The Great Destroyer
I’ve debated about making this post for months. Despite all the things I put on Twitter I’m not actually super interested in talking about certain details of my personal life. However, this is a topic I feel is relevant to my readers and is a perspective that I simply don’t see presented very often at all.
Its likely you’ve heard the term “wow-widows” or some such variant. Its a term couched in the context of unhappy marriages, neglect and misguided priorities. The stereotype is that some slovenly husband is hunched over the keyboard late at night while his nagging wife berates him for spending more time on a video game than on their relationship.
I’d like to offer a personal story that explains why I reject this notion of video games as the great destroyer of families because for me, video games have done more for my relationship with my family than anything else.
In the beginning
A little background info here on my family. My brothers and I didn’t get along very well when we were growing up. In fact, nobody in the family got along with anybody else in the family very well. There were better times and worse times of course but we were all very different people. We didn’t talk about our feelings, we didn’t share interests. We had brutal fights from time to time. There are a number of different memories I have of things that we did to each other that make me deeply ashamed and regretful even today.
One day my brother expressed an interest in World of Warcraft. I was very surprised as he typically isn’t the kind of person who plays a lot of video games and the ones he does play are all sports related. I never would have imagined he’d be interested in playing a game with elves and magic and swords.
A short time later I beat him to the punch and bought a copy of the game with the Burning Crusade expansion. My brother came home and saw me playing and got really excited. He picked up the game a week later and started playing on a different server.
It was odd. We had something to talk about now. Over the course of the next three years we became closer than I’d ever imagined possible and it was directly because of WoW.
Tuesday mornings and big frickin’ deals
He made the decision to jump to my server early on after hearing about some of the things I was discovering, primarily endgame raiding. We ended up in the same guilds, splitting to different guilds, basically weaving our playing experience together and apart for as long as we both played.
We’d spend a lot of Tuesday mornings talking about raiding or pvp or the math behind rogue dps while waiting for the weekly maintenance to finish up. I could usually tell when he was pvping because I could hear him shouting and cackling at his victims from down the hall. We teamed up and made a 2v2 arena team with his rogue and mine. He was always much better at roguery than I was.
As I mentioned, we were sometimes in the same guild. Whenever I was healing I’d make it a special point to keep him topped off as best I could regardless of what my actual assignment was. If we wiped he’d impatiently demand a rezz and I’d willingly put up with the way he was completely oblivious to the focused healer attention he was getting.
I was really proud of him when he got into what was then the top raiding guild on our side of the server. He was doing Black Temple on his first night in the guild and I watched as much as I could before having to go to my own Karazhan raid. This was a big frickin’ deal to be in Black Temple. After his raid was over I checked the damage meters from the WoW Web Stats report and was very impressed to see that he topped the charts on Teron Gorefiend. Also a big frickin’ deal as you can gather if you’ve ever done that fight. Not only did he top charts his first time in, he topped them against players who had been learning the content weeks before him.
It wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows of course. We needed some measure of distance from each other even when playing the game. We were better off in different guilds not raiding together for the most part. Arguments tended to crop up if we were in too close quarters. Our 2’s arena team for example provoked a good share of heated arguing.
“You were supposed to blind the priest, what the hell were you doing?”
“I was?! No, you were but you were too busy tunnel-visioning on the other rogue.”
“Shut up, you suck! Ffs kick kick KIIIIIIICCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK.”
I think we did a good job finding our balance however and we stuck to it for the most part.
Sometimes talking about WoW led us to talk about other things going on in our real lives. I learned that he could be subject to the same bleak, hopeless outlooks on life that I’m prone too, something that we would never have talked about before WoW and is something we’ve never seriously talked about since even.
Archie
The most memorable time we had raiding together was the Archimonde fight. His guild had been bashing their heads against the wall for what seemed like decades trying to get that fight down. I was asked to come help on my mage because the raid leader trusted me not to stand in doomfire so I was there on the night they finally got their kill. It was one of those classic raid nights where everything came down to the wire. It was very near the end of the raid and people were desperate to not have to come back again and start over.
At around 25% things started to get out of control. I ran out of range of people needing to be decursed and so did one of the other decursers. Two people died which led to a horrible chain reaction of more people dying. I could hear my brother smashing the hell out of his gamepad from down the hall, frantically trying to squeeze out as many Sinister Strikes as he could and I didn’t need to see him to know that he was leaning so far forward towards the screen that he was in danger of falling out of his chair or that his teeth were gritted and the last time he blinked was minutes and minutes in the past.
