Gaming Sucks! An adult blog, maturity not required…

MSNBC is looking for folks who have reached a breaking point with their gamers … and decided to end their relationships. The tentative, working title of my story is “Why I left my gamer,” and it’s precipitated, as I said, by the continued stream of e-mails that we get from readers who saw Winda’s “Gamer Widow” story from way-back-when.

Respondents can go “on the record,” meaning I use their names, or we can anonymize them in some way.

Thanks so much for your help with this.

Best,

Kristin Kalning

Kristin Kalning  |   Editor/Columnist   |  kristin.kalning@msnbc.com  |  425.706.5121

The day they banish WOW from the world is the day i celebrate. My bf or should i say fiance is a WOW fanatic. Totally obsessed with it. Its even to the point where he blames me for feeling like it sucks and says he could be doing anything and id feel that way. But to me, the only thing that makes me feel like i hate it is how he treats me when it comes down to how i feel about it. Weve broken up over it for a day because i told him i felt like i wanted to be shown love more and when he gives me attitude on how it makes me feel neglected, thats in my eyes, the total opposite of love. Thats selfish pride. Over a god- damn game. We got together once again but i told him i couldnt do this again. Things went well again but i felt he was slipping back into his old ways. I mentioned it and once again we got to the point of breaking up. I told him crying ” I DONT WANT YOU ANYMORE! IM BREAKING UP WITH YOU, I DO NOT WANT A MAN THAT HURTS ME LIKE YOU DO. ” We never broke up but we came close. I dont want to break up with him, i love him to death when hes not playing that stupid ass game. But when he is, its like his whole world only exists in the fake worldly game and im not included. I hate it so bad =(

I’m so happy to have found your site! I’ve been a WoW Widow since the damn thing came out… Before that it was Star Wars Galaxies… I’ve been with my boyfriend for 12 years… note the word “boyfriend”… I’m 30 years old and have pretty much given up any pipe dream I ever had of us getting married and having children… (At least you have children to entertain you–all I have are 2 cats).

I’ve nothing against “gaming” in general… I enjoy video games myself… You think that would please him, but he hates the types of games that I play. I even played WoW for a while… Got all the way to level 42… We were living in different states at the time and I thought maybe if I played, I could at least hang out with him that way… He wouldn’t even talk to me online… I was too low level of a character for him to waste his time with… It’s awful…

We were separated for about a year (both of us having moved back in with our parents), when he decided to go back to school (he already has a culinary degree that he does absolutely nothing with… I can’t remember one meal that he has cooked for me). He got into the University of North Carolina to pursue a journalism degree. I thought maybe things would be different now that he was making an effort to come back to “real life” and I made the mistake of moving back in with him. Within six months he dropped out of school and was playing every waking hour. He went a whole year without any sort of job. His brother once stayed with us (in our tiny one bedroom apartment) for over a month; they had their computers set up on my kitchen table and never moved. Now, over 2 years later, he works a few nights a week at his best friends bar and otherwise, still eats, sleeps, and breathes World of Warcraft.

The only time he really acknowledges my existence is to yell at me to stop nagging him or when he wants to have sex (and after the 2 minutes that takes is right back to the game without even a kiss goodnight). According to him, I am always “nagging” him. I can’t even get him to respond to ANY question I ask… so I have to keep asking over and over again. No response what-so-ever until finally he will scream, “WTF! I’m so tired of this constant nagging!” (or something to that affect–or worse).

I can’t take it anymore… He’s not even a shadow of the man I fell in love with. I don’t feel much towards him at all now except a bitter resentment for having stolen my “good years.” I threaten to leave him all the time and now he has basically agreed that I should. It’s so hard to break away from something you’ve held onto for so many years. But I’m only growing more and more bitter by the day, and this just isn’t who I am. I hate the way I am when I’m around him. I have to live my life and stop worrying about trying to make him live his…

I hope for his sake that he can stop, but I’m not going to be here when and if he does…

(Thanks for the opportunity to vent… I’d like to become a blog author if possible, I really have a whole lot more to say, and would appreciate the forum to unload it all…)

~ Melissa ~

Why? Honestly, why are you taking your anger out on ALL gamers? If it’s anything, you are aggroing practically everyone between the ages of 14 and 35. I’m 19 and in college and you are like a female version of Jack Thompson (if you don’t know him, he’s a crazed lawyer who thinks all video games are bad). Before you stereotype me as a no-good gamer who stares at his computer screen 23 out of 24 hours of the day, listen up: I am very involved in college, I’m a staff writer for the college newspaper, and I am very social. It is just that I play WoW whenever there’s downtime or stressed. Sure, I may have 300 hours on my main, and at least 15 a piece on all 7 of my alts. But I’ve been playing WoW since December 2007, and let me tell you: It’s a good time killer, and my problems seem to vanish whenever I play (of course I’m man enough to face them later, you’re just stuck being angry at your husband because he plays a video game). But I do know when to stop and put down the keyboard and mouse and turn away from my monitor, contrary to what you think. The whole addiction thing is just a small minority of us. I loved the comic, don’t get me wrong, I thought it was pretty funny. But the whole ideology of this website…it’s just messed up. You’re taking out your anger on video games on everyone else. If you can’t pry him from the game, there is obviously a deeper problem in your relationship, because most of the people I know who play the game have some sort of problem. My friend, who has social anxiety, has 36 - yes, 36 - characters, and most of them are at or approaching Level 70. But look at the bright side. I know that WoW gold and virtual items mean nothing to you or to any of you crazed widows who put sweeping statements on games and gamers, but it means something to him. It gives him a sense of achievement because normally with anxiety need a little extra help at making social achievements in the real world. Of course, I think he needs to do something about it, so what I normally do is invite him to go to movies, etc. and now he plays less, but I got somewhere. My words probably fell on deaf ears, and that’s cool, too. I respect your opinions (not that I necessarily agree with them), but you put them across as if they were facts. Now everyone does that, myself included, but you seem to take it a step further with your blanket statements (you say all gamers are total losers, as that is where I am sending my email). I like your website, it’s a good read, but your views about gamers and gaming are skewed. Sincerely, Jose Alvarez