We've all made jokes about MMOs taking over people lives, consuming souls, etc. We've probably even seen the serious news reports about people playing everquest for 36 hours straight, etc.
But what do you do when it happens to someone you know?
I turned a good friend of mine on to WoW with my extra beta key. He spent a lot of time playing it, as did I. But we're big dorks, so it was no big deal. We'd even discuss WoW when we were out getting food or at parties or whatever.
When the game hit retail that all changed. He's seriously always, ALWAYS on. We used to hang out at least once a week, even if it was just to chill and play monkey ball or something. Now he never answers his phone or returns my (or anyone else's) calls. He never even signs on AIM anymore. It's literally just WoW, all the time. His fiance tells me that he literally runs upstairs and garfs dinner and runs back to his PC.
Speaking of his fiance, she's told me in private that she is straight-up going to leave him if he can't control it. They met online, but don't laugh. They're very very much in love and she moved here to live with him sacrificing a pretty good thing she had going for herself along the way. They've lived together for about a year now. She's signed them up for couple's counseling and that was enough to keep him off the game for about 4 days, she said.
She's going was going to school, and she found out recently that very few of her credits are going to transfer, so she told me that because he ignores her and everything else she's going back home to finish her education in august, whether they work through this or not. He doesn't know yet.
Now I know GAF might not be the best place to be asking this... but I want to help him as a friend. What can I do, to help him realize that WoW needs to be enjoyed in moderation, and that the game is going to cost him his fiance, plus lord knows what? Should I set up some sort of intervention, or something?
