There has always been a fine line between spending time playing video games and spending TOO MUCH time playing video games. One wife had enough and left her husband for not being able to walk this line.
Jocelyn, a 28-year old California resident and ex-employee of Blizzard has recently divorced her husband, Peter, of six years, blaming his addiction to World of Warcraft for the downfall of their marriage.
“He would get home from work at 6:00, start playing at 6:30, and he’d play until three a.m. Weekends were worse — it was from morning straight through until the middle of the night. It took away all of our time that we spent together. I ceased to exist in his life.”
Jocelyn goes on to say,
“I bought the game for him for Christmas 2004, when it first came out. By May we had our first serious discussion about where our marriage was going, and by September I had moved out.”
As any good wife would, Jocelyn tried to schedule some quality time of 30 minutes to watch television together, but Peter refused, not wanting to leave his current raid. His domestic duties also began to suffer, as far as his share of the chores around the house and paying bills.
Jocelyn is a gamer herself, but refused to play World of Warcraft, because she recognized the addictiveness of the game and its never-ending gameplay. She has no hesitation in blaming WoW as the sole reason for her divorce and is still emotionally distraught over the game’s impact on her marriage.
“I’m real, and you’re giving me up for a fantasy land. You’re destroying your life, your six-year marriage, and you’re giving it up for something that isn’t even real. [Blizzard] build it in such a way that you have to keep putting more and more time into it to maintain your status. I remember thinking when I was married that it was downright exploitative to people who couldn’t control themselves in that way. It’s set up like a drug.”
Here are the issues that that should have been foremost in Jocelyn’s thinking and reasoning. It seems as though Peter had more of an issue with prioritizing as opposed to an addiction to a video game. It’s obvious that he would rather spend time on the game than with his wife. That’s more of a personality issue than an addiction to something. Why blame a video game for being TOO good when the obvious reason for the demise was her husband’s personality?
I’ll be the first to admit that World of Warcraft is an excellent an addictive game. I, too, have been called out on my tendency to neglect other things when playing the game, but what always snapped be back to reality is my recognition of a stronger addiction to my wife and her happiness. I’m not taking away from the fact that Jocelyn definitely was neglected as wife and partner is this matter, but a question I’d like to ask her is, why is she blaming a game for ruining her marriage instead of questioning her decision to marry a man that would put ANY video game over her? It sounds to me as though she made a poor choice in picking a husband rather than a video game.
Jocelyn, a 28-year old California resident and ex-employee of Blizzard has recently divorced her husband, Peter, of six years, blaming his addiction to World of Warcraft for the downfall of their marriage.
“He would get home from work at 6:00, start playing at 6:30, and he’d play until three a.m. Weekends were worse — it was from morning straight through until the middle of the night. It took away all of our time that we spent together. I ceased to exist in his life.”
Jocelyn goes on to say,
“I bought the game for him for Christmas 2004, when it first came out. By May we had our first serious discussion about where our marriage was going, and by September I had moved out.”
As any good wife would, Jocelyn tried to schedule some quality time of 30 minutes to watch television together, but Peter refused, not wanting to leave his current raid. His domestic duties also began to suffer, as far as his share of the chores around the house and paying bills.
Jocelyn is a gamer herself, but refused to play World of Warcraft, because she recognized the addictiveness of the game and its never-ending gameplay. She has no hesitation in blaming WoW as the sole reason for her divorce and is still emotionally distraught over the game’s impact on her marriage.
“I’m real, and you’re giving me up for a fantasy land. You’re destroying your life, your six-year marriage, and you’re giving it up for something that isn’t even real. [Blizzard] build it in such a way that you have to keep putting more and more time into it to maintain your status. I remember thinking when I was married that it was downright exploitative to people who couldn’t control themselves in that way. It’s set up like a drug.”
Here are the issues that that should have been foremost in Jocelyn’s thinking and reasoning. It seems as though Peter had more of an issue with prioritizing as opposed to an addiction to a video game. It’s obvious that he would rather spend time on the game than with his wife. That’s more of a personality issue than an addiction to something. Why blame a video game for being TOO good when the obvious reason for the demise was her husband’s personality?
I’ll be the first to admit that World of Warcraft is an excellent an addictive game. I, too, have been called out on my tendency to neglect other things when playing the game, but what always snapped be back to reality is my recognition of a stronger addiction to my wife and her happiness. I’m not taking away from the fact that Jocelyn definitely was neglected as wife and partner is this matter, but a question I’d like to ask her is, why is she blaming a game for ruining her marriage instead of questioning her decision to marry a man that would put ANY video game over her? It sounds to me as though she made a poor choice in picking a husband rather than a video game.
Labels: Burning-Crusade, Douceswild, MMORPG, World-of-Warcraft
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