Breakfast Topic: Is WoW worth it when it's a full-time job?
by Adam Holisky 
Jul 19th 2010 at 8:00AM
One of the things we realized is that we couldn't go back to running a high-end progression raiding guild. There was a time where we were both putting in upward of 40 hours a week between guild management and the four days/five hours a night of raiding. At the time, it seemed to just be what we had to do in order to accomplish our goals and enjoy the game the way we wanted to enjoy it ... but of course that changed when the game's core raiding systems became conductive to 10-man raiding in Wrath.
And now looking back at it, we ask ourselves, was that time in WoW really worth a full-time job? Arguably at this point in our lives, it's not really worth it. Both of us have wonderful girlfriends (we did at the time too), and we're both happy with our careers. Could we go back and play the game like we did, putting in forty hours a week? Probably not.
So that's the question I'm posing for today's Breakfast Topic. Is playing in the World of Warcraft worth it when it's a 40-hour-a-week gig? Wax philosophical here, community.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Adam Holisky Jul 18th 2010 11:10PM
In before "Say hello to Lumbergh for me!"
Rai Jul 19th 2010 8:07AM
Say hello to-
Damn it.
Hal Jul 19th 2010 9:08AM
Yeahhhh . . . I'm gonna need you to go ahead and tank for us this weekend. Also, if you could get your dailies done and deposit a stack of fish feasts in the guild bank, that'd be greaaaaaat.
KrisseyB Jul 19th 2010 12:03PM
I think i'm gonna go burn ruby sanctum down.
Thayer Jul 19th 2010 8:10AM
You couldn't pay me enough to raid full time. I'm happily casual in It Came From the Blog, fun times for all without the stress.
CDave Jul 19th 2010 10:40AM
You wouldn't play WoW full time for a 7 figure salary?
Pronkey Jul 19th 2010 3:03PM
You could certainly pay me enough to raid full-time.
Also interested in well-paying gigs:
Playing a different video game
Sleeping
Watching television
Working-out full time (Not interested in performance-based compensation)
Traveling
Making balloon animals
Thayer Jul 19th 2010 3:18PM
No amount of money is worth having if you're not enjoying yourself. Full time raiding means full time stress in my books.
kdeselms Jul 19th 2010 6:55PM
Yeah, I did my time doing the 4-5 night a week raid guild. Got to be the 3rd best-geared mage on my server at the time (during Ulduar) and burned out, big time...quit the game for six months. Came back after Blizzard gave me the "free week" pass, but I'll never, ever go back to playing the way I was. Just not worth the hits my real life takes, doing it.
Gamer am I Jul 19th 2010 8:10AM
If you actually have forty hours a week to dedicate to the game, I say, go for it, but if someone is dedicating that much time to the game, I have to wonder how they spend their time otherwise. Let's assume someone works fourty hours a week and sleeps eight hours a night. That leaves them seventy two hours with which to do anything else, including eating, driving to work, daily necessities of living (eating, cooking, cleaning), etc. If you are spending forty hours on WoW, that's more than half of your free time you are spending on this game. I myself couldn't justify spending that much time on any one activity in a week; there are just two many other things to do, and too many other hobbies worthy of my attention.
Parknet Jul 19th 2010 9:54AM
Sleep 8 hours a night? Surely you jest.
Gamer am I Jul 19th 2010 9:57AM
I figured that would be an overestimation for many people (not for me, though o:-) ), so just lump in driving to work, or something else you do on a daily basis that takes time, in with sleep, and the numbers still work.
BigBadGooz Jul 19th 2010 10:01AM
"Sleep 8 hours a night? Surely you jest"
some of us are grown men and sleep 6-7 hours and feel fine
Tyr Jul 19th 2010 8:14AM
We're putting new coversheets on all the DPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be great.
On a more serious note, it all depends on what you do in those 40 hours. If you're having fun all the time, then sure it's worth it. But if you spend it because you feel obligated to raid/be online, then I think it's time for a break, be that online or offline.
Sleutel Jul 19th 2010 8:21AM
No, no, it's a TPS report.
He's a tank.
Tyr Jul 19th 2010 8:27AM
Yeah, I'm gonna need you to go ahead and file those as well, that'd be great.
Alex Gore Jul 19th 2010 8:17AM
Must... resist... urge.. to make... Office Space... joke.....er.....
As to the topic at hand, the answer for me is no, no, a thousand times no. Now, I never put in 40 hours a week, but when I was doing semi-hardcore progression raiding in BC I estimated that between raiding itself and maintaining "raid readiness" for my character I was spending upwards of 30 hours a week on it. That was simply too much and caused real burn out for me, even though we WERE making progress. I just couldn't DO anything else in the game, so forget leveling an alt (and this was still before BoA gear anyway) or messing around with a secondary profession, or doing interesting questlines, or whatever.
Really, it wasn't just the switch to 10 mans, but also the nerfing of consumables (much to the sadness of alchemists) and the introduction of massive amounts of badge gear and farming them that made raiding less time consuming. No longer do you NEED to take several hundred gold worth of consumables into a raid to do progression now. Of course the top end guilds still do, but it no longer plays out like a requirement. For me, that was one of the most time consuming things about raiding that I was not sad to see go.
Issey Jul 19th 2010 8:21AM
Having played this game for 5 years now I have come to the conclusion i prefer the new more relaxed approach to wow.
Having been hardcore for several years I can't believe how much time I use to spend playing this game. Mat grinding for pots and cash for repairs was a full time job in itself before you even set foot into MC :p
My girlfriend has always hated the game, so I think this helps me prefer the new relaxed play style. I can now raid twice a week we my friends and still get to have a life outside the house.
I know a lot of old vanilla players dislike the new relaxed play style, but I personally like the fact I have been about to reclaim my life back and still play a game I enjoy.
Buddha8888 Jul 19th 2010 8:24AM
Some people might really like this aspect of the game (taking many hours of planning, research and intuitive leadership skills) in being a raid leader, for the simple fact that most people like that tend to have a less than "fulfilling" life outside of the game, and inside of the game it allows them that feeling of importance and necessity that they might not get in real life. Granted it's an outside looking in perspective and one's own self-fulfillment can only be solely based on what you feel your self-worth really is. This is in no way geek-bashing or nerd-stomping or whatever, I wear my nerd badge with pride. lol. Although this is often the case it is by no means ALWAYS the case, as Adam mentioned in the article he had a nice life when he was doing it, but in my opinion it doesnt sound like the kind of "self-fullfilment you can only get in a virtual reality" type of situation like im talking about. Im speaking more about people who used to spend months of planning and perfecting their D&D Dungeon Master scripts/guides/books/etc and what-have-you, back when D&D was the WoW of it's day. Once again though, NOT ALWAYS IS THIS THE CASE.
Trid Jul 19th 2010 10:10AM
Gets crit by wall-o-text for over 9000...