Well I haven't posted much recently. I decided a couple of weeks ago to give World of Warcraft a try. With 5 million subscribers, a number of podcasts on the game, and lot's of posts about it, one gets curious about what all the buzz is about. From the title of this post, you can kind of gather the conclusion I have come to about the game.

Don't get me wrong, I think the game is great. It is a lot of fun to play and from a tech standpoint, it is amazing. There you are playing in a virtual world with thousands of other people. You can chat in real time with other players. Play against other players, or team up with them, whatever. And it all works smoothly and seemlessly. Heck, you could spend the whole time looking at all the rendered environments, its beautiful!

But its just too time consuming for me. With each level of experience you reach, the next challenge becomes more difficult and more time consuming. You are in a constant cycle of getting more money and experience so you can get more money and experience! (Kind of like real life!) I must have spent 20 or 30 hours a week for the last two weeks either playing or reading and researching the game. If I could spend say 2 or 3 hours a week playing with friends, I could see continuing to play (Like poker night, just geekier.) But I think to do well, you probably need to spend 10 to 20 hours a week playing. Plus I'm not sure I could stop myself from taking only one hit a week from the Warcrack pipe. There is always that next problem to solve. You tell yourself, "I'll spend just an hour leveling up." Three hours later you wonder where the night went.

If I were a major TV network, stuff like this would have me shaking in my boots. The game is social, less expensive than cable TV, and much more interactive. It is still very early in the evolution of online games, but I think this stuff is gonna be huge (if it isn't already.) By next year, XBox 360 and Playstation 3 will be widely available and both will feature social networking features. I think the way we entertain ourselves is in for a big shift.