I was looking around on random sites like ManiacWorld and stumbled upon two videos both relating to the addiction and insanity of World of Warcraft.

Here's the first video. It's of a Stanford University Student finally making it to level 60.



After watching that, I realized how happy I am that I never got so sucked into the game. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that all WoW players are insane for playing the game and being nutcases. However, I'm saying that I fear what might happen to people who play the game for so long.

I know that not all people are heavily addicted. People are vastly mature enough to know when to stop. I've had a friend try to stop time and time again, but ends up coming back to playing WoW. I remember being in highschool with him and he'd tell me how he was up literally all last night playing WoW.

I've pulled all nighters before, but never an all nighter on a school night. Sure, I've stayed up a little later just to play my game or to play Halo2 a few more times online, but never an all nighter.


Shortly after watching the first video though, I cam across this sad yet funny video. It's a recording of people playing WoW while on a Ventrillo chat (or at least one like it).


(sorry if the sub titles doesn't time up right with the audio)

This just shocked me, but made me laugh so hard. I mean, the poor bastard was fighting his parents over trying to just one more thing on WoW and he had an 11 o'clock curfew and a sport to go play the next day. That curfew can only mean that the kid is young and can't manage himself.

I used to be like that with games when I was back in grade school. I used to throw temper tantrums because I got killed just before finally making it to a boss or I lost by literally a tenth of a second in Re-volt. I'm much better now. Sure I might say something like "Mother F*cker!" at the tv screen when I lose at something that I've spent a long time working on, but I certainly don't go as far as that little kid goes.

Hey, wait. Whose to blame? We have video game addiction on kids with parents who are complaining and are only yelling about it or worse yet, crying about it.

This next video is worth a look too.


I have to note something here. The featured kid is 16 and is currently not in school or working (knowing that this in another country, 16 might mean adulthood, who the hell knows) but plays WoW on an average of 16 hours a day, according to his mother.

Let's break this down. There's 24 hours in a day and he spends 16 of it playing WoW. That means there's only 8 hours left. The kid could also spend time in his day checking out other things like WoW forums. We'll assume that can be anywhere between an hour to two hours. That means 6-7 hours are left over. That's barely enough for the required 6 hours of sleep that people need in order to actually sleep good. However, I'm sure we all know that he doesn't sleep 6 hours straight every night.

Remember how the video showed that he has become "violent"? Well, I don't know about most people, but I know that people can get "violent" when they lose their sleep and or very tired. I know I get really short tempered, especially when I don't have my chinese food in my stomach.

Speaking of Chinese, what about that 13 year old boy? That kid played how many hours straight? 36? That two and a half days. Anyone that stays up for two and a half days in a row will certainly be grouchy and mean. I'm sure that staying up that long can take a toll on the human body and even cause a change on the mindset.

Wait, there's something missing with the Chinese boy. Where's the parents? Oh, that's right, they're suing Blizzard for their kid's suicide. Where were they in the first 12 hours of the kid playing?

So now we've heard a little kid with a curfew argue with his parents with a possibility of domestic violence, a 16 year old kid who says he can stop whenever yet he play an average of 16 hours a day, and a 13 year old who FUCKING committed suicide after playing 36 hours of WoW because he didn't get what he wanted. Not only that, we got parents who don't know how to handle such a thing.

I know how to handle it. Stop paying for their subscription! It's that simple! If the kid is addicted to a game on a console, take the console away! Lock it in a box or something. It's not that hard. I personally don't see how parents can feel justified by suing creators of the game. I got a word for these parents, if you weren't there for your kid and you're trying to not take responsibility for it, then you shouldn't have f*cked in the first place.

I know I might be rambling on, but here's my point. Parents need to be more involved in their kid's life when the kid plays video games. As mentioned before, 43% of parents don't play with their kid, and more recently parents in Europe feel that it's not their fault for not limiting their kids playing the violent video game that obviously shows an big fat f*cking number 18 on the cover.

Once again, Parents need to stop pointing their fingers and start enforcing their own rules. My parents watched me play my games and if there was something they didn't like, they made sure they either took the game away or punished me for growing "violent", or better yet, sleep deprived.