When Archimonde kersploded he started jumping on the furniture in his room while shouting and cheering as loud as he could. He then burst into my room and started jumping on my furniture. There hadn’t been this much celebrating since the Utah Jazz made it into the NBA Finals.
The point
Here’s the point: I liked this. I liked watching him blow people up at the Gold Mine or having him explain to me his new personal rules for enjoying Warsong Gulch (the rule was he only ever killed other rogues). I liked having this world that we shared. It wasn’t the best relationship ever but it was the best we’d ever had. I never cared about the loot that I got nearly as much as I cared about what loot he got. I was proud of everything he accomplished much more than I was proud of my own achievements. Things were just… good.
And then he got a new girlfriend. One he was quite serious about. She laid down a ground rule with him pretty early on: WoW destroys families and he wasn’t to continue playing. At first he’d sneak a bit but it didn’t take much time at all for things to change.
He doesn’t play anymore. We also don’t talk much anymore. We’re both doing different things, living in different places further away, etc. Things are still good between us but very much… inactive.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bitter towards this girl for being so ignorant. She will never understand that her prejudiced ultimatum was the catalyst that effectively cut the legs out from under the best relationship I ever had with someone from my family.
I’ve tried writing a good ending to this post for over a week now and every time I get to this point I falter. Therefore, I’ll simply leave this post with as unsatisfying an ending as my brother’s WoW career.
Wow, what a powerful story. Lots of people need to read this, that’s for sure.
Pike´s last blog ..Fangirl Field Trip 2010 (Photo Spam)
[Reply]
Shayzani Reply:
June 9th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Thank you miss Pike!
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Pike
9 Jun 10 at 7:41 am
Thank you for sharing this story – it was a good read. It really is a shame that your brother doesn’t play at all any more. I really wish people who don’t play could understand the worth of the social interaction and the fact that moderation is possible.
Ori´s last blog ..Some Bite With My Bark
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Shayzani Reply:
June 9th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Thanks Ori <3
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Ori
9 Jun 10 at 8:38 am
I have a similar, if not so dramatic story, about WoW and my own relationship to my brother. He and I have never gotten along. It took me moving out of the house for us to even stop trying to do physical violence to each other. Recently he started playing WoW. It was this crazy moment of connection when I found out his 3 80s are a druid, a paladin and a hunter. My only 80s are a druid and a paladin, and my third highest character is a 72 hunter. We had never talked about WoW before, but hearing him talk about his love for WSG when I last visited, made me kind of teary eyed.
I guess what I’m saying is that video games can definitely bring people together rather then destroy, and I wish more people could see it the way that other gamers do.
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Shayzani Reply:
June 9th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Amen to that.
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Aurorai
9 Jun 10 at 12:45 pm
Let me tell you a story about a rogue.
I’d just joined Talisman, one of the biggest raiding guilds on [H] Moon Guard at the time. It was rather clear that I wasn’t wanted; I regularly had to dodge venom spewed by some of the most deplorable players I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting, and was mostly ignored by the rest. I was made to stand in the shadow of those with more gear, more experience, and more spite towards “lesser beings” than I could ever hope to achieve.
This isn’t about my rogue, though. It’s about the other rogue that I shared the frigid dark of that shadow with.
His name was Adanis, and much like myself, he had everything to prove and no opportunity to prove it. He wasn’t friends with the GM, a favorite child of the raid leader, or an elitist asshole, each of these a thick, rusted chain that kept him bound to the earth while those less-deserving ascended to a heavenly realm littered with swords, stylish leather armor, and little trinkets shaped like lightning bolts, each glistening with that distinctive purple glow.
We bonded in the way that only prisoners could. We watched each other’s backs, celebrated each deserving piece of gear the other earned, and mocked the folly of those who died to spout while we dove beneath the waves, our blades finding the Lurker’s tender underbelly as effortlessly as we’d become friends.
We outlasted and surpassed those that once sought to clip our wings, and while we never could tear the gaze of our misguided-and-ultimately-malevolent raid leader away from these overrated miscreants that dared to wear the name “rogue,” we’d won the heart of the one being that mattered: Recount.
