Many of you would know or even played the massively successful World of Warcraft, which has over 10 million subscribers. But this game is so addictive that it can cause relationship strains amongst couples.
28 year-old Jocelyn is one of the fallen. A well-spoken California resident, she divorced her husband of six years after he developed a crippling addiction to the smash online RPG.
“He would get home from work at 6:00, start playing at 6:30, and he’d play until three a.m. Weekends were worse — it was from morning straight through until the middle of the night,” she told Yahoo! Games in an interview. “It took away all of our time that we spent together. I ceased to exist in his life.”
Jocelyn had been friends with her ex-husband Peter since the age of 13, but it took only nine months for her marriage to collapse. Jocelyn doesn’t hesitate to cite Warcraft as the main reason for her divorce.
Source: Yahoo! Games
It kinda sounded very familiar to how I was back then when I first started playing World of Warcraft. I couldn’t study, I refused to go out with my friends and I even ate dinner in front of my PC.
Luckily I managed to break out of it and I took an extended vacation away from the game. Even though now I’m back playing the game, I’m definitely managing my time more wisely now.
Rinne... – 
I’ve had many friends tried to convince me to play WoW. But seeing the lifestyle they had gotten themselves into, I avoided the game like the plague. To this day it still ruins one of my friend’s lives.
I’m in college right now, and you’ll always spot a person here or there who’s into WoW. Only a few are as bad as this ex-husband, but they do happen, but you always hear about them. So this news article really isn’t surprising to me.
I think it’s very sad that he would put a game above a lifelong partner. Don’t we ronery nerds play such games -because- we don’t have girlfriends?
This guy marries his osananajimi; how awesome is that? *sigh*
WoW = crack.
It is all about time management.
I was like that during college, but I just flows out of it naturally.
Now, I still play, but only when time permits.
I agree with crisu, that when us lonely nerds are alone, we look for these time-killers.
However, becoming addicted is wrong.
I have a spouse too, and tell you what. The real thing is for the spouse to admit that gaming is just a hobby like soccer or hunting. Problem is, hunting was already a hobby since Prehistoric (they hunt for months), and soccer had been some hundred years. Gaming, is just merely a few tens of years.
Think like this, if the ex-husband choose to go hunting, or scuba diving instead, he will waste at least two days. Or, everyday the ex-husband go to the bar and drink beer and chat with sexy women till 3 a.m.
Then, what is the difference?
I say, its only about spending time together, the ex accompany her, or vice versa. Then nothing is wrong, both can enjoy.
Yes wow is like crack… once you play you get hooked. My boyfriend plays all the time and i used to get really upset. Then I started to play and i can see why he spent so much time playing. Honestly though it would make me happy for us to both just not play, but if you cant beat them.. join ‘em.