How to quit this cruel world (of Warcraft)

Like all other things in life, MMORPGs are bad in excess. We all know this. We’ve already made several posts before about game addiction and most of the solutions in those articles involved experts, doctors, shrinks, and gaming detox clinics.

Thing is, if you’ve got limited funds and you already have a problem regarding losing wallet money just to feed your MMO lust, it seems a bit self defeating to spend even more money just to help yourself.

We’ve surfed around and we found an article on LifeTutorial that gives out several tips on how to quit MMORPG addiction – free yourself from Blizzard Entertainment, you know. So you’d have more time for work or to go out with your family, or to go get a girlfriend… or something.

Anyway, the article gives out these fine tips:

Ask why you should quit. Obviously the first thing to do. If you can’t think of anything else important that you could do with the time you could free up then you probably shouldn’t attempt to quit in the first place. You’d end up like those sad cases on morning talk shows that complain about losing fat because of some evil diet and then gaining weight again. Figure out why you want to try to quit, that way you have a well reasoned out goal.

The article continues to list some of the supposed “evils” of  MMOs like sleep deprivation and Alzheimer’s, but you’ve all probably heard about them already from the pundits, so we’ll stay away from those. Moving on.

See the rest of the tips we found after the jump.

Like all other things in life, MMORPGs are bad in excess. We all know this. We’ve already made several posts before about game addiction and most of the solutions in those articles involved experts, doctors, shrinks, and gaming detox clinics.

Thing is, if you’ve got limited funds and you already have a problem regarding losing wallet money just to feed your MMO lust, it seems a bit self defeating to spend even more money just to help yourself.

We’ve surfed around and we found an article on LifeTutorial that gives out several tips on how to quit MMORPG addiction – free yourself from Blizzard Entertainment, you know. So you’d have more time for work or to go out with your family, or to go get a girlfriend… or something.

Anyway, the article gives out these fine tips:

Ask why you should quit. Obviously the first thing to do. If you can’t think of anything else important that you could do with the time you could free up then you probably shouldn’t attempt to quit in the first place. You’d end up like those sad cases on morning talk shows that complain about losing fat because of some evil diet and then gaining weight again. Figure out why you want to try to quit, that way you have a well reasoned out goal.

The article continues to list some of the supposed “evils” of  MMOs like sleep deprivation and Alzheimer’s, but you’ve all probably heard about them already from the pundits, so we’ll stay away from those. Moving on.

Evaluate the Game. Is the game really worth it? Here’s what the author of the article did to judge if the MMO he was playing was worth the time he was spending. First, he listed the hours he was spending on the game, and then he listed the amount of satisfaction he experienced. He realized that most of the time, he was wasting hours online waiting to hook up with his clan or waiting for a certain monster to respawn. He realized how inefficient it all was.

After some management (scheduled meets online with real world friends), he was able to lower the hours spent online and was able to have more fun in a shorter span of time. He was also able to free up his time for real-life concerns. Efficient fun: a better way to live.

Take the first step. If you’ve finally decided to quit. The author says that you should take the first step and deactivate your subscription.

Remove all ties. Reading about patch notes and game updates can tempt you to return to the game so stay away from them. But what about your in-game online relationships? Well the article advises you to give them a nice goodbye. After all, online social ties should be easier to break than face-to-face ones.

Now we here at QJ believe that playing MMOs isn’t something detrimental to you improving your life. In fact, we think it’s something that can help you enrich your life as it is a valid form of entertainment and mental-exercise. While we wouldn’t advise you to quit playing MMOs outright if you’re experiencing time management problems, the tips mentioned could be useful if you’re looking for ways to balance your life and lower your MMO “hours played” count. It’s all about balance really.

Via LifeTutorial