The computer game, World of Warcraft, is addictive, that much I admit. But does it really deserve to be lumped in with class-A drugs such as cocaine? Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation thinks so.

World of Warcraft is an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) which has over 10 million regular players. These gamers, who all pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of playing the game online, can spend hours completing quests and building up their character’s levels.

As previously stated, WoW can be mind-bogglingly addictive, with a new quest always around the corner to tempt you to play for longer, or the appeal of leveling up drawing you in and making you forget the outside world.

To gamers such as myself, this is a good thing, meaning there’s a game on the market with the power to completely involve you. But some people don’t like this addictive element, and think it makes World of Warcraft “the most dangerous game on the market.”

That’s the view of Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation, which is set to publish a report looking at the dangers of WoW, and computer game addiction in general. According to The Daily Telegraph, Sven Rollenhagen, the author of the report stated:

There is not a single case of game addiction that we have worked with in which World of Warcraft has not played a part. It is the crack cocaine of the computer gaming world. Some people are literally unable to drag themselves away and will play it till they drop.

There are exceptional cases where young people have become so addicted to the game that it’s started to affect their health. The most obvious and well-reported of these was when a 15-year-old Swedish boy collapsed and started convulsing after spending 20 hours straight playing the game. But this is by no means the norm.

Most people aren’t stupid enough to spend that long staring at a computer screen, and would regulate their time playing WoW or any of the other numerous MMORPGs available. If kids are either too young or don’t possess enough common sense to exercise some self-control then I have to wonder what their parents are doing while they are playing these allegedly harmful computer games.

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Entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 11:34 pm under Health, Opinion, Technology.

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