The Reality of World of Warcraft

Joi Ito, Japanese venture capitalist and Level 60, Gnome Mage, couldn’t have said it any better when posed with the question if World of Warcraft is just a game, “Yes, it’s just a game. The way that the real world is a game.”

Author of Synthetic Worlds and Indiana University Professor Edward Castronova (Level 42, Priest), raised a lot of eyebrows when he wrote in his blog an entry entitled “The Horde Is Evil,” claiming that only the antisocial at heart would pick that darker side. The Horde is the more bestial of the two factions a player is asked to choose from when joining the game. Castronova believes that if someone behaves badly in the game—an example would be the WOW equivalent of spree killing, where someone ganks a character of a much lower level, just for the hell of it—that person should be judged harshly in the real world as well.

There were a couple of highly publicized degenerate acts that happened in WoW that would merit incarceration in real life. One of them happened in the Illidan PvP server, when the guild Serenity Now ambushed a funeral service held inside the game by a rival guild for one of  their members that died in real life of a heart attack. They recorded, edited and even added background music to it. Another incident that bothered Blizzard, was a naked protest made by Gnomes clamoring for more power.

Joi Ito, Japanese venture capitalist and Level 60, Gnome Mage, couldn’t have said it any better when posed with the question if World of Warcraft is just a game, “Yes, it’s just a game. The way that the real world is a game.”

Author of Synthetic Worlds and Indiana University Professor Edward Castronova (Level 42, Priest), raised a lot of eyebrows when he wrote in his blog an entry entitled “The Horde Is Evil,” claiming that only the antisocial at heart would pick that darker side. The Horde is the more bestial of the two factions a player is asked to choose from when joining the game. Castronova believes that if someone behaves badly in the game—an example would be the WOW equivalent of spree killing, where someone ganks a character of a much lower level, just for the hell of it—that person should be judged harshly in the real world as well.

There were a couple of highly publicized degenerate acts that happened in WoW that would merit incarceration in real life. One of them happened in the Illidan PvP server, when the guild Serenity Now ambushed a funeral service held inside the game by a rival guild for one of  their members that died in real life of a heart attack. They recorded, edited and even added background music to it. Another incident that bothered Blizzard, was a naked protest made by Gnomes clamoring for more power.

Just like in real life, it’s not just about the bad. There are also positive things that have happened because of WoW. It offers a sense of fulfillment for some, like in the case of Rochester, N.Y., college professor and mother, Elizabeth Lawley. According to her, unlike in the real world where ninety percent of what she does remains unfinished like parenting, teaching or doing the laundry, the results in Warcraft are immediate. “In WOW, I can cross things off a list—I’ve finished a quest, I’ve reached a new level.” Ross Mayfield, a Level 60, Human Palladin and CEO of an Internet company deems it the new golf. “I actually closed a deal with a company I met through WOW,” says Mayfield.

Others instead of developing friendships and relationships, are developing characters and selling them in the black market for real money. A thriving industry makes tons of real dollars by “gold farming” (accumulating in-game currency and selling it) or “power leveling” (borrowing someone’s avatar and grinding through the game to gain experience). Most of the manpower is supplied by Chinese workers like Zhang Hanbin (Level 60, Rogue), a 24-year-old dropout who works in a grim apartment-cum-sweatshop in the provincial town of Wuxue. An eight-hour day collecting game loot can yield 100 gold pieces, worth about $30 on the black market.

Blizzard will release its long-awaited update The Burning Crusade with key features that include two new races, a new continent to explore and an increase in the level cap from 60 to 70. Hundreds of thousands will jam the World of Warcraft servers until they once again reach the peak.

As the lines between the virtual and physical realms becomes fuzzier and fuzzier, will World of Warcraft still be just a game?

Via Newsweek