How World of Warcraft Destroyed My Family

Disclaimer: This isn't some 'cautionary tale' or some bullshit about how WoW or MMOs are bad and you shouldn't play them. It's a story about a weak-willed man, who was destroyed by addiction and escapism. Had it not been for WoW, it would have been alcohol, gambling or some other shit. But to me, WoW will always be the game that let me bond with my father, yet ultimately lead to him dying alone in his apartment in his fifties.

I never cared for Warcraft much. I liked Warcraft 2 back in the day, because I really enjoyed the music and artwork. Badass elves with giant bows, epic warships, corpses slowly decaying on the battlefield - it was a bit like Doom or one of the Duke Nukem games where everyone had a demo version sitting around, so I played that for a bit. Warcraft 3 came and went without me looking at it much and I pretty much ignored all the news about the upcoming World of Warcraft. I thought it looked stupid. Sure, the crude, cartoony looks resembled Warcraft 3 and it's all oh so nice and timeless, but I prefer a more realistic style.

Probably the first image of WoW you've seen back then. You can quite easily count the polygons here.

And then a friend sent me a code for the closed beta. I figured I may as well have a look at what all the fuss is about, rolled a Tauren and... meh. I was playing this huge hunk of beef, who pounded boars to pudding with a comically huge hammer. The pace was dreadfully slow, obviously, because it's an MMO and I had one or two abilities in my hotbar. Pound a boar, sit around and wait for health, rinse, repeat. It was the middle of the night, so it was dark and that particular bit of the Tauren starting area looks a bit shit, so my first impression wasn't great. I was ready to stop there.

I used to spend most of my weekends at my family's place back then and my dad saw me play. He got curious, so I let him use my beta account for a bit. He dicked around on there for a bit, then my stepbrother watched him play and started sharing the account, as well. A little while later they opened things up a bit and you could just apply for beta keys, so the two of them got their own keys and then all three of us played the beta.

Mulgore was still a bit bland.

I finally started to enjoy the game a little more when Goulash, my Tauren warrior, gained a few levels and the Alliance started gathering in my area. At first it was just a guy or two, then a dozen, suddenly there were fifty or so people filling my screen, some of them on horses. I had never seen anything like it. More and more Horde players gathered as well, both sides separated by a crappy little stream, which still had that weird glittering water effect back then.

We genuinely thought it looked pretty.

I don't actually remember a lot of fighting happening that night. I can't remember whether the servers died or whether it all went offline for maintenance, but what really left a lasting impression was how two small 'armies' formed on both sides. It was intimidating as fuck! One moment you're just walking around killing boars for some generic, boring quests, the next you're being stared down by a bunch of armored soldiers on horses and everyone is getting ready to kill each other. This wasn't planned, scripted or staged. You don't get moments like that in an offline game. Well, you sorta do in a way, but only because they're supposed to happen then and there. But at that moment, WoW told a story. My story, the story of the Alliance and the Horde, something that only happened once, to us, right there. It's hard to describe without sounding completely mad, but I still remember how it made me feel one and a half decades later.

The release version came and I still remember playing disc jockey, waiting ages for the installation to complete, only to wait even longer for updates, then spend hours trying to register my account. The website was completely dead. My dad and stepbrother created their accounts the second it all went live, but I was still at work and now they were gaining levels like crazy while I didn't even have my account, yet. Grrr!

When BC came out, we queued outside the store all night for the midnight release. They played WoW tavern music.

When I finally managed to actually get into the game, the family had already ruined it - I wanted to be a Tauren warrior, just like in the beta. But my traitorous kin went Alliance. My dad played a dwarven hunter named Redbeard and my brother was a gnome mage named Lightcry, because he was an edgy teenager. I think his ICQ handle back then was Lightcry_of_Dark_Magic. And suddenly, my email address, which started in Knuckles.Echidna felt only half as cringy.

