World of Warcraft - a game or a digital drug?

Prehistory

Five years have passed since that moment when one of my kind comrade put me on the World of Warcraft game right before the session, thanks to which I almost fell asleep and did not join the ranks of the armed forces of our valiant country. Since then I have changed a bunch of free servers, and with the translation of the client part of the game into Russian, I left for the official server. And everything was fine, the university was successfully completed, it was time to look for a job. But the game was in no hurry to let me go (or I was in no hurry to part with the game), so I spent a year in sluggish searches. As you probably already guessed, they were to no avail. Living in such a mode became unbearable for me, and gathering my will into a fist, forced myself to remember that first of all I was a programmer, and then already a level 85 mage. Farewell to the game was surprisingly painless, but to finally cut off the ends, I sold my game account.

It's no secret that the audience of World of Warcraft is about 12 million people around the world, with an age range from 14 to 60 (yes, I came across one such grandfather in the guild chat) years. And from the height of my playing experience, I wondered what kept all these people in the game, and I seem to have determined for myself some of the reasons.

The reasons

Lack of childcare

In an age when all parents, guided by good intentions, try to earn more money to provide a good education for their children, and work from morning till night, children often remain alone with themselves. Turning on the computer, they do not notice how much time has passed, and can sit at your favorite game day and night. Unfortunately, sometimes this leads to very tragic consequences. There was a case when a very young lad from Sweden played “World of Warcraft” for 20 hours in a row, after which he lost consciousness and was hospitalized from nervous exhaustion, after which he lay for several days in intensive care.
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Desire to disprove reality

Not all people in this life have caught good luck by the tail, as a rule there are few such lucky ones. Those who did not succeed, very often become “victims” of such games, because when they enter the game they have a desire to prove to everyone that in fact you can achieve much more, be the best, even in an alternative, gaming universe . The game absorbs such people, some spend days and nights to make themselves a standard, which may not be achievable in real life. The World of Warcraft universe provides an opportunity for some compensation for unsuccessful actions in reality, and this time it all depends on the player.
In addition to people who for some reason cannot improve their lives, so-called “outcasts” are also in potential danger, those who are the scapegoat of the powerful in their lives, those who hear whistling and hooting behind their backs bullying by peers. Studies have shown that such people choose two ways of development of events:

• Entering the game, they begin to break and destroy everything and everyone, taking out anger on everything that comes to hand. In such cases, anger and uncontrolled anger is born in them, which over time can grow into something more, and a person grows into a monster.
• Entering the game, they try not to stand out from the crowd and play simply for their own pleasure, resting from the troubles of reality. But here, according to scientists, there is a hidden threat. If suddenly someone gets into the game, who will continue to mock and scoff, the nerves of this person can not stand. There is a case when a girl committed suicide because her colleagues at the game laughed at her. And the girl at that time was only fifteen.

Ease of communication

Nowadays, most people, coming home tired, no longer want anything but rest. But since the movement of fingers on the keyboard and mouse clicks almost do not take power, they sit at the computer or laptop. The longer a person plays, the more he has a social circle, the more people are close in interests, with whom it is interesting to talk. In-game "friends" appear, and sometimes people, without even noticing it, enter the game only to exchange a few words with these same friends or simply "brothers in arms". And you will communicate with them, as they are with you, regardless of gender, age, religion and other aspects that periodically become a stumbling block in real life. In the game you are the same as everyone else.

Sense of self worth

Imagine a situation: a person lives his own life, works, trying his best. But for some personal reasons, or perhaps because of circumstances that practically do not depend on him, or his own weakness, he begins to think that he cannot jump higher than his head in this life. And when he enters the game, the picture changes dramatically. The player enters the group (the so-called "party" or "raids") and conquers territories with high-level monsters (the so-called "instances" or "danji"). He is a cog of a well-coordinated mechanism that must work synchronously to achieve its goals. Depending on his role in the group, he is directly or indirectly responsible for all members of this group. Such responsibility, though not for long, raises self-esteem, and he feels himself meaningful and necessary. Then, when the goal is reached, the person is happy, like a baby, despite the fact that it is just a game. So it turns out that a person returns to the game again and again to get those crumbs of positive emotions that are so lacking in real life.

Results summarize ...

Of course, these are just some of the reasons, which are actually much more, but this article was not intended as a scientific treatise. Many will disagree with me, they say, they say, I play, and everything is fine with me in life. It is pointless to argue with this, most people are able to distinguish between game and reality. But, unfortunately, for the long practice of playing WoW, I have met with special, almost clinical cases where the game turned into a drug for people. They want to say: guys, keep your head on your shoulders, and remember that this is just a game. As they say, "make love, not warcraft ©"!