The popular computer game World of Warcraft has been described as "more addictive than coc aine" after it sent a teenager into convulsions after he played non-stop for 24 hours.The game has been called "the most dangerous game on the market" by addiction therapists, after a 15-year-old Swedish boy collapsed and went into convulsions earlier this month.

His family rushed him into hospital where doctors diagnosed an epileptic-type seizure brought on by sleep deprivation, lack of food, and too long a stretch of concentrated game playing.

www.telegraph.co.uk... aine.html

i cant believe there are actually people like this, like a few years back i used to be considered a hard gamer (not WoW) and i was no were near what these people are doing, i was able to stop when it was time for me to get off and still have somewhat of a social life.

its funny i actually cant remember the last time i played a game


but seriously what brings about this addiction, ive tried WoW, its nothing special

perhaps people get addicted to it for the same reasons as coc aine

- peer pressure
- takes them away from reality
- makes things more interesting than their lives are

reply to post by tankthinker


I am a hardcore gamer and well practiced in long sessions. 35hours+ with breaks for food and toilet only.

I'm not addicted, I just like it lots - and live really far away from my friends and the city so it makes sense to just take advantage of my huge HDTV and surround sound system at home.

I think what is happening to these kids is that they are new to the world of hardcore gaming, and are doing 20hour+ stints before their growing bodies can handle it. I think when I was that age I considered 12hours to be a good limit, any more is too intense.

It wasn't till my 20s that I felt I was strong enough to continue for days at a time.

Like a newbie boxer stepping into the ring - you don't immediately challenge the champion. These kids just need to learn a bit of respect for their own bodies and know their limits, and also have a bit of patience knowing that they will grow up and these limits can be pushed further.

I have friends who have told me their kids introduced them to this game and they can't stop playing it. I'm talking people my age and I'm almost 50.

They tell me to start up the free 10 day intro and they will show me where to go, what servers to hit, what groups to join.

I'm not a gamer, I have no idea what they are talking about.

But they get all glassy eyed while talking about the game, sing about it's graphics, bitch about the politics and infighting and still sing it's praises.

I'm tempted to try it, but afraid of it's outcome.

$15 dollars a month is cheap for a new addiction. I have enough addictions as it is......

Still, it is so tempting.....

wupy

LOL.... I love it.


This "addiction" can be cured quite simply.... Turn up Vent or Teamspeak really loud and go on raids with "hardcore want to be leader types".... Listen to some child scream at your raid members and spout threats and go on a total power trip. Have some teenager rant on about "his raid" for an hour or so and go bat sh it crazy for awhile over a freeking game. After a few experiences like this the game will loose it's appeal and you will wonder why the hell you wasted so much time on something that is really unimportant.


The allure of the game after a time is the "feeling of accomplishment" and "community" with a guild once you start raiding.... And that allure kept us hooked for a long while

And don't forget... all this time you are wasting on these raids week after week for the gear will be TOTALLY Freeking Negated with the next expansion!

It was fun before "burning crusade".... it "seemed" like the time invested amounted to something. But then the expansion negated everything accomplished and generally level 60 became level 1 again as if a "reset" button was pushed...... Then a new expansion to 80..... What next... why waste the time? It is all for nothing..... Once you realize that... the addiction is OVER!

[edit on 3-3-2009 by infolurker]

reply to post by mrwupy


Holy crap...and I thought ATS was Addicting!

well ....take the inside out ..till i've gone insane....

Sad ...so very Sad....loaded ...lokomotid

50 year olds? are you kiddin me?

shakes head..and walks away.........

I guess the addictive personality will be addicted to something in their lives whether it's gambling, drink, food porn or even computer games. A young person who gets into these games to the degree that the article talks about is just one of these addictive personalities in the making.
It's kind of sad really.
IMO, anyone under 16 should be limited by the parents to 4 hours of gaming a a day. But, with most kids having computers in their rooms, it would be hard to keep up with how much time they are spending on WOW or other sites.

Originally posted by infolurker
LOL.... I love it.


This "addiction" can be cured quite simply.... Turn up Vent or Teamspeak really loud and go on raids with "hardcore want to be leader types".... Listen to some child scream at your raid members and spout threats and go on a total power trip. Have some teenager rant on about "his raid" for an hour or so and go bat sh it crazy for awhile over a freeking game. After a few experiences like this the game will loose it's appeal and you will wonder why the hell you wasted so much time on something that is really unimportant.


The allure of the game after a time is the "feeling of accomplishment" and "community" with a guild once you start raiding.... And that allure kept us hooked for a long while

And don't forget... all this time you are wasting on these raids week after week for the gear will be TOTALLY Freeking Negated with the next expansion!

It was fun before "burning crusade".... it "seemed" like the time invested amounted to something. But then the expansion negated everything accomplished and generally level 60 became level 1 again as if a "reset" button was pushed...... Then a new expansion to 80..... What next... why waste the time? It is all for nothing..... Once you realize that... the addiction is OVER!

[edit on 3-3-2009 by infolurker]

As a former WoWer, I can say that no truer words were ever spoken.

Not a one liner...it's just what more can I add to that??