Things went very much this way until Adanis was stolen away by a woman. Disappointing, isn’t it? There’s no happy ending to this story, and that’s the point. Much like Shayzani, I lost a friend — and in some ways, a brother as well — because of the misguided notions of the ignorant and bigoted.
Sure, World of Warcraft can destroy your relationships; that is, if you choose to drown yourself in it and be blinded to the unresolved issues in your life that need a desperate fix. In that way, it’s no different from any other vice in the world. Unlike those vices, however, this game has sparked friendships that never would have existed otherwise, kept me entertained for over four years, and strengthened the relationship with my own girlfriend. I’m not ashamed to say that this game is one of the best things that’s happened to me.
Here’s hoping Adanis eventually finds the freedom and acceptance to do what he loves, regardless of whether or not an uninformed third party finds it destructive or harmful, and I wish the same to everyone else who might be in the same situation.
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Shayzani Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
I think you were able to write this post better than I did myself. Thank you.
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Zindo
9 Jun 10 at 1:13 pm
My wife deplores anything dealing with technology. Funny that she chose to stay with a computer engineer. lol Anyway, she doesn’t agree with spending hours in front of a computer any more than I agree with spending hours meditating or going to a drum therapy group. We each have our own hobbies and we finally agreed to not bash each other’s choices of how we spend our own free time. We also agree that we each can do as much of our hobby as the other person does in theirs so no one is neglected. Now if I can only get her to do to several more hours of her hobbies.
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Intravax
9 Jun 10 at 2:30 pm
On the note of people not understanding WoW, I have a small anecdote to add. When I worked driving municipal buses in Davis, I would get an employee shuttle at about 5:30AM to do a start-up shift. One of my co-workers remarked that I looked tired, and I confessed I had stayed up until 1AM playing Team Fortress 2 (this was true).
The reaction to this was surprisingly positive considering I was going to drive a 40 ft. vehicle within the hour; one guy even exclaimed ‘Nice!’. So this got me thinking; what if it was WoW (my other mainstay).
Next week, I made an off-remark that I had been up until midnight playing WoW. This provoked cries of how addictive the game is, and general disappointment. It’s funny how you can display MORE addictive tendencies toward a (relatively) unknown game, yet chastise me for spending less time on the dreaded World of Addictioncraft
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Shayzani Reply:
June 9th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
That is really something when people can maintain such an obvious double standard about something as simple as a game.
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Zarat
9 Jun 10 at 2:47 pm
My story is very short, and regards a pair of warriors, a Forsaken and an Orc, named Shraaka and Zhagroth. Their path to glory has been slow, as such things go, for they only adventure a couple of times a week. Zhagroth tanks, and Shraaka fights, and whenever she’s in level range a paladin named Cearalaith will heal for them (for she levels slower, and for no good reason whatsoever). But mostly she lets them be. This is bonding time for an eleven-year-old boy and his father, who live too far apart to see each other more than once or twice a month, but who through the miracle of modern technology can still play games together after Dad gets off work and before the son goes to bed.
WoW destroys families, my ass.
My marriage to “Zhagroth” ended in part due to insufficient understanding or respect between the parties in the relationship — the same sort of deficiency that makes people say things like “WoW destroys families” when what they mean is “My partner is placing higher priority on a game than on our relationship” — because one is easy to deal with, and the other opens up a veritable Pandora’s Box of uncomfortable questions and unpleasant answers. It’s easier to blame an inanimate object that you can throw in the trash for all your problems — to say that if only your partner would be this other way, then everything would be perfect! — than to face the fact that sometimes the person you’re with isn’t actually the person you want to be with.
I think it’s sad that your brother caved to his girlfriend’s demand, if it was in fact presented as broadly and blithely ignorantly as portrayed. I also find it sad that this woman thinks so poorly of herself that she believes a video game is dangerous competition for the attentions of a man worthy of her fancy. A relationship built on ultimatums can’t be healthy. Your brother is who he is whether he plays WoW or not; either his girlfriend loves him for who he is (and what he loves, and what he does for fun) or she doesn’t. If WoW can destroy a relationship, then the relationship has bigger problems than the absence of WoW can fix; if not, there’s no reason to forbid him from playing. It seems to me that he’s giving up something he enjoys for no reason… and she’s giving up the joy of letting him be who he is, and doing things that make him happy. And that’s all very sad.
