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NEWS > GAMES > MANY MEN TURNING TO ‘WORLD OF WARCRAFT’ OVER MARRIAGE
MANY MEN TURNING TO ‘WORLD OF WARCRAFT’ OVER MARRIAGE
June 5 2011
London, U.K. – Back in 2004 many in the mainstream had heard very vaguely of this game called ‘World of Warcraft’. Television commercials brought the game into living rooms for the first time, something most assumed would be the end of the noise. It 
was sensible to assume that the game would eventually go away. After all, it was just a video game, something nerds were interested in but something which didn’t really matter. They really didn’t know what they were getting into.
With more than 11 million subscribers now seven years after its launch, ‘WOW’ has never been a simple video game. It has been a cultural phenomenon, and icon of the modern age that has penetrated mainstream culture and defied all expectations in the gaming world. ‘World of Warcraft’ is not simply a game, it is a entity that goes well beyond what any game has ever done before, and now it is having a real impact on human culture. In a recent survey conducted in England 15 per cent of women cited video game addiction as the principle reason for divorce, and WOW being the principle title motivating those actions. That increase in game-related divorces has many experts concerned that as the use of WOW continues, birth rates and economic structures could very well suffer in the future.
“The problem spouses encounter with video game addiction is that the non-gamer doesn’t appreciate that it’s an addiction. This means it’s not a choice to spend so much time in a virtual environment versus time with the spouse and family. It’s a compulsion,” addiction expert Ryan G Van Cleave told the Daily Mail. “I was surprised 
by the result at first, but I would expect the number to be even higher next year. The increase could be a consequence of people staying indoors more because of the recession, or it might be being used by men in particular as a means of escape from an already unhappy relationship.”
Other titles such as Call of Duty are also cited as contributing factors, but WOW leads the way.
“Addiction is addiction, regardless of the focus. Some people are more prone to addiction than others and the makeup of that addiction, whether it is a chemical component or some other factor, simply engages them, it activates the already present predilection for addiction,” said Scrape TV Psychology analyst Dr. Sarah Welp. “Videogames stimulate a number of centres in the brain. The areas that involve pleasure, the areas which engage problem solving, these are compelling areas of the human psyche and when they are activated it makes it very difficult to separate from the real world. When a game like World of Warcraft comes into play the problem can be even worse. It requires team play and cooperation and has a reward system in place, all of which contributes to high levels of addiction in susceptible individuals.”
It’s not clear what percentage of WOW players are actually married.
“What this means for the future of humanity isn’t quite clear. Marriage is important for
the perpetuation of the species. A lot of these addicted players are highly intelligent and are exactly the type of people we need breeding in order for humanity to stay strong, but if they are stuck to their chairs they aren’t exactly getting a whole lot of breeding done,” continued Welp. “While the impact of that won’t be felt immediately, the long term effects could be seriously detrimental. That is 11 million fewer breeders, which could be upwards of 30 million children who won’t be born, most of them in the United States. That will have a serious impact in the future as work forces start to decline and other, more active nations, continue to have children and not play videogames all day.”
The study also showed that most of the divorced couples weren’t getting a whole lot of action, which may have contributed to the fracture.
Douglas Havermore, Games Correspondent
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