Hey everybody, it's time for another geek post that very few people will care about!
My subscription to World of Warcraft expired yesterday. I have twice paid the fee of $77 to keep playing for six months, but I was using an old credit card that got replaced, so they weren't able to charge me again. It would be a simple matter to enter my new card number and renew, but I didn't. I just let it lapse.
Those two $77 charges plus the initial purchase price of $50 add up to a whopping total of $204 that I paid to play just one game. Do I regret wasting that much money? No, because I've gotten an incredible amount of play time out of WoW. As a gaming buff, I usually buy a new $50 game every month or two. Since I started playing WoW, I can only think of three games that I bought. And they were used. As entertainment value per dollar goes, $13 a month for an hour or two of play each day is quite a lot, especially when you compare it to, say, renting a 2 hour movie for $5.
It's not that I don't play anymore; just the opposite. I still play very regularly. And in a way, that's the problem. Now that I'm in grad school while still being the sole household income provider, I've already got less time to spend with my family and I'm feeling it. The last thing I need is a bunch of online people craving my attention as well.
I love playing World of Warcraft. Lately it's been more of a single player game than a multiplayer one for me, because I play at odd hours and don't have the time to dedicate to playing long group sessions. But I'm leaving behind a level 60 human priest with 200 gold, a level 47 Tauren Hunter, and numerous smaller characters who range from level 34 on down.
I've also gained great enjoyment from my guild, The Motley Fools, all of whom are members of the Fool message board community and many of whom would not have joined without my glowing recommendations of the game. It was always nice to log in and see another 20 friends online, get greeted with a friendly "Hey Kazim!", and know that I have buddies available to go questing with or give me items I might need.
Still, real life beckons. Without the temptation of my Warcraft account, I will still play other games, but probably not quite as much.
At least not until I buy the expansion pack.
I'm a WoW player myself, and I always find it amusing when people say "I'm not paying Fifteen dollars a month to play a game!"
ReplyDeleteI've pointed out the same thing to them: For less than the cost of a visit to the movie theater (if you get a drink and snacks), you get a month's worth of entertainment. Seems like a good deal to me.
I can definitely see how playing an MMORPG would be detrimental to one's studies, though.
you made me cry ,
ReplyDeletewarcraft its the best game invented
I'm a university professor who supervises several phd students, and yeah I would not be thrilled to hear they've been playing WoW - but I play myself. A LOT! Well once upon a time a lot. I have five level 70s (the idea was to cover all the main professions: skinning/leatherworking, herbalism/alchemy, mining/blacksmithing, tailoring/enchanting, mining/engineering, alts created in that order but after BC came out I switched the priority order so the healer priest - tailoring/enchanting, duh - hit 70 next in line after the boomkin druid (original main, skinning/leatherworking).
ReplyDeleteHowever, I've been playing less and less lately, particularly after I became very unhappy with the guild I was then in. They seemed to be bent on doing KZ and nothing but KZ. But (with exactly two exceptions, one of them the current GM, who seems to be a really nice guy) were completely unwilling to help the druid and/or priest get attuned.
They eventually kicked me out of the guild, I suspect because they thought I was a little kid (although other reasons were given): the priest's handle is pdpeleven, which someone told me could be taken for an 11 year old with initials pdp. But if you google (or pick your favorite search engine) for pdp11 you'll see its a famous minicomputer - which is what I lived on in the lab back when I was in grad school.
I'm actually in my late 40s, and the mother of another WoW player who was kicked out of the same guild at the same time. Although he really is a teenager, and admittedly sometimes engaged in rather juvenile chat on the guild channel. This is why I wanted to be in the same guild, to supervise his behavior and clue him to take it offline when he and his irl friends got too silly online. And, well, watch out for possible pedophiles.