What will be the social andmoral impact of World of Warcraft 20 years from now?

[Gentlemenvolleyball765]

10 million accounts? Maybe half that many people play seriously. (I'm sure a lot of those accounts are spammers and Chinese gold farmers.) Say 6 million. So that's 1/1,000th of the world's population. Not exactly a high proportion. Still, Blizzard must really be raking it in!

I disagree that WoW promotes the spread of the game & recruiting other players. They do have incentives, like a nice Zhevra riding mount, but based on the number I've seen it's pretty small. I'm sure just as many people start playing because they hear us Warcraft junkies talking about it at work, or saw the WoW South Park episode or some other pop culture reference to it.

It can be a bit addictive, though probably no more so than alcohol. Most people I know are fine with it; it's just a few who are the hard-core gamers that play WoW in all their free time. I average maybe an hour a day myself, more on weekends, and some days I'm just too busy with other stuff (including other forms of entertainment). I really don't think this game has all that many negative effects to it. I do make a special effort, though, not to let it interfere with my real-world relationships, most especially to my wife. Many married WoW players out there are no doubt familiar with the term "spouse aggro" or "wife aggro," meaning that your WoW playing is pissing off your spouse/wife. That too can be a check against using up too much time playing WoW.