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Shayzani Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
That’s a beautiful story Erin, thank you for sharing that.
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Astoreth
9 Jun 10 at 5:31 pm
I loved this post, Shay. I know it’s always a little strange and/or awkward to write personally about WoW but, honestly, I think WoW does have a huge impact on people’s lives – in a positive way for the most part – and I appreciate it that people sometimes feel comfortable or courageous enough to reveal a little bit of it – especially when the widespread view of gaming is that it’s all “just a game” so it can’t have meanging or else, as you say, negative and destructive.
I’m really sorry that your relationship with your brother has stagnated for the moment. Truthfully, I can’t imagine his relationship with his gf sustaining – any relationship that is build upon ultimatums and one party making not attempt to understand the passions and motivations of the other is likely doomed … or miserable. Hmmm…that was meant to be cheering but it just sounds means.
Tam´s last blog ..Revenge is best served shelled
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Shayzani Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Its difficult for me to be against his relationship with her. Granted I don’t like her much after how she’s impacted my life already but I do want him to have good things in his life.
I hate being in such moral predicaments where I can’t support or come out against a thing.
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Tam
10 Jun 10 at 5:21 am
WoW has not only made me some new RL friends, but I have also used to keep in touch with many RL friend that I have moved away from. The relationships that I have with all of my guildies are very real and meaningful.
My wife used to consider herself a wow widow until she started playing the game and enjoying it herself. She was there cheering when we killed Arthras and is super proud to be able to say she has made it all the way to fighting putricide… its awesome. It does unite families and friends.
Any time I have heard of a relationship problem being linked to WoW, the problem has already been there, WoW just made it come out or show up more. WoW is not the problem in my experience.
Logtar´s last blog ..The Fall of the Lich King
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Shayzani Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
I could not agree more and I’m very happy to hear that you two have used WoW to strengthen your relationship.
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Logtar
10 Jun 10 at 12:33 pm
Wow what a great post and a great story. I am of the same mind – WoW certainly was a driving force in keeping my siblings close to me. But we’ve always played computer games together.
I was the last to pick up WoW. And now I’m the last to continue playing it. Wrath was the end of things for my brother, he now plays EVE (raids took too long in WoW apparently). My sister has somewhat decided to stop playing (I probably shouldn’t be writing this here since she’s yet to announce that on our own blog) and that’s partly her choice. But I believe a big part of it is also because her partner stopped playing about 6 months ago. And guess what, I don’t think he was a big fan of something that ate into her free time.
But the story that comes to mind reading your own is my friendship with a woman named Maria. I met her at the gym, we ended up working together. She’s 25 years older than me but we really clicked. At the time she was playing Heroes V with her son (my age) and so was I. I got her into playing WoW when I started it.
Her husband never approved of video games and begrudged the time she spend on the computer. Fair enough. But he was convinced she was addicted – and that her addiction was as detrimental as being addicted to drugs (this was when we raided 2 nights a week). She wasn’t allowed to meet anyone she met online in RL (even if she came with me, or even if he was invited too). Maria did the best she could – she took an extended WoW break BUT on the proviso that he stopped watching TV. 3 months later she doesn’t get to play WoW. He still gets to watch TV.
How is it that computer games are so horrible and TV is seen as the lesser evil? I just don’t understand.
And he never understood that by pressuring her to suddenly quit she dropped about 10-15 people she considered friends.
I’d be bitter about your brother’s girlfriend, too.
Cassandri´s last blog ..Junkboxes
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Cassandri
10 Jun 10 at 11:00 pm
My family doesn’t really approve of my WoW habit. I try to convince my sister to play with me, but she always tells me she doesn’t have time, and that her computer isn’t good enough for a game like this. As sad as that makes me, it doesn’t surprise me that much. She’s the one who got me into gaming when I was a kid (the NES was hers, back when I was 8) but she grew out of it as she got older. I’ve never been close to my family, and I usually only talk to them a few times a year anyway.
However, WoW does offer me a way of connecting with my fiance. We play WoW every night, have settled into our roles where he’s the human female paladin tank, I’m the draenei female holy priest. We’ve leveled characters together many times, one time I was a night elf druid instead, one time he played a male human instead, but mostly it’s been the same. He tanks, I heal, we understand each other so we run these places effortlessly while complaining to each other about the stupidity of our randomly-chosen DPS.