[edit on 3-3-2009 by seeker11]

That Swedish kid is lucky….. there was another one in Korea:

In a story out of Korea, which is just now surfacing in the Western press, a couple in Incheon, South Korea, were arrested last week when their 4-month-old daughter died after being left alone by the couple for hours. The mother and father reportedly had gone to a nearby Internet cafe, lost themselves in playing Blizzard's massively multiplayer online PC game World of Warcraft, and returned to their home only to find the infant dead from suffocation. "We booked the pair on criminal charges, judging that when you consider the situation, they were responsible for their daughter's death," a policeman told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. The couple reportedly told police, "We were thinking of playing for just an hour or two and returning home like usual, but the game took longer that day." The infant was the couple's only child.

[edit on 3/3/2009 by biomehanika]

Originally posted by Zeptepi
reply to post by mrwupy

 

50 year olds? are you kiddin me?

shakes head..and walks away.........

What the hell is wrong with being 50 years old?

I didn't like the game. I'm trying to give it away but no one wants it. The free month is up, and even if i played 12 hrs a day once my body could handle it (ahem), it still wouldn't be worth the ten bucks a month-and i spend ten bucks a day on smokes lol. Chrono trigger rules.

reply to post by mrwupy


Well... their 5 weeks older then me lol..

Its just geriatricly ...shocking..thats all ..

Peace

Originally posted by infolurker
LOL.... I love it.


This "addiction" can be cured quite simply.... Turn up Vent or Teamspeak really loud and go on raids with "hardcore want to be leader types".... Listen to some child scream at your raid members and spout threats and go on a total power trip. Have some teenager rant on about "his raid" for an hour or so and go bat sh it crazy for awhile over a freeking game. After a few experiences like this the game will loose it's appeal and you will wonder why the hell you wasted so much time on something that is really unimportant.


The allure of the game after a time is the "feeling of accomplishment" and "community" with a guild once you start raiding.... And that allure kept us hooked for a long while

And don't forget... all this time you are wasting on these raids week after week for the gear will be TOTALLY Freeking Negated with the next expansion!

It was fun before "burning crusade".... it "seemed" like the time invested amounted to something. But then the expansion negated everything accomplished and generally level 60 became level 1 again as if a "reset" button was pushed...... Then a new expansion to 80..... What next... why waste the time? It is all for nothing..... Once you realize that... the addiction is OVER!

[edit on 3-3-2009 by infolurker]

totally agreed!!!

I quit playing when the fun morphs into WORK. I dumped WoW over a month ago after playing for 3+ years, even though I bought WotLK. I knew better, but, it's in my nature to give everyone a 2nd chance

It's funny, I was reading our local newspaper, (The Daily Light) in case you want to find it.

This man wrote in a question, I won't look it up but apparently his wife had neglected him in his wedlock needs . She also would spend days awake playing W.O.W and stopped taking her kids to school, were they were punished for being absent! She stopped going to church, work etc. etc.

For a middle aged woman, that's pretty bad, I laughed for a good month and a half.

Originally posted by mrwupy

Originally posted by Zeptepi
reply to post by mrwupy

 

50 year olds? are you kiddin me?

shakes head..and walks away.........

What the hell is wrong with being 50 years old?

dido!! OLD gamer here, I make the youngsters grovel at my wisdom and knowledge then scour to the corner when I start talking about PONG

It's scary...I've known a few kids like this...Whats even more freightening is how long people live like this...For years!

A young teen killed himself when he lost his account in the game Everquest- the game that basically created the gateway for warcraft.

The fact of the matter is...Your doing your living in that game...your eating, fighting, sleeping, talking to people...It makes sense that someone can get so detached from their own lives and get fully involved in their cyber lives.

Frankly, it boils down to responsibility. If your kid is old enough to know that he needs to sleep and eat everyday, then this should be inexcusable. To get so engrossed in your characters life that you threaten your own is appauling.

Having played the game once, I just found it to be ridiculous. You start off at level 1 and go to level 70+...meanwhile kids are competing to be the best so they're losing sleep and hurting themselves to establish a "respectable rank" so to speak. The game itself is also huge and the word huge doesn't even cover that. So if someone's addicted to this game, its not like they can just beat it...Expansion packs will keep coming out...Its the top game online. You can't blame the company that created it- you can only blame the player's losing self-control. I don't think the average person (even a game addict) could imagine playing any game for 24 hours. Thats just sickening...AND...like I previously mentioned...The average person is smart enough to know to at least break for sleep and food...

AND WHERE WERE THE PARENTS!?!

[edit on 3/3/2009 by AceOfAces]

Maybe people just need the human interaction.


Interaction with others is a basic human requirement. I can tell you for sure I don't get that much outside of gaming myself.

I like to have fun, I like social interaction, I enjoy talking with others about what we are doing together.

How many people are said to be addicted to equivalent games where there are no other human players. Like Oblivion, its an OK game but nobody is calling that addictive.

Lets get real, society today is simply too alienated.

I was into Second Life for a while. I enjoyed it because a lot of people I've
known on other forums for a long time were also there and the interaction was fun. But, once people started to fall away one by one, it lost it's appeal for me.
But I have read about people totally becoming so addicted that they neglected every other aspect of their lives including family.
People have even left their spouses because of meeting and "falling in love"
with another person that they met in Second Life.

Stay away!!! I played for a few years and it is a life stealer. I got rid of my account and it was a boulder off of my shoulders. You can do such better things with your time. Heed my warning.

Crazy swede!

Anvilmar Bobdahealer