Cheating on your MMO

Where do people get this notion of only playing one video game at a time?

I can understand when it comes to a subscription service and someone can't afford more than one. But that's not what seems to be going on here.


As a World of Warcraft player, I keep seeing idiots declare that they're dropping the game for whatever hot new MMO is about to come out (and subsequently have its ass kicked by WoW). The tone is almost like one has to be in a monogamous relationship with their video game.

Now, I'm all for monogamy in people. I did get married after all. But a game is not a person. It doesn't think, it doesn't feel. It doesn't care.

I currently play three MMOs on top of my library of other games. WoW, The Old Republic, and Wizard 101 (a kiddie "free to play" - quotes for a reason - MMO my wife loves, so I play it with her). I love them all. I've currently had to suspend ToR because I'm between jobs and WoW came first (hopefully I can get hired before my gametime runs out *fingers starred*), but I wouldn't if I didn't have to.

Think about it in terms of console games. Say you loved Super Mario Brothers, but then Legend of Zelda came out. Would you sell SMB and trash it just to play LoZ? And this is coming from a Sega kid.

It's silly. It's like loving one movie so only allowing yourself to watch one movie for the rest of your life or get rid of it if you want to experience something new. Games are supposed to be about fun, so just have fun. Though I do think WoW is the only one of the bunch that still remembers that and refuses to take itself too seriously even if some of its playerbase does.

In fact, and I just realized this while I'm writing, there seems to be a great similarity between the WoW "fanbase" and the Star Wars "fanbase." But since that's outside the topic of this post, I'll explore it more in a later one.