"for those who have given up on life?"

[mickey]

I knew someone who met their significant other while both were playing a particular MMO. After meeting online they went on to meet in person and now live together. Both have busy lives and both eventually quit the game.

My contact recently resumed playing the game and her SO went ballistic. According to him, that game is "for people who have given up on life." They worked out a compromise where she could play any other game and they could even play it together. But it's putting a strain on their relationship and she has privately told me that she is keeping her options open in terms of ending the relationship and just flying solo for a while.

Can someone help me understand what's going on here? (Just by the way the game is World of Warcraft, which I play casually myself.)

 

[Sci-Fi]

WoW seems to be a relationship killer. I had a friend who had a husband that played WoW all the time. He met another woman online and started to talk to her a lot, it was putting a strain on their marriage. She tried to pick the game up too but couldn't get into it. He went off to meet with this woman and my friend found out, he claimed they just met and didn't have sex but she didn't believe him. She left him and took their 3 kids. He went off to meet up with this woman he met on WoW but that all fell apart. I doubt this other woman was really looking for anything, maybe just a fling since as soon as he split up from his wife she dumped him, kind of funny though.

The MMO I play a few I know are married, they don't play as often because they take time to spend it with their significant other and family. That's the problem with some people is that they become so obsessed with these games it disrupts their everyday life and relationships. Doesn't seem like their compromise is working very well for her, and seems like he might be afraid of her meeting someone else in the game and leaving him, especially since they met through the game. It's a lot more common than you think. Seems to always involve WoW more than any other MMO though for some reason.

 

[mickey]

I never did consider the possibility that he's afraid she'll meet someone else because she met him that way. I'll see whether she's receptive to hearing that possibility mentioned. Thanks.

And one reason it seems to involve WoW more than other MMOs is that WoW has about 8-10 million subscribers and no other MMO has more than 2 million subscribers. Quite a few have fewer than 500,000. But given the crappy nature of the WoW player base I'm surprised people are even open to meeting a potential significant other through the game. I swear there are more buttholes playing WoW than there are in all the toilets on earth combined.

 

[BeyondShy]

Hmmm, maybe I should play World of Warcraft because I never met a girl playing PC baseball, football or hockey before. Then again I've seen videos of World of Warcraft so forget it.

 

[kamya]

In mmo's that I've gotten sucked into it was about 50/50 that a married person was cheating on their partner with someone from the game. It's pretty common.

 

[mickey]

In mmo's that I've gotten sucked into it was about 50/50 that a married person was cheating on their partner with someone from the game. It's pretty common.

Cheating as in meeting with someone in person?

 

[kamya]

Yes. Even met a group of people in a guild that live in the same city as me. They were doing all kinds of things. I can actually think of so many memories of people hooking up with others from these games now that I'm trying to remember them all. I just never really noticed how common it was I guess.

As far as "only for people who have given up", whenever I got into one of those games it was during times in my life where everything else was going to honeysuckle. So I could see why someone would say that.

 

[Tealeaf]

Projection out the wazoo, where one person hated himself for who he was when he played and sees WoW as a symbol of it to be avoided.

When you start fighting because your spouse is playing a video game (not because they're playing it too much or neglecting your child to play), then your relationship has much bigger problems than the video game.