Carolyn hopes she has rescued her marriage from the World of Warcraft, an online fantasy game which absorbs her husband, Paul, so completely that in intense phases she sees him only during meal and toilet breaks.

Carolyn, a 39-year-old Londoner, recently managed to cajole him into playing less, but still labels herself one of a fast-growing legion of “Warcraft widows”. Now there is bad news in store for her - and for thousands of others whose home lives are imperilled by a partner's all-consuming game obsession. There's a new version of Warcraft out this month - and it's bound to be even more compelling.

Such is Warcraft's grip on many of its 11 million players worldwide that an array of self-help groups has emerged to help embattled spouses to save their relationships - or to gain the strength to leave them. The game's makers, the American Blizzard Entertainment Corp, won't reveal the average time that players spend on it, but academic research estimates it as 25 hours a week. An as-yet unpublished study says it may in fact be more than 40 hours.

Carolyn, a PR executive, says that she has lost count: “We've had to enter into some heavy negotiation to work out the nights and weekends when Paul can play without me nagging him to stop. Because it's not just the odd half hour,” she says. “Sometimes if he's locked into a group he'll break only to eat and visit the loo.”

Players get “locked into groups” because World of Warcraft is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (in similar vein to Starcraft and Second Life) that encourages players to develop fantasy characters and join tight “guilds”, where they co-operate with unseen colleagues worldwide to fight Gothic foes and save civilisation - online at least. Although the box says “ages, 12-plus”, studies indicate the average age of participants to be around 35, all locked in a virtual world-game that is complex, highly social, very strategic, extremely competitive - and which never ends.

“If you're not careful the game can take over your life,” Carolyn cautions. “When Paul's not playing, I know he's wishing he was and I know he's restless and dissatisfied and desperate to escape to this weird fantasy world. I can't understand it because it looks to me like something a kid would play for half an hour. Apparently there's strategy and teamwork involved and if you're really good you're an asset to your “guild”, but the whole thing leaves me cold. Paul tells me he's starting to get bored of it now, but I'm sceptical. It will be just my luck that when he does they'll bring something out that's evenmore addictive and life-consuming.”

She had better brace herself. November 13 is the release date for the next “expansion”, called Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, with ten new gaming levels and a whole new class of “hero” for players to achieve. This time in Warcraft world, armies of the undead will threaten to invade the land of Azeroth. Legions of fans are already pre-paying £29.99 in order to rush to its defence. Guy Cunis, the European director of public relations for Blizzard, the company that created and runs the online game, says that about 10.9 million people now play it worldwide, with 2.5 million of them in Europe.

How many hours do they play? “That's not something we tend to talk about,” Clunis says. “We like to keep players' habits to themselves. It's for them to talk about.” But already the situation has prompted Relate, the relationship-counselling organisation, to introduce a specific training module for its counsellors on the problems that online gaming-obsession can cause.

“We are definitely seeing a growth in compulsive online behaviours affecting relationships,” says Christine Lacy, a senior practice consultant at Relate. “We don't suggest that people simply go cold turkey because that tends not to work. It's like any addiction, you have to work out the triggers that make you start doing the compulsive behaviour again, despite the fact that you've vowed to give it up.”

Fed-up partners have set up help groups

In the virtual world, desperate partners are joining forces to combat the problem, through a range of sites such as WoW Widows, Online Gamers Anonymous (Olganon), Gamer Widow and GamingSucks. At WoW Widows, one poster, Becca, says that her husband walks in the door after work, runs past her without a word, puts on his headset and is lost to her for the evening. “He won't pick up the phone when his mother calls and won't eat unless I make him something,” she complains. “He says, ‘If I don't get online my guild will be pissed at me'. His guild? People he doesn't know in real life? What about his wife? And the worst part is, I'm afraid to say anything to him about it any more, because it does no good.”

Simone, who contributes to a Yahoo discussion board on the problem, discovered that her husband had met another woman through playing the game. “I made him make a choice of me and the kids, or the game and her, so he deleted his account. A few days later I found out he had another e-mail account,” she says. “Then I discovered that he was phoning her on my cellphone, which went missing a couple of months before.”

Elizabeth Woolley founded Olganon in 2002 and says the site is “dedicated to helping addicted gamers and their families recover from the problems caused by excessive and obsessive online gameplay”. Woolley claims that her son, Shawn, committed suicide as a direct result of being addicted to online games. The site is staffed by volunteers who consider themselves to be recovering gaming addicts, and the organisation is developing a “healing programme” based primarily on the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But can an online fantasy game actually be addictive? Blizzard will not discuss the matter, nor will it say whether it is studying the issue. But Jason Northrup, a PhD student at Texas Tech University who has just finished a small-scale research study on women whose husbands are consumed by World of Warcraft, believes that Warcraft can create addiction. “Such games are not addictive for everyone, but they are addictive for many,” he says. “We need to do more research into why, but most likely there may be multiple causes, such as depression, or perhaps it is symptomatic of relationship difficulties.”

