Project Lore

It's easy to become insulated when you write for a subject-specific site like Project Lore, surrounded by like-minded colleagues and readers whose clear interest in the topics at hand is evidenced through repeated page views and lengthy comment sections. But I have, and still do, inhabit other realms of the internet, many of which I've been a part of since long before wetting my feet in the World of Warcraft.

There, a fan like myself comes under fire from care-bear-hating MMO elitists and console proselytizers, and that's just the gaming forums! I couldn't imagine, for a second, what undying vitriol might be slung my way in more "public" spheres. The same old arguments await me at every turn, variations on "who in their right mind would pay 15 bucks a month for this crap?" or "it's all just one big grind!" What's even more defeating is when the hate comes from lapsed players who chime in only to pat themselves on the back for leaving the game some months ago, as if they'd just successfully completed a marathon run of treatment at the Betty Ford Clinic.

Even knowing that there are at least 11 million other people out there just like me, it's hard not to let the scathing commentary get you down sometimes. What are we WoW fanatics to do? How do we counter? Do we sag our shoulders and willfully take our lumps, or do we fight back? Well, scratch that last part. Fighting back on the interwebs will only invite more catcalls and mocking derision like "Warcraft is serious business lawl!" No, that may not be an amicable solution, but you can take solace in the following: Life, like Warcraft, is a grind.

We all do it. We all go through the motions, day in and day out. "Grinding" is an integral, and inseperable, part of our working lives. Allow me to indulge in a couple of generic scenarios here:

You drive to your job in the morning, bleary-eyed and sipping coffee while trying not to get run over on the freeway. Eventually, you arrive at work, and are given a set number of rote tasks to complete that day. You've done them all a thousand times before, but hey, you're earning money right? Chances are you're working with a team, and you have to coordinate with them to get these things done. Once in awhile, you might have to go to a meeting or be given a new, interesting project to work on. At the end of the day, you hope that all of your efforts might someday result in a raise, promotion, or even just a nice pat on the back. The money you've earned is spent on living expenses, and if you have some leftover, you might be able to afford that new TV you've always wanted.

Now, take a look at this:

You get on your computer, bleary-eyed and slamming your energy drink of choice while trying to avoid the ire of your significant other. Eventually, you log into WoW and figure you might as well get your dailies out of the way. You've done them all a thousand times before, but hey, you're earning gold right? Chances are you're in a guild, and you might be doing some raiding tonight. Maybe you'll clear through to a new encounter or try some fresh content. At the end of the day, you hope that all your efforts might result in some tier gear, sweet epics, or even just a few DKP. The gold you've earned is spent on repair bills from all those wipes, but if you have some left over, maybe you can actually afford to enchant your equipment or purchase that bear mount you've always wanted.

By no means are these scenarios exemplary of every person or player, but I do think that there are common experiences shared between them. But if playing Warcraft (or, really, any other video game, MMO or not) is, at its basic level, so much like our daily lives, why do we find it to be so much fun? Isn't it meant to be escapism?

I'd like to quote the wonderful popular science author Steven Johnson from his book Everything Bad Is Good For You:

The dirty little secret of gaming is how much time you spend not having fun... if this is mindless escapism, it's a strangely masochistic version. Who wants to escape to a world that irritates you 90 percent of the time?

This took me aback when I first read it several years ago. I've been playing video games for most of my 25 years, but not until then did I realize that playing it truly amounted to so much work. He also provides an anecdote, which is too long to reproduce here, but can be summed up as an account of a construction worker who willingly spent months in the virtual world of Ultima Online leveling up his blacksmithing (and selling the produced wares), just so he could afford a better in-game house.

I can hear cries of "madness!" and "waste of money!" coming from the far reaches of the internet now. But you and I, WoW players, do the very same thing every day (and the rest of the world does, too, whether they care to admit it or not). We parade our avatars around Azeroth, spending unquantifiable amounts of time doing the most seemingly mundane activities for the simple chance to make them look cooler. And why? The easy, and inevitable answer is: to increase the size of our e-penis.

That construction worker, when asked the same question, replied with, "Well, it's not work if you enjoy it."

A long, perhaps more satisfying answer, is given by Johnson himself. He goes on for quite awhile talking about dopamine and the reward center of the brain, an explanation that seems to ring true. Critics will cry that it's just further justification for MMOs being nothing more than an addictive drug, but that would be willfully ignoring that dopamine can produce positive reinforcement and applies to the "good feeling" that comes from accomplishing any task.

What video games do, in a sense, is give us a shortcut to the rewards we desire. The satisfaction of killing Arthas, just like earning a promotion at work, may yet be a long way off, but at least in WoW we're treated to plenty of smaller pleasures along the way: completing a quest, a new piece of gear, an honor kill in PvP, downing a boss. Each and every turn we take in the game is a chance to earn a new reward. MMOs, in particular, promise a potentially limitless or expanding number of rewards, unlike your typical console game, which often has a concrete endpoint.

We discuss Blizzard's development philosophy a lot here on Project Lore. From all of the changes we've seen to leveling and bosses, gear acquisition and the like, it's clear that they've been paying attention. Sure, those of us who've been playing the game longer will continue to balk at newbies getting a free pass on parts of the game we had to slog through, but that's a feeling that comes from latent jealousy. If we'd been afforded the same conveniences from the get-go, we'd heartily lap it up, wouldn't we?

Rewards are wonderful, and they make us feel good, but I'd like to add some insight of my own: despite our frustrations, and despite lashing out at the developers, many of us enjoy grinding on some level because it is work. We play WoW because its underlying structure is intimately familiar to us, and that familiarity is comforting. But there's another wrinkle: it's work on our own terms. Normally a slave to the greater aspects of life that plague us all, World of Warcraft gives us the opportunity to have some control over what we do and where we go; what tasks to complete, in what order to complete them, and the ability to stop when you feel like you've accomplished enough.

Of course, all of this rests on top of the basic fact that it is escapism. We can travel in different circles, and talk to different people, and engage in a world that is different from own in just as many ways as it is similar. To work is to grind, and to grind is to play. Next time an internet bully gives you a hard time about playing WoW, tell them to stick that in their craw and chew on it (or maybe it can just be our little secret!).

As usual, thoughts or opinions are very much welcome. If you've made it this far, I'd like to think you have something to say on the subject, so please chime in and post in the comment section below!