Playing WoW is not Gaming

| Monday, May 9, 2011
My tags are consistent on two points: first, they are inconsistent; second, WoW posts are not tagged as either WoW or gaming. Isn't WoW gaming?

For a while I actually thought not. It's WoW. It's this thing unto itself. An anomaly. Everyone plays it and if they don't play it they must at least know of it, know someone who plays it. To call WoW gaming would be like calling oxygen an inhalant.

This led to some bouts of self-doubt. I sort of thought of myself as a gamer, but I didn't play much beside WoW. It was a monopolizer. I wasn't a gamer, I was a WoW-player. But that has a sad sound to me. Gamer sounds sorta cool in a not-quite-cool way (but on the other hand, cool people are assholes).

Sometimes I'd play other games. Sometimes. I'd not play WoW at all for days or weeks at a time (not many weeks, one or two), but then they'd go on the shelf and right back to WoW. Figuratively speaking, since I have no shelf, so "back on the shelf" is closer to "delete local content on Steam."

But I was wrong. Playing WoW is gaming. Not the same as a FPS or RTS, but there are other forms of gaming. It was silly of me to think otherwise.

P.S. This post has nothing to do with the recent chatter about optimization and moronic comparisons to chess. Except the title. That's meant to confuse you. Because that's how I roll. With a t in front.


Dwism said...

Thow ti troll?

I don't get it

Hyperian said...

Its almost comical how dudes/dudetes who play FPS's laugh and snicker at WoW players, at the end of the day... were all just murderers running around on a map looking for people to gank or bosses assassinate.... some people just do it with fiery broadswords and dragons...

Klepsacovic said...

@Dwism: *shakes head*

@Hyperian: Exactly. Which leads me to wonder, why do they have that attitude? Is it merely tribalism, similar to how football and baseball players might put each other down, or is there something more to it?

Anonymous said...

When I sit at my computer for a couple hours and pew pew, my girlfriend (who has no interest in joining me) doesn't care whether it's WoW or not. To her, I'm playing games.

It's only among gamers that the finer distinctions matter or even make sense.

Anonymous said...

Playing WoW is not Gaming


it's srs bnz!

Hyperian said...

@Kelpsacovic Na, i think you hit the nail right on the head. Def a tribal mentalitiy. It can be seen even within similar sports or teams of any kinda. Ive seen combat rogues and assas rogues form camps of "My daggers are cooler than your swords" and it breaks down into guild breaking arguements. Id say its a macho chest thromping thing but i know of just as many women who do it, sometimes to extreme degrees as to not be out done by their male counterparts

Post a Comment


Powered by Blogger.