Via Waxy, here’s an article about World of Warcraft, and its addictive qualities:
Let me put it this way – while I feel no massive compromise to my life is occurring now, while my relationship with the game is merely grudging at the moment, I can imagine coming to hate the game and yet still wanting to play it. Is that an extraordinary statement? Is that a piece of self-insight there, or is it something about the game?
I’ve been playing WoW off and on for about two months, and haven’t found it any more or less addictive than other games. It is fantastically designed, which makes if more fun to play, but I feel no more compelled to play it than I felt compelled to play, you know, Summer Games in 1987.
I should also point out that WoW does player outreach incredibly well. Check out how much real estate on their home page is dedicated to fan sites, fan art and contests.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Half the people in my office play WOW. Come to think of it, it’s probably more like 70%.
They talk about the game (with such earnestness) at length every single day.
They plan instances on Molten Core, and talk about some boss named Ragneros. They stay up till all hours and I get the sense that some of them are pretty ‘big’ in the world; Level 60, leading their guilds, all that.
The ever present WoW conversations are enough to keep me from even considering it – it just seems to take over.
Jeff: Heh, I intentionally don’t talk about it much. In truth, I probably only play an average of 30-45 minutes per day. And I don’t belong to a guild (despite the near constant solicitations)–that’s just too much trouble.
It’s pretty sad when there are companies like this:
http://www.oforu.com/index.asp
(as linked from the Google ads on this blog post…)
That offer to play your character, from their website:
“…I can imagine coming to hate the game and yet still wanting to play it.”
That’s actually how I feel about the whole internet, sometimes. 😛 Especially Flickr.
ChrisK: And you know they’re sweatshops in India or China or what-have-you, eh?
That said, if I get my character up to level 60, I’m going to try to auction her off on eBay. I have no idea if she’ll say, but I could, in theory, recoup my costs (for the game, of course, not for my time).
I’m 56k away from 60 right now on my first character. (Siltran, on Silvermoon, in case anyone wants to say hello.)
At first, I didn’t find it any more or less addictive than any other game I’d ever played. But then.. I got involved with a guild (all local Vancouver people, for the record) and we started doing instance runs.
Someone quoted a stat to me recently (it may even be in the article you linked to, but I didn’t click) that 60% of WoW players spend more time on WoW than any other leisure activity. I laughed when I read that, because it’s very true for me. I watch FAR less television now, and read far less, too.
It’s not a negative (I’m replacing television with something that involves at least a level of human interaction) to me, because I haven’t replaced NON-leisure activities with WoW. I still eat, sleep, shower, go to work, etc.
A lot of people would consider me to be some sort of obsessed WoW freak, but the reality for me is that I spend a fair amount of time doing something I really love doing, and it includes building relationships with people (we meet in person all the time, so it’s not just words-on-a-screen) and using my brain to solve problems.
people who say there “ADDICTED” are a bunch of cockfags and dont know anything
It’s as addictive as someone wants it to be. To me that is pretty clear.
I do play WoW and I must admit it is one of the best games I played so far, why ? Because of the length and depth of the game, it’s like an epic book that comes alive. You have all the content like in a book but it’s more in detail with each chapter you have smaller books that add to the story.
The only sad thing is that media does focus on a few people who freak out , I would say they have a mental condition regardless of playing WoW.
Sadly enough they happen to play WoW and it put’s the game in a bad position.
As with any product, too much is not healthy but because of the ammount of WoW player, 8 million if I’m correct, the chance that someone freaks out is much larger than with any other game that is played for two weeks by 100.000 people and then never played again.
For me it’s a way to avoid being bored, I still believe it’s better that I play WoW to kill me time when my girlfriend is not home instead of going out and meeting other girls instead or sitting in a bar drinking beers.
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The reason wow is so hard to quit at the end of each day is that it can’t be paused, EVER. Every other video game, any system, however “fun” or addicting, can be paused, you know that nobody else will pass you level-wise, and you can continue later, at any time. When you play wow, if you stop, you know that there is always someone else who will become better. It’s not about good old competition, it’s about
being able to sit back all day and watch yourself own everyone else, which can’t be done. That’s why everyone plays 24/7.
i abosutely hate this game my mum and her bf used to play it and me and my brothers never got the attention we needed off them ever cause they wer so zombied into this game it was like they were in another world, its so ridiculous, its like we didnt even exist, my bf also plays it and he doesnt like eat or sleep hardly cause of this game, i dont see whats so interesting about this game at all woop you make a character, kill spiders, and shit and finish at level 80 but you can still carry on from all i know ITS CRAP THEY SHOULD DESTROY IT BEFORE SOMEONE DIES! AND SOONER OR LATER ITS GOING TO COME TO THAT EXTENT!!!