Hi, I’m Wesley, and I was addicted to World of Warcraft.
I’m not talking about a, ‘I played this game a lot because it’s fun’ kind of thing. I’m talking about a good old-fashioned, almost ruined my life kind of thing. Hold onto your legendary hats, things are about to get serious.
In early 2005 I started playing World of Warcraft with a few friends. I was living at my family home in South London with my then girlfriend of over five years. I was trying to make it as a journalist at a mainstream Sunday newspaper, but was told that in order to progress, I’d need to get some proper journalism training. So, I dropped down to one day a week at the paper, got some freelance media analysis work for some extra money, and thought about doing a course.
All the while, World of Warcraft became more and more important to me, and I devoted more and more time to it. I’ve thought long and hard about why this happened. Certainly there was a ‘keeping up with the Jones” effect at play here. I was desperate not to be left behind my friends as we frantically levelled up and devoured the then endgame content for loot. But a lot of it had to do with the amazing time I was having. World of Warcraft was my first MMO. I was left dumbstruck by its brilliance, by its world, by the fact I could log in at any time of day or night and know at least a few friends would be online and ready to chat over Teamspeak. World of Warcraft was the best game in the world for a good long time, and I was head over heels in love.