The new Golf? Again?
“The New Golf” is old news. Yeah, World of Warcraft has some of the social elements of golf, and that context for chatting about business while doing something you enjoy. But I’ve always thought it was a bit of a stretch. Then again, I’m not a golfer. So maybe I just don’t get it.
Then last week in our guild forums someone started a thread “We K(No)w — Real life opportunities”. I wasn’t too interested, even though I’m poking around for my next professional gig. So I didn’t even bother to look at it until today. Boy, was I surprised!
It’s not that the content was so surprising, but my reaction to it. I really enjoyed reading about everyone’s professional lives and thier background and their employers. Despite the “new Golf” hype, this is not something that comes up a whole lot in game, and reading these posts adds a richness to these burgeoning friendships.
People I know fairy well in game have careers that are fascinating ( and news to me…) and others are facing big career transitions. And lots of people are offering to help others with new jobs and career development. It’s all very human. It’s a community. And maybe, in that way, most like Golf?
You know, as much as we players want it and as much as the media is trying to shoehorn the idea, I don’t think that WoW is the new Golf.
Out of the 67 people in my company, I am the only one who plays WoW (and we have several gamers). Out of 715 people in my parent and sibling companies, we have 47 people who play (this is confirmed by our Network Administrator who has clocked at max 47 connections to the WoW US Realm Server.)
I still personally wouldn’t start chitchatting about WoW with any stranger. As much as I enjoy playing WoW, it would not be a requirement for anybody I was dating to play WoW. If they weren’t a gamer, so be it. It is just a freakin’ game.
This comparison to Golf does certainly mystify me, but like I said, I don’t play the game. For sure the numbers aren’t there, as is clear from your analysis.
On the other hand, maybe that’s just the number of people foolish enough to play at work. :-)
D.
I could only hope that it is, because it’d make for some awesome networking, as long as you don’t get into the habit of raiding with your colleagues and wind up hating them for putting their pets on aggro or something.
Still, I don’t play golf, so I don’t know. I kind of wish I did play golf though, because then I could get in on that.