World of Warcraft is leaving in its wake an increasing list of casualties. Even though she's never played the game, 28 year-old Jocelyn is one of the fallen. A well-spoken California resident, she divorced her husband of six years after he developed a crippling addiction to the smash online RPG.
"He would get home from work at 6:00, start playing at 6:30, and he'd play until three a.m. Weekends were worse - it was from morning straight through until the middle of the night," she told Yahoo! Games in an interview. "It took away all of our time that we spent together. I ceased to exist in his life."
Jocelyn had been friends with her ex-husband Peter since the age of 13, but it took only nine months for her marriage to collapse. "I bought the game for him for Christmas 2004, when it first came out. By May we had our first serious discussion about where our marriage was going, and by September I had moved out," she said.
Peter's domestic duties also suffered. He stopped paying bills, she says, and refused to do his share of the housework. Jocelyn doesn't hesitate to cite Warcraft as the main reason for her divorce and remains emotional about its impact on her marriage. "I'm real, and you're giving me up for a fantasy land. You're destroying your life, your six-year marriage, and you're giving it up for something that isn't even real."