So my warrior was now a night elf and we all started to explore Azeroth together. My brother figured out portals, then we all ended up hanging out in Elwynn Forest, we whacked Hogger, went through the Deadmines and I felt a superhero, because it was suddenly my job to set the pace, lead the charge, tank the bosses. Warrior stuff. That same character had been my main ever since. I had found my place, my job, the thing I wanted to do on there. And we fucking bonded over that shit. Dinner talk was all about the goblin shredder, Mr. Smite and Van Cleef. We did something together, experienced something wild and epic and it felt like we had really achieved something.

What a fucking great first dungeon impression that was!

Most importantly, though, I finally got to spend some time with my dad. He was pretty much always working, sleeping or sitting in his office playing computer games all day, so getting any kind of interaction from him was borderline impossible. To give you an idea of how awkward things were, I didn't wish for any presents on my tenth birthday. I just wanted to spend an entire day with my dad, so we ended up going to the park together for a few hours. He just didn't know how to deal with us kids or what to do with us. It didn't help that I had severe anger issues in my teens, so I wasn't exactly easy to approach, either.
Now he was still playing a computer game all day, but that game was an MMO, so we were usually playing together. There was just one problem - his other activities, working and sleeping, got dialed back more and more to make more time in his schedule for WoW.

It's difficult to acknoledge a problem when you're having so much fun. The three of us would stay up all night, occasionally meet in the kitchen to have some chocolate, cookies, cereal, toast and most definitely caffeine, play till the sun goes up, finally sleep until the afternoon hours, then go right back to WoW. That's a perfect weekend if you're roomies, but it's hell to everyone else when you're a family and things like money and education are a concern. My dad didn't spend as much time with our stepmother as he should have done, he didn't work as much as he needed to and my stepbrother flunked out in school and got in trouble with his girlfriend, who ultimately broke up with him. Meanwhile, I decided to buy the game for my (other) brother, who did the most reasonable thing anyone could have done in that situation - he traded the game for some pot. He was studying hard at the time and didn't want to get completely sucked in like the rest of us.

Say yes to drugs, kids!

It was bizarre. I'd spend just about every weekend at my parents', bring my computer, we'd stay up all night to play WoW and on my occasional trips to the kitchen I'd find my stepmother, just sitting by herself in the dark. Drinking. Looking back, that's probably not very surprising. It's the weekend, it's way past bedtime and she's all alone, because her husband is playing an MMO all night. Again. He wouldn't come to bed until a time where most normal people got up. It didn't seem like a big deal to me, because fuck yeah, Scholomance! And then T 0.5 sets! And then Molten Core! Ragnaros dropped his dagger and I paraded it around Ironforge (as a warrior!) like it was the world's greatest treasure and people from all over the server sent me private messages to congratulate me and tell me I was awesome. You didn't get free epic welfare items in the mail back then, so they were a pretty big deal for a little while.

Come to think of it, maybe I had a problem as well. I was in job training back then. Wholesale and foreign trade. I aced all the tests without studying, because that shit was stupidly easy. I finished my final exams a year early, just because I could. And then the company didn't hire me. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that I installed WoW on my office computer. I only played when I was on my lunch break, but people don't see you taking your daily one hour break from work. They see you playing a computer game at work.

I went from a complete job training, certificate and everything, straight into unemployment. My stepbrother had to repeat a year in school. My parents had to move, because they couldn't afford the rent anymore. Or any of the bills.
Things got downright depressing when I visited my parents over the following years. What used to be four brand new cars turned into one or two shitty, used ones. What used to be one palace after another turned into a fairly modest house. I'd see my dad sleep on the sofa more often than not. But I only really started to understand there was a big fucking problem one Christmas eve. The whole family sat together at the table, we exchanged presents, had a nice dinner, everybody was talking and in the middle of it all my dad got up, excused himself and said he had a raid. And he went to play WoW.