Some partners play for 40 hours a week

However, he stresses, “It would be too easy to say that the players are entirely to blame, when the games also play a significant role in the addictive process. They are designed to keep people playing them, and there is a lot of social pressure within the guilds to play often. The participants in my study reported that their husbands played an average of 40.8 hours a week, the equivalent of a full-time job. How many other leisure activities do you know of that consistently command that much attention?” Blizzard, like any commercial company, is keen to promote its products and thus very keen to keep gamers gaming. For example, if a Warcraft warrior's account has been inactive for more than 90 days, Blizzard lets him or her play free for ten days.

Northrup's arguments are supported by Dr Maressa Orzack, a clinical psychologist and the co-ordinator of computer-addiction services at the McLean Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts. She claims that as many as 40 per cent of World of Warcraft players may be addicted to the game. “A lot of people are asking me to get help for their children, boyfriends, spouses and sometimes themselves,” she says.

While Orzack's figure seems astonishingly high, a study by the Charité University Medicine Berlin, in Germany, already claims to have found physical evidence of gaming's addictive powers, by using a test called the “startle reflex” which is used to show whether substances such as drugs can be addiction-forming. The researchers monitored the response of a muscle in the eye, to see how much 15 self-confessed heavy players could be startled while looking at a game-related image. Scientists theorise that the most pleasing stimuli prompts the smallest of startle reflexes. They told the American Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting how they found that excessive game players could not be easily startled, unlike non-gamers.

The American Psychiatric Association is considering adding video game addiction to its next edition of the standard diagnosis book for mental health professionals, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The issue is also being studied by the American Medical Association, which has called for more formal research into the impact of video game use. It is seeking a review of America's video-game ratings system, to see if it can caution against over-playing.

Meanwhile, Carolyn and the world's many other Warcraft widows may find that the only way to prevent hordes of undead invading their husbands' absent minds is simply to kick the plug out of the computer.

Names have been changed

OUT OF THIS WORLD

What is World of Warcraft?

Warcraft is a massive multi-player, online role-playing game, in which a large number of players interact with each other in a virtual world. Players assume the role of a fictional character (called an avatar), controlling its actions as it explores a huge landscape, fights monsters, meets orcs and elves, fufils quests and interacts with other players, who can team together and form guilds. World of Warcraft is estimated to have 62 per cent of the global market, with around 11 million monthly subscribers. Subscription fees in the UK cost £8.99 a month.

Other games in the genre include:

Habbo Hotel It's based in Finland and doesn't involve orc-maiming, but its maker Sulake claims 7.5 million unique active users a month. Players create their own characters and decorate their rooms, paying with Habbo Credits purchased with actual money. Last year, a 17-year-old male was arrested in the Netherlands, accused of stealing virtual furniture from other people's virtual rooms

Second Life A parallel social-networking universe in which users, called “Residents” interact through avatars to socialise, create and trade virtual items and services, as well as show off their digital genitals.

Command & Conquer A game of strategy and shooting, initially developed in 1995. Plotlines include the Red Alert series, where Einstein travels back in time to remove Hitler in an attempt to prevent the Second World War. This backfires and results in a Soviet invasion of Europe by Joseph Stalin.

Starcraft A military science fiction strategy game developed by Blizzard Entertainment, (the maker of World of Warcraft). Set in the 26th century, the game involves three species, the humanoid Terrans, the insectoid Zerg and the high-tech Protoss, who just can't seem to get along. In South Korea, professional teams compete in televised tournaments.

TIPS FOR WARCRAFT WIDOWS

Paula Hall, a Relate counsellor, offers this advice for partners Therapy can help We all need to switch off after a busy day, but recreational activity is different from compulsive behaviour. If he can't stop logging on, work with him, perhaps with a therapist, to untangle what's behind this behaviour.

Find something to share You need to make sure that your life together is one that he wants to be a part of. Sometimes finding a new passion you can both share is the way forward.

Compromise Can the gaming be minimised, so that it's three nights a week rather than seven? Consider, too, that it might be your problem. Should you be finding other ways to entertain yourself, rather than worrying about how he is spending his time?

You can always bargain For example, spend less time on the phone if he spends less time playing World of Warcraft.

Rules If it's having a significant impact on your relationship, point out the possible consequences if it continues. You need to enable him to make a choice.

FANTASY FIGURES

11 million subscribers means that if WoW were a country, it would be larger than Ireland, Denmark or Switzerland

12 minimum age for World of Warcraft players

1,000 game masters oversee the action and can be contacted at any time

£100 million estimated value of subscriptions per month

2.4 million copies were sold worldwide in its first 24 hours

3 hours a day - the time limit placed on players aged 18+ by the Government of the People's Republic of China

Source: Times Archive

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