I honestly don’t know what we would do together for fun the majority of the time if we didn’t have WoW. It’s cheap, it doesn’t require us to travel anywhere, we can do it at any time of day, especially late at night after I get home from work. Running a random dungeon or two in WoW gives us a meaningful, interactive activity to do together every night.
What do other couples do together at night after they get home from work and before they go to sleep? Passively sit in front of the TV? I don’t even know.
Kiryn´s last blog ..As much as I hate gold sellers, this was pretty impressive.
[Reply]
Kiryn
12 Jun 10 at 1:39 am
I think its cool that you guys used wow as a medium to bond but you must agree that wow can be destructive. I tried to do that once before in a previous relationship and although we both liked talking about it, there came a point where the amount I played became an issue for me.
How many of us know people who’ve taken WoW too far? There’s the urban legends of the Doctors or other professions that have a high social cachet, who borrowed copies and ruined their lives playing. But on a personal level there’s always shit about the game that’s dangerous. For me the game’s too much of a grind sometimes. I think it’s terrible there’s people running the same heroic instances they’ve done a 100times, day after day for badges.
How many people in these comments have put something off to grind that last bit of XP or have another attempt on x boss? My personal wowdemon is that I lose track of time when I play. I can start on a saturday afternoon and before I know it, it’s 8 in the evening and I should be wearing pants. People also forget that many things in most MMOs are actually designed to keep us “addicted”, so no it’s not just WOW.
I’ve met some great people playing this game, and sadly I’ve seen it have some bad effects on them. Those friends I lose to girlfriends/other RL stuff generally seem to be doing better once they stop playing the game or go hypercasual. Not scientific, I know, merely an observation.
My point (yup there was one) is that yes video games can be great for people to stay in contact and bond through but there’s other ways to do this and if they make the decision to stop playing a game, that can have many negative effects on their lives, then we gotta respect that and find new ways to hang out with them.
I can’t really comment on your relationship with your brother Shayzani and forgive me if I come across as an asshole but I’d wager you share a lot more in common than you realise. There’s other things you can do to stay in touch and bond that would probably sit well with his new life and I hope you try them.
I realise I’m a massive hypocrite given how much I play the game but your post help solidify some thoughts I’ve been having recently about the game and my not always healthy relationship with it.
Echo´s last blog ..Update!
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Echo
14 Jun 10 at 5:51 am
Awesome post, Shay! Really good read, though it’s a bit unfortunate that most of the people who could probably use it the most will never read it. Even so, it expresses a very important and very true point of view.
I think WoW’s position as the “flagship” of the MMO industry has put it in a pretty unfair position in the media and ingrained an unfair amount of bias against it in particular. My latest extended break from WoW has led me to try out EVE, and it’s amazing just how much less flak I get for playing “that spaceship game” instead of “the family killer.” WoW is just plain taboo in our culture, however unfair that may be.
Personally, I feel it’s a fascinatingly complex issue, and both sides have merit to them. I had some amazing friendships in WoW, and I’ve played alongside others that have had even closer relationships and friendships than those that I experienced. I’ve seen the flipside though too. I’ve turned down opportunities to go out with RL friends because I was doing some raid I was obligated to go to. Ultimately, I’ve put the game down for now because I feel my life is healthier without it, and my relationships outside the game have gotten much better.
It’s a complex issue. On the one hand, for some people WoW can be a problem, and it really can become a serious hindrance. But on the other hand, it just isn’t that simple, and your post illustrates that magnificently. A great many people utilize it properly as the wonderful and unique social outlet that it can (nay, should) be. The problem is that, unlike the media would have us believe, it isn’t something inherent in the game that makes unequivocally positive or negative. Personal habits, situations, and styles carry far more weight than many people would like to realize.
In society we like simple labels. X = good, or Y = “family killer.” Alas, if only things were always so simple.
Anyhoo, sorry for rambling, and thanks for the thought provoking post. :)
[Reply]
Veren
14 Jun 10 at 12:11 pm
Another good personal story, matey. I read “Snake” first. Relationships are complex.
Gravity´s last blog ..The question that isn’t a question
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Shayzani Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 3:37 am
Thank you sir!
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Gravity
18 Jun 10 at 3:15 am