WIVB-TV Channel 4 Buffalo - Welcome to the World of Warcraft

WIVB aired this segment on the 11 o'clock news, last night. There's a link to the video, on the link below. Or you can watch it on YouTube, here.

Welcome to the World of Warcraft

QUOTE:
It's one of the hottest video games worldwide. Some might even call it, an addiction. Welcome to the World of Warcraft!

It's not a secret society, but if you enter it, you may not want to leave.

Jonathan Weiss said, "It's like digital crack, pretty much."

Mark Preston: "It really is addicting. If you start playing, you'll be hooked."

So what is it about warcraft that sucks people in?

CyberJocks computer tech Alonzo Rainero said, "People are always in there trying to get better stuff and that's where people get really addicted. They want the newest, latest, greatest items to make them seem really cool."

According to its creator, Warcraft is a massively multi-player online roll-playing game where thousands of people from across the world form friendships, slay monsters, and engage in epic quests.

And it's not just for teens. A dad from Depew says he started playing because his son was playing.

Mark Preston said, "I started getting bored watching him play it and I decided to start playing it myself and now I'm kind of hooked."

It can take players months or even years to get to their target level and to collect all the items they want.

Lou Irmisch said, "Sometimes you just need that little extra to get you over the hump that you're trying to get past."

So players like Lou Irmisch from Williamsville will fork over cash to get that extra boost.

Irmisch said, "I got about 300 gold for about 25 bucks."

And that may sound like a good deal - but, wait a minute - this gold isn't real!

Why would people pay good, hard-earned money for something that only exists in a virtual world?

Irmisch said, "It's hard to explain to people who really don't play it."

University at Buffalo Associate Professor Josephine Anstey said, "Just as in real life we buy things that we can't do with our time, we can't all cook a great dinner every night so we go out to a restaurant."

Josephine Anstey with UB's Department of Media Study says money is already pretty virtual.

Anstey said, "When money was invented, it was invented as this thing with an equivalence of values, and then later on it became paper. Well, paper has no value."

But what about the people and companies who are selling gold in the game?

Gamers say they create botters to make money off the system.

Alonzo Rainero said, "What botters are - they're not people that play, they're machines - and they'll get items and game currency and they'll sell them to people at high prices."

There are reports that in China, limits have been put on Warcraft because people were collecting unemployment while making money at home by playing the game.

Ross Baumler said, "They're just using their resources, so I can't blame them."

Lou Irmisch said, "It's the new generation of entrepreneurs."

Story by Alysha Palumbo, WIVB.