When I played WoW, I felt that irresponsibility in the face of adversity was part and parcel with the fact that it was a game. As my friend and erstwhile fellow raid leader Matildah recently told me: “It’s because the game is voluntary, Liji. Voluntary.”

I personally had always felt that, at least to the leaders of WoW raiding guilds, the responsibilities of the game often did not feel voluntary. Sure they’re voluntary when things are good and easy. But there are bound to be times (often constantly) when things are not good, and not easy. When the game no longer feels like a game and no longer feels fun. If things were purely voluntary, and leaders could just quit whenever things got rough, thousands of raiding guilds on WoW would be unsuccessful. They would disband before most of them make it through a full raid tier (on average a few months). I have not yet heard of any raiding guild, even top guilds, that do not struggle with some sort of drama or problem during any given raid tier.

Yet, WoW raiders will often act in irresponsible ways (to their teammates), and feel justified in doing so. Because, well, it’s a game. It’s voluntary. If today was a horrible day at work and I really don’t have any energy, then I won’t raid today. If there’s a concert that I wanna go to, and it overlaps with raid times, then I won’t raid that day. If this week my friend is visiting from out of town, I’m gonna be busy with them, and I won’t raid this week. If I’m no longer feeling like the game is fun, then I’ll just stop raiding entirely.

Of course when people do this, the other 20 or so members of their team suffer. Maybe it’s midway through the progression of a boss: last week 20 members of the team might have already spent 5 hours practicing the strategy on the boss and finally got it to 30% health, so it was reasonable to think that this week the boss would die and progression could continue smoothly. But if any of those 20 people are out, then the substitute will not have had those 5 hours of practice and will inevitably cause problems. Problems on top of the problems that the team already needed to face because it is, after all, still learning. 30% health left can still be very difficult, and it’s not like last week we got to 30% smoothly with zero mistakes. Maybe the team will not end up killing the boss this week, and now the other 19 members are frustrated because we’ve spent 10 hours on a boss that should have only taken us 7 hours to kill, and we STILL haven’t killed it! That’s one easily imagined scenario that guilds constantly come across.

Beyond practical consequences, it also always is a huge hit to morale when people flake. It often exacerbates the above imagined scenario, because everyone is aware that this will cause the team to struggle, and low morale compounds itself in vicious cycles. If someone actually leaves, it’s that scenario on crack. Because then you know you not only lost someone for future progression who has already worked with the team, you also lose what gear they got over the previous kills of farm bosses. Furthermore, the replacement will most likely be less geared, less experienced, and now we need to find extra time and effort to gear this new person up and teach them our strategies too.

Leaders of WoW raiding guilds need to work through this and somehow keep morale up, somehow try to not allow any one person’s flakiness to affect progression (though it is guaranteed to, even if only by a tiny bit). Even so, almost every single one of my previous officers and fellow leaders have flaked on me. And almost all of my raiders have flaked on me at one time or another. It’s, after all, part and parcel with the game.

I hated it. But. Liji, it’s a game, it’s voluntary. I accept that. I felt that outside of the video game world, irl, that’s not the case. The primary reason that caused people to flake out in the ultimate way by leaving the guild or the game mid-progression: “no longer having fun”, that doesn’t exist in real life right? People don’t quit their company because they’re not having fun, right? Even with games in the real world, so long as they were professional, people wouldn’t behave that way right? No one is going to say “I’m going to quit basketball because it’s no longer fun, and I’ll just also lose my multi-million dollar contract”. Right?

It’s why Magic Johnson’s decision to quit the presidency of the Lakers with no warning surprised me so much. His reasons felt like deja vu to me: “I’m no longer having fun, I don’t feel like myself anymore”, etc. Granted, I haven’t followed what happened in detail, nor do I even watch basketball much. But when the headline popped up on my newsfeed, I couldn’t help but feel jarred and slightly disoriented. Like, is this WoW? Is this major figure going to just quit on his team without warning while things are bad, regardless of how it will undoubtedly be a huge blow on his team? Is being the president of a basketball team a voluntary position, like that of a WoW raider?