Play Money begins

As soon as Chapter One unfolded, I was psyched about the book. "Yes! I KNOW this!" I cheered inside as Dibbell chased lizard men, fully aware that his cause was slightly ridiculous yet completely addictive.

I am in no way a video game connoisseur, though I did dabble in World of Warcraft for a time. However, I can draw upon the experiences of my boyfriend and his brother, who have played World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Gears of War, and plenty of non-Internet-related games.

"How was your birthday?" I asked my boyfriend, Brian.

"Oh, it was good. Matt and I drank beer and played WoW until 5 in the morning."

"I had the best Sunday ever," Matt randomly said one day.

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, thinking that it had something to do with his girlfriend.

"I got up at 12, played World of Warcraft until 8, and went to bed. Amazing."

But as Dibbell points out, the joy is not perpetual:

"And everyone, of course, must make a separate peace with the profound ambivalence of the 'grind': the tantalizing, enervating treadmill of monster bashing, which promises a never-ending daily burst of experience points, gold, loot, and other tokens of self improvement but all too often leaves you feeling sick, unhinged, and inexplicably compelled, at the end of a long, late night, to try for just one more mongbat or ogre lord or lizardman when every rational fiber in your body is cringing at the sound of dawn's first songbirds tweeting outside the window" (39).

In an infamous turn of events, Brian quit WoW after his "guild" dumped him because he had not yet hit Level 70. Brian had recognized that he needed to go to class and do homework, which lessened the time he had to "raid" with the gang and gain experience points. There was, of course, one night over the summer when he was unsure if he'd be able to hang out with me because of a very crucial raid. I smiled and kept my mouth shut. He realized on his own that there was something to be said for the tangible, rather than struggling for fantastic manna.