Profile Interview #1

How long have you been playing World of Warcraft?

Ummmm....I started in January of 2010. I don't think that's right. Actually, I think it was 2009. We were still living in the Wallingford House.

What got you started?

[My two best friends] played and they tried to convince me to start playing. And it worked.

Did you have any hesitations?

Yes. There was and is a stigma attached to it, like it's a weird thing that only super nerds do or it's not cool for whatever reason. Also that it takes over your life when it starts and it's a huge time sink. I was hesitant for both those reasons, but mostly the first. But having two people I was really close to that played was a huge draw for me.

What do you like about it, in brief?

I like that it has a lot of cooperative elements where you can take on other challenges with other people that require a lot of cooperation and communication, and it's really fun when you achieve stuff with other people. The solo element of it is more boring to me. It's the same thing over and over. Within the game it's called "the grind."

How many hours a week do you play on average? Does this vary much from week to week?

Some weeks I don't play at all, some weeks I play up to 8 hours. Usually when I play, I play for at least 3 hours at a time.

Was this always the case?

I used to play more, but when I first started I played very infrequently, like once or twice a week for two hours at a time. That was for the six months or a year that I played. After my first character hit max level, we transferred realms and we started raiding.

Why do you play less now?

I consciously tried to play less, because if I let myself I could spend a lot more time playing the game than I want to. There's so much that you could do, or try to do, that I would feel was ultimately not worth doing. Both within the game and outisde the game. But you feel like you want to keep pace with the people you play with, and achieve what they achieve.

Have you ever deliberately taken a break from playing WoW? If yes, why is that?

No. I never felt addicted to it, or like it was affecting other parts of my life negatively. Also, I try hard not to buy into the stigmas about it. It's something I enjoy, it doesn't have negative consequences. Why shouldn't I do it? Before I played, what was I doing? Watching movies, playing other computer games, playing video games. Just because it's more concentrated in one place doesn't make it worse.

Do you play with people you know in real life? Did you know them before you started playing WoW?

Yes, my two best friends.

Have you formed any friendships solely within the game?

Yes. We were originally characters on a random server (there are about a hundred servers in the game), and it turned out the one we chose was a low population server. It was a "horde" server, and you can't play interactively with those people. We wanted to start raiding, but there was nothing going on. [One of my friends] was and is much more involved in the game than I am, and she'd read lots of blogs, so she found out there was a gay server called "Proudmore." They're actually having a pride celebration on Saturday inside the game - I marched in it last year, it was really fun. She had found that realm and she wanted to transfer there. It was less douchey and a lot more gay friendly.

We eventually joined a guild that was led by this insane dude, a megalomaniac who was so weird, he was an ex-Navy Seal who was Dutch and lived in Canada and posted pictures of himself on...it was almost like a porn site but not really. He was so weird. That guild fell apart because he was so insane . Some of the officers on that guild started another guild, and that's the one I'm in. The point of the guild was to not tolerate the nastiness and immaturity that you see out in the game at large. There's a rigorous screening process where you have to write a long application to get in, there are 10 or 12 questions, and the officers on the guild get to vote on whether the people get admitted. We are only taking applicants that are referred by someone else because we are really trying to keep it small.

Most of the officers in the guild I would consider friends. Three of them are on a raid team that Aisa and I lead together. We're as close to them as anyone in the game, they have my cell phone number, they can text me and stuff. Two of them live in LA and one of them lives in Florida. There's another guy that lives in Boston that we're close to too.

When you say there is nastiness and immaturity in the game at large, what do you mean?

A lot of people, when they receive media, just take everything in and don't give anything back. In the game, there is a certain give and take, and a lot of people can't adjust to that. There's a lot of immaturity and there are deliberately inflammatory comments, people just seeking attention.

How do you react to the statement in one documentary about media usage, "I'm closer to my WoW friends than my friends in real life"?

I would question what that closeness means to them. I don't think that's a completely outlandish statement to make, but I think that's a really unusual circumstance, compared to the way most people's lives work. Most WoW players too. There are so many people that play WoW - I found out my cousin plays, I found out my uncle, a conservative Southern Baptist minister, plays too - so it's a huge sample of the population, and to me that's still a very unusual perspective to have among WoW players.

Are your friends in Warcraft people you would have been able to form connections with in real life, or did World of Warcraft specifically facilitate the connection?

I am friends with some people in Warcraft that I wouldn't be friends with in real life, but the people I am closest to in Warcraft are people that I could definitely be friends with in real life. Gay guys in their mid 20s, that sort of thing.

Have you met any of these friends in real life since meeting them online? If yes, how did it go? If not, would you consider it? Why or why not?

I've never met them. I would consider it, but I don't know, unless it was somehow unavoidable I probably wouldn't. I don't feel any need to meet them. I guess I don't really see what I would get out of it. A lot of people play Warcraft because they like the social aspect, and they like that they can meet people within the medium, but that's not why I play.

Do you ever turn down real world social invitations specifically in favor of playing WoW? If yes, how do you feel about that?

Yes, I have done that in the past, but I guess in hindsight I would say that most of those things I wouldn't have been interested in participating in anyway. It's a thin line between turning it down in order to play WoW or turning it down because I wasn't really interested in the first place. But I make a point not to do that now.

Do you think WoW players overall tend to share your interests and your points of view more than the average person?

No. It's skewed towards people who have enough privilege to afford a computer, afford the subscription, and sit in front of a computer all day. They don't have 3 kids they need to support, or some other financial or social obligation that prevents them from taking part in this activity every single day.

Are you ever reluctant to tell people you play WoW? Have you faced ridicule in the past?

Yes, I'm reluctant. I think people mostly don't understand how fun it can be, and I 'm not the kind of person to ridicule something someone else does that I haven't personally tried. So I tend to think the people who ridicule it are doing so out of some sort of insecurity of their own.

I do think some of the complaints people have about it are very valid. Some of my own perspective on WoW includes that ridicule - paying for the subscription and spending the time playing that I do. But I haven't faced a lot of ridicule, just because I usually don't tell people I play.

What would you say in response to the theory that playing these games (in moderation of course) could actually help prepare children in school for future real-life situations, both social and career-related?

I think that it definitely could do that. But I would be really hesitant to put children in the sort of immature, inflammatory environment that it fosters and just hope there is really positive takeaway. I think in a very controlled environment, kids could learn things about social interaction by playing WoW or something similar.

Do you think it's possible for someone to be "addicted" to gaming?

Yes, I think it's possible. But having never felt like I was addicted to anything, it's hard for me to personally say.

Do you have any advice for those seeking to find moderation in their gaming?

I think for me, and this is sort of weird, but I think that question sort of comes down to expectations, and as an offshoot of that, shame. What do you feel like you should be doing with your life? If you read books 10 hours a day because that's a "good" thing to do, would you say "I need to moderate this somehow"?

In other words, this question has a bias, assuming video games are bad. But I would say that's also my bias. So I think first you would need to examine why you feel you must moderate, and second, what do you hope to gain or lose from moderating? If you want to keep your job, that's great. If you're moderating from a vague sense that it's a bad thing to do, but you can't explain why, that should be examined futher. If it's fun, and it doesn't hurt anyone, why not do it?