It’s 4:30 on a Sunday morning and the glow of the computer screen lights the room. Matt Dunbar is hunched over his keyboard, seemingly mesmerized by the action on the screen. Two empty Red Bull cans litter the computer desk—it’s clear Dunbar is going to be up all night. “Heal the Warriors!” he bellows into his headset, “He’s going down!” The giant dragon on the screen drops to the ground as 40 players swarm around his body. Ragnaros had been slain—just another successful night for Dunbar in the World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft, or WoW as players refer to it, is the most successful online computer game on the market. It has taken the world by storm, reaching six million players on five continents. The financial lengths some will go to play are astounding. On Ebay, characters are for auction at offers upwards of $1,000. Families have turned to addiction specialists for help for their spouses, children, and even themselves, and there’s a quickly thinning line between digital life and reality. The game’s own startup screen warns players to use moderation.
In the game’s initiation, players choose their realm, faction, race, and class. One can be anything from righteous humans to intimidating, hideous zombies. Starting at level one, gamers explore the vast world and enter dungeons to fight a variety of enemies in order to increase their levels. The higher level they become, the stronger they get, and more abilities become available to them. The game requires Internet access, and is classified as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG.
As the title suggests, Warcraft opens up a parallel, digital world where players portray a character of their choice. The game has its own currency, weapons, and health, but the similarities don’t stop there.
Gold is the currency in WoW, an essential part of the game, which is required to purchase better armor or new weapons, and is not easily attained. When gamers need currency in a hurry, many of them scramble to sites such as Mygamestock.com to buy virtual gold with real-world money. But, unlike buying replacement parts of a car, the gold isn’t provided by the game’s creators, but by overseas workers. Many of these workers are in Shanghai, and in return for shelter and food, they play the game and gather the gold themselves.
An estimated 500,000 Chinese rely on “gold farming” to live. As Ben Hoyle wrote in The London Times, “They are playing online games and winning virtual gold, which the owners of the gold farms then sell to cash-rich, time-poor Westerners for real money.” American companies like Mygamestock have hundreds of servers listed with various companies, selling 1,000 gold for about $150. In many foreign countries, there is no salary for these workers in this digital sweatshop, just an endless cycle of sleeping and gaming. These so-called gold farmers do gamers’ dirty work for them.
Matt Dunbar has spent over 350 dollars on WoW, including the initial purchase, ten months of gaming, and ringing up a bill for digital gold to $150. Of his gold purchases, he says, “I needed it man, I had to get some items and shit.” He has played over 40 days on one of his characters. His brother has over 100 days.
Andy Finkle, a 20-year-old junior at Mercyhurst College, played WoW for an entire summer, spending a number of hours each day playing the game. He played as an “undead mage” and got to level 60, the highest and most powerful level gamers can attain. After reaching level 60 and growing weary of the game, Finkle put his character up for sale on Ebay. “The starting bid was $197,” he says, “but then somebody who really wanted the character instant messaged me and offered me $240, so I sold it to him.” Finkle explains that after a while, the guy he sold it to stopped playing the game and actually gave the character back to him for free.
People’s lives become so completely immersed in this game that digital weddings are held for couples that wish to be married in the game, just as gamers have held online funerals for players who died in real life. And sometimes, like in the case of a young boy in China who committed suicide after playing the game for 36 hours, players die for the game.
Dr. Marissa Orzack, a psychologist, runs the Computer Addiction Services out of McLean Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts. Orzack says that there is little difference between drug addiction and video game addiction. Having treated patients for drug addiction for many years, she says that video game addiction is a definite mental disorder. She claims that over 40 percent of World of Warcraft players are addicted. In an interview with Rob Wright from Twitchguru.com, Orzack compares gambling addiction to gaming addiction, “They are pretty much the same. They have many of the same symptoms: neglecting work and severing personal relationships.”
Dunbar said he once stayed up for 22 hours to play WoW, waking up at 8 a.m. and going to bed at 6 a.m. the next day. “I had a lot to do in the game and nothing to do in real life, so I just stayed online all night.” Engaging in a single activity for 22 hours can certainly be a signal of addiction. He said he used stimulants so that he could stay up to play it.
Investing in the World of Warcraft is time-consuming and expensive. Players say that it’s the most advanced video game ever made, literally like being in a completely different world, with all the perks of real life. An expansion for the game is scheduled to be released sometime in November, which will create new equipment and supplies for gamers to buy. With $1 billion in revenue projected for this year, it’s becoming less of a discussion of when it will stop, but how far it will go.
