Smores over Felfire

I came to a startling realization the other day: I’ve been playing WoW consistently for about 3 years now. Add another year for previous start-stop gaming and that brings the time-I’ve-spent-wasting-on-that-stupid-game to a grand total of 4 years. That’s 48 months and around $650 of my money. Given that most weeks I spend at least 10 hours on the game that’s about 520 hours a year… so 2080 hours total. I’ve met one of my guild mates face-to-face that I wouldn’t have met otherwise and have several friendships that spawned completely based on in-game interactions. I’ve managed to keep in touch with several real-life friends through the game. It’s a catalyst that has sparked innumerable ideas, countless conversations, and more than a few heated debates. It’s got me writing on a consistent basis again. It’s a great stress reliever when things go well (but a horrible stress multiplier when things go poorly), a good way to pass the time, both alone and with the S.O.

I often told myself, especially when things were going poorly with raider reliability, that it was just a game and not worth getting upset over. But now that I’m thinking about it, and the resources I’ve sunk into WoW, is it really “just a game” still? I took time off from work last year when Wrath came out to power level my warlock to 80 in a weekend. I’ve had to delay/reschedule spur-of-the-moment real-life events based on a raiding schedule. I’ve come very close to losing real-life friendships because of guild politics. There are not the earmarks of a friendly game of Scrabble. Hell, these are not the earmarks of a fiercely competitive game of Risk or Monopoly. These are traits of something more serious than “just for fun.”

I believe WoW is billed as a “game” at the moment, though I wonder if it will continue to be one in the future. Facebook, originally a networking tool for college kids, now has more business applications that I can honestly keep track of. I have family members (one of which being my mother) who start their mornings and end their evenings by tending to their virtual farms on Farmville. The jumps were small, but going from “college networking tool” to “worldwide phenom” is a bit of a leap. Would it surprise you to know that several executives in the business world see WoW and similar MMOs as great team-building tools? Why not use WoW instead of the $5,000/day ropes course retreat?

I’ll go ahead and wait for a moment while you get over the mental image of “Steven” in accounting yelling for heals while “Jenny” in HR is screaming that she’s OOM.

Dammit, now I’m laughing.

OK, better now.

But in all seriousness, I could very easily see companies take one, maybe two hours, at the end of the workweek (prolly 3:00-5:00) and just run through a raid. What would be cooler than that? What better way to blow off steam at the end of the day AND break the oh-so-typical workplace awkwardness (are we friends, are we acquaintances, does the boss even remember my name, etc).

Shoot, I’m thinking about starting a company just to DO that… I could actually create a business-sponsored guild…