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

[knight_hawk00]

There are currently between 10 and 11 million WOW accounts in the world. Hard to estimate how many players that is, but you can easily guess that the number of players is in excess of 15 million. Given that WOW is marketed in such a way that it promotes the spread of the game and recruiting other players and the countless stories of addiction like symptoms, will an entire generation be negatively effected by this game?

[panther56]

Was it not Carl Jung who said the world hangs on a thin tread and that is the nature of the world. (may have been another word other than nature but the meaning is about the same). It only takes one fanatic, one mad man who thinks he is doing the right thing to destroy the entire world. If we love ourselves and the earth then we would do away with what would destroy it to smithereens.

[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.

[skatrman23]

What if not everyones not addicted, like me and most people I know who don't even play 3 times a week, and what if its "just another video game" to pass are time. I mean if you think about there's 15 million people on WoW, but there's trillions of people in the world. Thats less than one sixteenth of the world playing it, which is pretty drastic if you think about single people. It sure does affect some people seriously, who play it like real life. But to the people who play it responsibly and as a passtime, it's just a game.

[Britt Malka]

Hi Knight-Hawk00

You indicate that there is a risk for the world to be negatively affected by World of Warcraft, but what if it were the contrary that was true?

Roll playing makes us more open and understanding to other people. It helps us see things, not only in our way, but also seen from another point of view, which is a good thing.

If you should worry, it would rather be for the generations growing up with a new passive toy each month, television etc., which will keep us passive and unresponsive to other people's needs. Just think about the way we look at catastrophes - oh, another earthquake? Could you please pass the sauce?

World of Warcraft teaches us to be heroic and work in groups to solve problems.

Yes, of course some people get addicted, but those people would get addicted to other things, if they weren't playing WoW.

I think that dreaming of a transhuman future gave a very good answer, too.

[Joseph G]

I do not believe an entire generation will be negatively affected by WoW. In fact the inverse will happen.

First here are some numbers:
In December 2008 1.8million players played World of Warcraft averaging 744min of playtime per week or just under 2 hours a day. Compared to the national average of TV watched per week 28 hours (nearly triple of what the average WoW player)

Now as far as the term "generation" you'd be surprise how this game bridges age and sex gaps. Most people think someone who plays WoW is a pimple faced kid or a loser living in his moms basement.

The fact of the matter is that the average age of the male player is 26 while the average age of the female player is 33. Over 50% of WoW players work fulltime and 36% are married and 22% have kids. (If you want more stats on WoW and other MMORPG's look up the Daedalus Project).

As a closing note people who play MMORPG's meet people from all walks of life. There is nowhere else where you can bring 10, 25, 40 people together have them all focus and work together to achieve a goal with no guaranteed reward other than the satisfaction of completing it.

[Bugs Bunny]

i would think as a student of human nature. i can safely say there will be no impact what's so ever. i would think a generation that grows up in 20 years time will not even know what World of Warcraft is, because they will have all new interests, of their own.