That's a pretty valid argument.

Playing devil's advocate, there is the amount of time you need to commit to consider.

For example, I play badminton fairly casually with friends. That takes up about 1 hour, plus 10 minutes warm-up and about 40 minutes travel per week. 1 hour 50 minutes total.

A "casual" raiding guild will be raiding Kara twice a week, for an average of 3 hours plus half an hour of setup and faffing around time each time. In addition, you'll need to do at least one set of dailies a week to pay for repair bills, healing potions and so on, taking around 2 hours. That's 9 hours total.

If I was a serious kickboxer (I'm not, but it's the sport I know best) and was training for a tournament, I'd be doing about an hour fitness and conditioning a day, plus three two-hour practise sessions a week, plus about 30 minutes travel for each of those. That's a very high level of commitment in that sport, and totals about 14 and a half hours a week - a little more than "casual" raiding.

Serious raiding guilds will raid for around 5 hours, four times a week, plus around half an hour setup time again, plus daily questing for money to buy consumables, gems, flasks and so on (2 hr per day), and often other commitments like heroics or kara runs for lower-level guild members (generously, let's say 6 hours per week. That's a high level of commitment to WoW, and totals about 42 hours a week - more than most jobs.

Compared to serious sporting activity, serious WoW raiding consumes a *lot* more time. Of course, there are other compensating factors - you're a lot less likely to get injured playing WoW - but it is an issue.

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