Greetings all, I signed up to post here as I felt I wanted to contribute my opinion to the thread. Normally, I am just a viewer. I usually come here to just watch the reviews to get a glimpse of his opinions on games I haven't yet played or to see a game I have already played from another perspective.
That out of the way, I have to wonder if I am taking him too seriously or not. However, I actually believe he means it when he says that WoW is "evil". Really? how is a video game evil? Does he mean to say that activision/blizzard are evil? or that WoWs developement team are evil? Because a video game is just that, a game.
I actually find it appalling that he would say WoW is evil. Thats what those crazy newscasters say when they want to attack a video game for publicity. i.e. see youtube for videos on everquest, wow, etc and how "MMORPGs are evil and destroy lives". Do you consider yourself a gamer? Because MMOS -are- still games. You should also see such news reports about how video games are evil (not just mmos). Why do I say all this? Because it is VERY strange to see that kind of attitude from a VG reviewer!
If MMORPGS destroy your life, and all you can see is "wasted time" as you fly using fast travel, don't you have that same attitude toward -all- video games? And if not, why? They're the same thing, little accomplishments that mean nothing to anyone except you.
And if you prevent yourself from enjoying a game out of fear of addiction, all I can say if that you just need to have self control. You can continue to play WoW and I daresay if you find the game so fun that you can't stop playing (or at least feel like you can't), then why deny yourself it entirely? The same principles hold true to many aspects of life. People find themselves getting addicted to things all the time, but all they truly require is proper moderation, not total elimination. You have to tell yourself that the game isn't going anywhere, and even if it does get shut down some day, there will always be another to replace it, and further than that, it won't be going away anytime soon. Tell yourself that, and you should be able to control yourself and limit your playtime.
Should you -not- want to limit yourself, there's -still- plus sides to playing just one game, financially and more.
Buying a new game every 1-3 weeks for $20-60 is no different than playing one MMORPG for a lengthy period of time, in terms of money or time spent "wasting away" in front of a screen looking at numbers and trying to achieve higher numbers.
Are retro games of the past evil, because their main motifying factor in gameplay was increasing your score? Is Mario evil? Pacman? All video games are a battle of numbers, even story based games like Mass Effect, because a video game can never be just story, dialogue and cutscenes, it has to have gameplay, and that requires numbers. "I have to get to the next level" "I have to kill this group of enemies(gears of war)" "I have to defeat that boss, collect that treasure, solve that puzzle". They're all carrot on a stick chases, and as a gamer I am damn proud to play and enjoy all of them.
I found Yahtzee's review to wind up as nothing more than "I want to play this game, but I have no self control, so I avoid it like the plague" or at least, that's what hes suggesting to others, which I find to be nothing short of an apalling review of a great game.
P.S. I don't currently subscribe to WoW, however I did enjoy it in the past.
P.P.S I know that everyone has a different opinion, and I'm fine with that, but I think he went a little far by saying a video game was evil, a waste of time and that it destroys lives.
