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Over at Retnoob, we caught some commentary on the time-sink that has become the end-game in World of Warcraft (WoW). As our own goals in the game are too far to reach because we lack the enormous amount of time to reach them anytime soon, we were in particular agreement with the fair time estimate that a casual gamer is likely to meet:

The only way to get everything out of the game is to sacrifice all of your other games and many other interests. At 10-15 hours a week I can never catch up to any of my goals, especially not with raiding in the schedule, and getting an epic flying mount is almost certainly never going to happen at this point.

In reality, putting in 15 hours per week ought to be adequate to reach most in-game goals, as that equates to three hours per weeknight. Certainly, 20 hours per week should certainly be enough to meet goals that aren’t based on random loot drops or “novelty” items like aesthetic mounts, but Blizzard is forced to cater to those who are able to spend more time in the game because of a lack of full-time jobs, intense collegiate schedules, or other activities that similarly restrict game time.

Maybe it’s pre-expansion depression, which we’ve seen before, and some may claim it’s QQing because we don’t have the time we need to actually accomplish what we want to, but that’s exactly the point. A game like WoW shouldn’t consume all of one’s time, for the simple reason that it’s counterproductive to keeping players playing. In other words, there’s a key balance that needs to be met in order to occupy enough people’s time that they stick around, and leaving enough time for the players who don’t want WoW to take up all of their available gaming time. In great part, that’s why casual games like Guitar Hero are so alluring: the hardcore can unlock the aesthetic variables that make their characters unique, while the truly casual gamers can still aim for accomplishing limited goals and still seeing the challenges the game has to offer by beating the requisite songs/levels/bosses.

Given the current trend of “top” players leaving WoW, and many top-end raiding guilds complaining about the state of the game (ironic, because the game caters to them), a leave from WoW should not be unexpected from us. The question is, for a game that can be vastly enjoyable to play, why are the unenjoyable elements the primary means of character progression?

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