A Rant on World of Warcraft Addicts...

Recently I caught a programme called “How World of Warcraft stole my life”, or something so similar it makes you want to invent a fucking jetpack just so you can distance yourself as far as possible from Humanity. As you can imagine, the show was about people who claimed to be addicted to the MMORPG, although we all know that the show’s title is inaccurate, since for WOW to steal your life you would have to have one to start with. I must profess that watching this documentary brought my rage to the surface, like getting stuck behind the single mother in Tesco who insists on paying with pennies, and whose kids wail like fucking Banshees who trapped their fingers in some type of celestial car door. It wasn’t even the game itself that caused these rare levels of anger, it was the self confessed ‘addicts’ displaying patheticness not seen since Steven Segal misguidedly thought he could act.

One of the ‘subjects’ compared WOW addiction to that of cocaine. I’m sorry, but it is hardly the same is it? Granted, I suppose they both work by the reward system, (the collection of brain structures which attempt to regulate and control behaviour by inducing pleasurable effects), but I seriously doubt we are going to see thugs on street corners mugging old ladies just to fund their online gaming habit. Nor will we see the Columbians sneaking boatloads of subscriptions into America. So to compare playing games for extreme periods of time, which would force even the Star Trek fanatics to call you sad, to that evil social disease is a bit irresponsible to say the least. It is a game, not a way of life, and turning around and blatantly blaming the game for you wasting your life is like going into a posh restaurant, ordering a soup, emptying your bowels into the soup, and complaining to management that there is a shit in your soup! I mean, when I play games I compulsively try to get every achievement available, and many of my interests (Lovecraft, serial killers and sci-fi) can be officially classified as 'sad' by you norms, but I think at some point enough is enough, and you simply have to admit that your habits are just not healthy.

The programme explores rehab for Warcraft players, and no, it doesn’t involve moving out of their mother’s basement. What the hell is the first step, admitting you are a 32 year old loser who is probably overweight? The World of Warcraft rehab is the epitome of a society gone wrong. It is a nonsensical and round about way of dealing with the issue; I mean after all they are nerds so surely the best method would be to promise them some naked flesh of the female variety (relax, it's simply the kettle calling the pot black). Alternatively, if they really are that far gone that they are unable to separate fantasy from reality, then the army should simply recruit them and ship them off to Afghanistan; “to raid the Desert of Death to obtain the power source known as oil from the mystical sand people”…