Is WoW "just a game"?

This is a question I have considered in the past, but this edition of WoW.com's The Queue, entitled, "It's Just a Game," particularly the comments that followed, got me really thinking about the issue. Something you often hear said derisively about WoW, as well as many other "games," both of the virtual and real type, is "it's only a game." Whenever anyone does anything to show that they take the game seriously and see victory as a worthy goal, expect someone nearby to tell them they take the activity (whatever it is) too seriously, and that if it is something they do in their spare time, they should take it lightly. I have several problems with this idea, the idea that WoW is "only a game." (What I say in the following post could really be applied to many activities that people snidely refer to as "only a game," but let's keep the focus on WoW for now.)

When someone says that WoW is "only a game," there are a few implications they are making. These implications stem from a few "facts," which may or may not be accurate, that people know about the game, which lead to the following assumptions:
1. WoW is done to relax, and thus it should be low-stress and (depending on who you ask) easy.
2. WoW is completely virtual; the rewards for playing (gear, money, mounts, achievements, etc.) are not real, and thus not worth getting worked up over.
3. Because WoW leads to no tangible rewards, it is not worthy of being taken seriously as a hobby.
4. Because of all the above factors, WoW is not worth spending a large amount of time on.

From the beginning, these assumptions fall apart. Not everyone plays WoW to relax; I do, which I why I often don't run content until I vastly out-gear it, but many people play WoW for the challenge--the challenge of learning new encounters, of fighting other players, of understanding the nuances of your class, of working towards a long-term goal and finally achieving it. WoW is a hobby, but that doesn't mean it should always be relaxing. After all, the true definition of a hobby is something done in one's spare time for pleasure, and what greater pleasure is there than the satisfaction of overcoming a difficult challenge? So no, just because WoW is a hobby, that doesn't mean that it should be low-stress or easy. Well, maybe low-stress, but difficult is completely fine. After all, we have enough stress in our lives as it is.

Still, we can't deny that WoW is completely virtual. That armor your character has is just an item number that the game associates with your character. Does that mean that armor (and loot in general) isn't worth getting worked up over? Is gear drama completely baseless? As I have said in the past, loot serves two functions: it serves as a gatekeeper to new content, preventing you from walking into Trial of the Grand Crusader the moment you hit 80, and it acts as a representation of your achievements in the game. For these two reasons, gear is worth getting worked up over, to an extent. Because gear is necessary to progress through the game's content, an unfair loot system or ninja looting is a malicious act because it prevents people from enjoying all that the game has to offer.

But what about mounts? I'd wager that rare mount drops have caused more drama than all other loot drops (except maybe the Dragonspine Trophy), but mounts are purely cosmetic. Not having a certain cool-looking mount doesn't prevent the player from enjoying the game, so is ninja'ing mounts worth getting worked up over? Let's be honest; as cool as rare-drop mounts looks, when you look at them critically, they are just a sign of really good luck. Sure, that person needed to be able to beat the encounter in the first place, but really, it all comes down to luck. To get one of those mounts, you need to be lucky enough for the mount to drop in the first place, and you need to be lucky enough to win a roll against the other raiders. Even if someone wins the roll, did they do anything more than the other raiders to "earn" that mount? Not really. In the end, the mounts' only benefit is that they look cool, so I would say someone getting worked up over loot drama caused by a mount dropping is one time when the phrase "It's only a game" can be justifiably used.

The next thing we need to consider is, can we derive satisfaction from WoW? In the end, everything we do in WoW can be reduced to some signals sent by our computer in the form of zeros and ones that causes a server to send signals back in the forms of zeros and ones, which our computer interprets as images. Does that make our achievements in game (in both sense of the word) any less real? I don't think so. The fact is that achievement is defined by satisfaction, and if you get satisfaction out of something, then it doesn't matter whether another person considers it real or not. Because WoW provides satisfaction, as well as a challenge (as we have gone over), I think that is enough to make it worthy of as much respect as other hobbies.

Because the first three implications mentioned are all bogus, the fourth one doesn't have a leg to stand on, but where does that lead us? I seem to have deviated a bit from my original question, so now I return to it; is WoW "just a game"? When we look at what people usually mean when they say that phrase, we can see that they are wrong, (unless they are saying it to someone who is freaking out over a mount drop), and that in the context they are referring to, WoW is not just a game. Put simply, if someone says that WoW is "just a game," they are probably wrong.

Still, even if the phrase itself is usually wrong, is WoW, in the end, just a game? My Macbook's Dashboard dictionary defines a game as "a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck." WoW certainly fits this definition, and yet it is so much more than that. It is a social medium, a way for people to play together, satisfying both the urge to be with other people and the desire for an entertaining distraction. It is a cooperative exercise, wherein people work together to accomplish a common goal. WoW is more than a game; it is an experience, one that is worth taking seriously. Not too seriously, though, for that's when you get loot drama and fun-suckers who prevent people from enjoying the game. If you can't enjoy WoW, why play it? It is, of course, possible to take something that you enjoy seriously without going overboard, which is why I say that WoW is something that can be taken seriously, just not too seriously. So, in the end, WoW is not just a game, but it is still a game.