Do you enjoy the game?

It's a tough thing to say, but a lot of times people simply don't enjoy playing their particular MMO of choice. How this starts is anyone's guess, but Fate at Apathy Inc. has some thoughts on the subject. He begins by asking a few pointed questions: is there any aspect of your MMO that you enjoy completely, without reservation? If the answer is no, why are you still playing?

That is the question that really intrigues me. If you don't enjoy a game, if you are frustrated with the players, angry at the developers for nerfing the kills of your particular class, then why play the game at all? We as an MMO community love to retain players. Much like a corporation, we get a sick sense of pride at pronouncing we have 9 million people playing the game. When our friends say they aren't enjoying the game, many times we talk them into continuing to play. But why? Over and over we have to remind ourselves that this isn't a job, this isn't even a club, it's a game. If you don't enjoy it, move on to something else.

I think part of this comes from our sense of community. When a member of the group decides they want to leave, all of a sudden we feel as if our personal worth is involved, when really it isn't. We didn't design the game, we are merely a player of it. When people at the office bash World of Warcraft , or even MMORPGs in general, we feel personally slighted, but really, they are entitled not to like the game you happen to love. This might go for many games, but particularly for MMOs, where the social aspect often breeds a protectiveness about the game.

I have had friends leave my MMO of choice because they saw it as little more than a chat room with avatars. While I didn't agree with them, I agreed with the right to leave. If you don't enjoy the game, please don't play it. And if you have a friend that isn't enjoying the game, don't make them stay. After all, no one wants an unhappy, grumpy person in the car with them on the road trip to Disneyland. If they hate the rides, then you will have to deal with their discontent all the way back home.