The atmosphere. God. My dad sitting in front of the computer, my stepmother walks in. Deathly silence. Not even looking at each other. There was the occasional glimpse at what things were like when they were okay. When my dad asked for a cup of coffee. And my stepmother would bring it. Here you go, thank you, human interaction, thank fuck, they're talking. Not much later my stepmother gathered the family and said she had to tell us something. "Oh, so you finally got divorced", I said. Again, I was difficult and not entirely subtle.
"Oh, so your dad has already told you?" Nope. There was absolutely no need.

What gave it away? Was it all the sleeping on sofas or the drinking in darkness and solitude?

My stepmother and I weren't very close. I think deep down she resents me until this day, because I was an enabler. I got my old man into this game, kept coming over to keep him playing all night. In my defense, I don't think WoW was the real problem. He wasn't raking in as much cash as he used to as a real estate manager. Midlife crisis. Losing his hair and his bite. He knew his marriage was falling apart, his bills remained unpaid, shit was getting worse by the day and he ignored it, ran away from it, spent his time in Azeroth, where he could be a hero, a dragonslayer, someone! If it hadn't been WoW it would have been some other addiction, some other form of escapism.

Still, I dread to think about how much of this is my fault. I was just happy to stay up all night and do something with my old man. Those were the best weekends, ever - and I was hooked just as much as he was. Should I have told him to stop at some point, go to sleep, spend some time with our stepmother? Would it have made a difference? I was a kid back then and just craved the attention of a man, who never showed up when I sang in the band, when I was in the play, when I held the graduation speech in school in front of all the kids, teachers and parents. Looking back, it's easy to say I should have stayed at home, stayed away from him and the game, encouraged him to get his ass to work and to spend some real time with the family. I honestly don't think it would have made a difference. I'm just not sure the rest of my family sees it that way.

Hanging out with one of Claire's first ever characters.

I had just hooked up with Claire back then. She lived in the UK and I lived in Germany, so WoW was a great way for us to stay in touch and do something together. Claire, my dad and I did some crazy shit on there together! He taught her the odd bit of German here and there and got her into crafting, we cleared dungeons together, fought in the battlegrounds and everything was great in Azeroth while real life turned to shit a little more each day.

I had fallen out with the family and was no longer welcome at their weekend dinner gatherings. I lost my new job less than a year after I got hired. We bought WoW for Claire's sister and their mother. They had never seriously played any computer games up to that point and had zero interest in WoW, but they were willing to give it a try. By the time Claire moved in with me, WoW was their way to stay in touch with her. In that situation, WoW wasn't bad at all. Quite the opposite, really. Even though Claire was with me in Germany, her mom and sister could play and chat with her every day. And we all did stuff together.

Real gaming families are a lot fatter and less enthusiastic than that, though.

My dad and my (former) stepmother had finally split up. They'd still gather for family dinners and such, but I was never invited. The official explanation was that I simply lived too far away and nobody had the time or money to come pick me up. I had no car and no money toget over there and that suited me fine. Thing is, I didn't have a job, I played WoW a lot just like our dad did, and to them it was probably my fault he did it in the first place. Everyone was constantly on edge. My stepmother was drinking and didn't know how to deal with all the debt they had piled up. I was broke, had no job and hated my family for being dicks to me. My old man wrecked his marriage and he was still broke, addicted and generally fucked. Us kids were all young adults now, we all had our problems and frustrations, things between us were tense and there had been lots of shouting and slammed doors and people leaving in anger for a while, long before I was officially banned from all family gatherings. None of us were in a particularly good place.

Things got so weird with my dad over the next few years. My former stepmother hooked up with some elderly rich guy and I'm sure this happened completely out of love and not because of her financial worries or anything. My dad would make fun of them, talk about how the divorce was the best thing that ever happened to him and how he's now banging some 20 year old chick. It's hard to tell how much of that, if anything, wasn't a lie. We fell out when I asked him if that was really the sort of thing he should be bragging about to his son. We particularly fell out over lots and lots of empty promises.

