WoW has been in the Times before, but this article was just posted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/te...ref=technology

What I found interesting is WoW has 7 million subscribers now, and reading about the cultural differences.

Pretty positive article, especially when they pointed out what these raiders also do IRL.

How many articles have we had now that basically say, "Hello, world! WoW exists!"

It would be refreshing to see an article that actually dealt with the issues. In sports, you get articles about individual sports players or teams, and issues in sports like doping or recruiting scandals.

Instead, we keep getting these virtually fanboy articles saying "Players log in and play elves, dwarves, and knights to defeat evil monsters!" When strictly speaking, that is probably the least interesting thing you could say about what happens - "This Sunday again, millions of people spent their free time throwing leather balls around!"

I mean, c'mon - this is a SINGLE PRODUCT that grosses $1 billion dollars a year, as they pointed out. This deserves more examination from the press than "oh, this game is really popular."

Meh I really hate to say it but if you've got a wife and kid on the way and you "can't be going out all the time" you probably shouldn't be logging in 6 nights a week to raid for 6 hours.... As long as they keep on focusing on muppets like this with totally skewed priorities, the press coverage is always going to read badly.

From the quoted text, seems like you make a rather big assumption that he plays 6 hrs 6 nights a week. Plus, where do you refute the TV watching issue? In this case, I don't think it's the 'press' that is reading badly.

Yeah, I think the actual figure was 4 hours a night 6 nights a week for that particular guy. Somewhat significant difference (24 hpw instead of 36).

That said I know a guildmate who sold his account for 1000 USD to a US Army soldier with a wife and kid, and who could not have made more than 20,000 USD per year. That's sad.

Yeah, you probably shouldn't log on 6 nights a week to raid for 6 hours. Kinda makes you feel glad that he doesn't.

Whats really to be sad about? What sort of Norman Rockwellesque vision of modern American living are people carrying around these days?

well it's still 6 nights... anyway I wasn't trying to turn it into one of those "people shouldn't do this" blanket comments - I've done it and still do sometimes. It's naive not to admit that there are people in life situations who probably shouldn't be doing that.

There is a MASSIVE difference between slagging off "hardcore raiders" and slagging off "people with badly misaligned life priorities".

I'm doing the latter, not the former. I think the press often thinks they are the same. That's the point I'm tryint to make.

I think spending 6% of your pretax income on videogames is sad when you are allegedly trying to support a family. I think it's a little ridiculous to call that "Norman Rockwellesque." I mean, he probably beats the kid and the wife, ok?

You misunderstand me, I think. I'm not saying its a wholesome slice of traditional Americana (it's far from it); but if the man wants to entertain himself, he's going to do it. If he doesn't want to spend time with his wife and kid, he's not; that he's not being cost effective about it, well, not all min/maxers are born overnight. It's all divertisement, one way or the other; none of it is any functionally different. It's only a question of how much of your resources you devote to it. I'm willing to bet if that 1,000$ didn't go to WoW, it'd have gone to something else equally useless to providing for his family.

EDIT: I suppose what I'm trying to say, in a round about way, is that the monetary investment doesn't strike me as anything too tragic. He could just as easily have sat on his ass watching American Idol and proved no more attentive to his family than if he had WoW. They'd be $1,000 richer, but would anything be different otherwise?

For a family with a $20,000 annual income, that $1000 is a *LOT* of money. So perhaps the difference between sitting on his ass watching American Idol and playing WoW is dinner for the kids for a few months.

It's common these days for wives to earn more than their husbands. Without making assumptions about their family income stream and whether his wife is a stay at home mother or middle class management, it is impossible to gauge. If however he is the sole income earner then 5% of his income going on buying a wow account not to mention maintaining it is more of an issue. Though it does beat booze as a past time >_>

He probably drinks while he plays.... I used to for a long time until I got that under control...

I wonder if Groucho Marx would ever have played WoW given the option.