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...just WHY are people playing games like WoW and Starcraft II endlessly?

I don't mean the casual gamers who dip into them now and again, nor do I refer to those who play them for several hours at a time. I know I've done both, and to castigate people for doing the same would be hypocrisy.

Instead, I'm referring to the people who play games like WoW and Starcraft II without stopping. EVER. Not even stops to do normal things like eat, sleep, or go to the toilet. Needless to say, such behaviour is extremely unhealthy.

So why do people do it? I know these games are addictive, but surely everyone realises that living like this is really bad for them, right?

Don't mind me, I'm just curious.

Strange, that's what my wife keeps asking me, too .

Just kidding, I'm not like that...

No, REALLY!

Seriously, I don't know. An adult gamer should know better and a young gamer should get his butt sent to bed (or dining table, school,...) by his parents (just like my dad did when I was playing GK2 for the first time, lol).

They must be beyond obsession though, to play it year-after-year-after year. Perhaps game rankings have to do with it. Imagine playing some good game since release, being really good at it and being ranked first. The others in the top 10 (or top 100), who also have been playing the game endlessly, will just want to get higher up the ladder while the ones on top will want to keep their position. Must be a personal pride thing, along with being obsessed by the game that is. Besides, playing sports with friends is too physically exhausting (I would argue that playing games non-stop is more exhausting, not to mention unhealthy, though).

I never liked StarCraft and I haven't played the sequel, so I can't answer there. However, I can probably shed some light on MMOs like WoW.

The main draw to MMOs is the social aspect. Sure, lots of games have multiplayer today, but gamer interaction is usually quite limited. MMOs, on the other hand, not only thrive on gamer interaction, but demand it in order to succeed.

This is why guilds or clans (or whatever names they're using now) are so popular. You get a dedicated group of friends to play alongside, which is something you rarely find in non-MMOs. MMOs are, in a sense, a "team sport."

When Maia and I were playing Guild Wars, we did so almost every night. Our situation might've been different in the sense that it was our ONLY way of interacting (beyond instant messaging and talking on the phone) while I was in Houston and she was in Edmonton. If you don't know how far apart those two cities are, just take a look here on Google Maps.

We've barely touched GW since we finally moved in together. That said, we're both very interested in Guild Wars 2. We don't know if we'll necessarily buy it, but it's definitely a game that has some potential for us.

You'll also find that there are relatively few players who do nothing but "play all day and night long." You'll hear about the extreme cases since those are newsworthy.

I asked myself that same question when I was a wee eight-year-old. Our Atari 800XL had gotten hooked up again to a gigantic white oldie TV with buttons 1-12 to change channels, it was placed in my bedroom.
Dad had gotten so hooked on Lode Runner he was playing it until late at night, when I was desperately trying to get some sleep in the same room.

As DPX stated, it's about the social aspect of it.

When I first got into EverQuest, it was because my boss at my job played it and was running a guild that consisted of many of my co-workers. So I jumped onto EverQuest and began playing it. My friend also jumped on, though he opted to go with a different guild (with other co-workers). But we used to group (all of us, from the two guilds, since we all worked together) and just go on different adventures. EverQuest is the best MMO (in my personal experience), because it felt nearly limitless, unlike World of Warcraft. There were massive oceans you could boat across, swim across, explore random islands, use magic to breathe underwater, and explore some massive underwater areas - all of these things, full of endless danger - and not even quest related. They were there for the sole reason of exploring. World of Warcraft as of Lich King Expansion did not have that. Literally everything you ran into in World of Warcraft was there for a quest purpose.

So you have this huge world to explore with friends, whether it was on text chat windows, or through the game itself (talking through headsets), it was incredibly fun, because the amount of danger, trouble and adventure you could find was seemingly limitless.

I played EverQuest for over four years, and my wife joined early on as well. She and I played, along with everyone else from our guild. The only reason we stopped was because, our guild split between World of Warcraft and EverQuest II. I opted for World of Warcraft, because I had enjoyed the Warcraft RTS games immensely. (And I am usually not a RTS type of person). Sadly, our guild split even further, because in World of Warcraft, unlike EverQuest, opposing factions (Alliance/Horde) could not group - nor could they even chat - or be in the same guild, or interact in any way. (If an Alliance person walked up to a Horde person and said "Hello" - it'd come out jumbled as, "Fragh'asl!" or something) - and we had people that wanted to play Alliance, and people who wanted to play Horde. I did both, but my preference was Horde. Eventually, the guild was so fractured, that people began leaving for other, bigger guilds.

But I made some friends, both on EverQuest and World of Warcraft that I still remain in contact with, to this very day. (I also did Star Wars: Galaxies and City of Heroes in between all of this madness - neither of which left too much of a lasting impression).

I play Lord of the Rings Online - and for awhile was playing it pretty regularly (it's free). But I can't recall the last time I logged into it. Without the strong social aspect of it, there's not too much appeal to it (which is a shame, because Lord of the Rings Online reminds me very much of EverQuest - in that the land is MASSIVELY huge with SO much to explore).