He was great at telling people the exact thing they wanted to hear.

He always went on and on about how he had this great new job now and how he'd come visit us in the UK, so we could hang out. Year after year. At some point I told him to stop promising things and just book a fucking flight, already. Told him I'd pay for it. But he refused, saying he'd want to save up some money first, so we could actually do something together when he gets here. My brother back in Germany asked him over and over again to meet and do something, but he'd always make excuses. 

He died alone in his apartment of what the police said were "natural causes". He was diabetic and had not taken his medicine in over a year. In fact, he also hadn't paid the rent in over a year and my uncle had to pay his electric bill for him when they turned off the power. I met his "colleagues" at the funeral and they said he was a nice guy, showed up in the office now and then to send his emails to me, but he didn't actually do much of anything. I'm not sure if he ever actually made any money. One of the folks at the funeral said he used to play WoW with my dad. Apparently they were in the same guild or something. Funny how that works. He was buried right in the city where he died, not near any friends or relatives, in a shitty little grave with a shitty little slate on the ground instead of a headstone. We didn't have the money for a better burial and I'm not sure most of the family really cared enough.

Classic AV.

It's as though he was simply waiting for it to happen. He didn't work. Not really. Just used the computer there to talk to me. He didn't pay any bills. Didn't go to the doctor. Didn't want to see anybody. I still saw him on battle.net all the time, even though I had since moved on from WoW to Diablo 3. Azeroth was his happy place.

I didn't log on there since the day he died. No WoW, no Diablo. Couldn't face it. Heck, I've been gone from WoW for nearly seven years now, but Claire still plays and friends and (her side of the) family sometimes nag me a bit, ask me to come back, that sort of thing. So I had a quick look at it this weekend. 

My dad's contact has been deleted from my friend list. I'm not sure how that even works. Maybe one of his guild mates told Blizzard he had died. Maybe somebody picked up his old account and deleted me off the contact list. It's like he never existed. It's weird. Passing the gates of Ironforge, where I used to duel Redbeard, his dwarven hunter. No constant popups from his revolving door of crafting characters. No messages asking if I'm up for a dungeon. 

No more telling him to stop being so shit in pvp.

I port to Stormwind, it plays that familiar tune and it feels like a punch in the gut. I should probably just forget all about the game and move on with my life, for all the shit that has happened around it. But at the end of the day, Azeroth was the only place where I could be close to my old man. It was the only way for us to really bond, to do stuff together, to have some semblance of a father-son-relationship, no matter how fucked up it was and how much damage it has done to everyone around us. If I could, I'd place a tribute to him right there in the game. Have a dwarf named Redbeard patrol around Loch Modan, side by side with his trusty war pig. Because that's the one place where he was really happy and it'd be so much better than a shitty little grave in a place where no one is ever going to visit him.

My former stepmother sent an email or two after the funeral. I always took the time to respond, but we haven't talked in what must have been two years now. My brother, who used to be a professinal CS-gamer with sponsors and everything, has completely given up on gaming. I don't think his son is allowed to play any videogames, either, which makes me feel a bit sorry for the kid. He still nags me because my son spends so much time with his computer. Yeah, well. I play videogames for a living and if my son wants to do the same, then I'm not going to stop him. But my brother wants absolutely nothing to do with any of it. My stepbrother hasn't talked to me since the funeral, but last I heard, he's focusing on work, school and his new girlfriend. I'm not sure if he even still has a computer.

Claire's family never stopped. They're still on there all the time, buying all the expansions, doing everything together. They go to work, they have healthy relationships and they seem to be relatively stable human beings. I think online games can be a great way to bond and stay in touch. They can also ruin lives, just like any other addiction. I'm not sure where to go from there. Probably just hang out with them, move on with life, do my thing, not overthink shit. I'm not sure it's ever gonna stop feeling so weird.

I will always miss you, you big jerk.