^why even bother for just a couple hours a month?

the amusing thing about WoW is that i know people who are not even playing for FUN anymore.  they log on every day just to check their auctions and do their dailies.  its like a job - that they pay Blizzard to do.  they get caught in a cycle where theyve amassed so much crap that they are simply playing so as not to lose it and/or their advancement.

star wars galaxies (a fun game during a very brief window of its development) was the worst for that. you had to log in to pay maintenance on your home, pay maintenance on your vendors (otherwise both would disappear with all your stuff), survey for resources, check on daily spawn mobs, place harvesters on new resource nodes (which appeared/disappeared on a daily basis - if you missed a day and that day copper or aluminum with amazing characteristics spawned on a planet, and you didnt get to place harvesters down on it, as a crafter you were SOOL).

the entire game was designed from the ground up to get people hooked and in a position where they cannot even take extended breaks from the game for risk of losing their homes/possessions/advancement in the game. and then there were further time sinks like the jedi system (early on). you had to just start randomly mastering professions and fulfilling a bunch of unknown criteria until you finally unlocked a jedi.

the extent to which these games are designed to addict and trap people in an endless loop of grinding/crafting/auctioning/gathering/daily questing/etc is disgusting. wow is just as bad as SWG ever was. Blizzard would argue otherwise, of course - if you take a break you get 'rested XP' afterall - but big #%@$ing deal, all it does is encourage people to create alts and waste even more of their lives in the game.

they remind me of experiments where rats will keep pushing a button all day long to the point of exhaustion - getting shocked in the process (to the point that their skin is scorched), neglecting to eat or sleep, just for a micro dose of cocaine now and then.

...except MMOs are even worse than that. you have to pay for the privilege - not just your monthly fee (and those of alt accounts/spouse accounts) but also the money they now charge for every basic service in the game such as name changes, realm transfers, etc. plus the new rash of otherwise unattainable content locked behind micro-transaction stores like pets, mounts, character customizations and other vanity items.