Yes, it sounds like a spam email strapline. World of Warcraft is an infamous, vast time sink, a black hole sucking in thousands upon thousands of otherwise productive man-hours, and spewing out very little in return. WoW has had a rough time in the general press recently, and concerns about addiction have embarrassed Blizzard into releasing a parental lockout for their massively moneyspinning product. You'd be forgiven a little trepidation when considering whether to give the game a go yourself, or return to its embraces after some absence. I'm here to turn the tables, and explain why, if you don't already possess an active Warcraft habit, you really should develop one, and fast. Doing so might just save your social life. It's true, it seems counter intuitive to suggest you can improve your bank balance general well-being, lifestyle, relationships (yes, even with the opposite sex...) and earn CV points just by playing a game. And no, I don't mean selling online items to dodgy Koreans, developing a meaningful relationship with a Nightelf or making Gnomish Engineering your day job. When you observe the various different facets of the clinical WoW addiction, it becomes apparent that sacrificing your time, money and gaming diversity on the altar of Azeroth can bring unforeseen rewards.

Let's start with some basic economics. World of Warcraft will set you back a mere fifteen quid to begin with and then approximately a tenner a month thereafter. This outlay will be recouped significantly within the first month or two of the addiction taking hold. It's not unreasonable to assume most gamers go out with their mates, colleagues or fellow dragonslayers at least three times a week. Unfortunately these events will generally set you back fifteen gold pieces at the very least, and one's entertainment budget often overflows leading to penury, hardship and economic suffering. Rejoice! Your newfound WoW addiction will halve the number of nights in the week spent in drinking establishments, replacing them with prepaid dungeoneering which, as we shall soon see, builds character, raises mojo, reduces your jeans size and makes you much more employable, as well as significantly richer. No need to feel guilty when you get billed for your gaming habit, the first night spent seduced by WoW instead of your friends will save you the amount you've spent and five quid into the bargain. Even if you're the kind who enjoys a tipple during play, and why shouldn't you, you'll still save money playing WoW and drinking shop-bought alcohol.

This brings me on to how the WoW addiction can improve health and lifestyle. Even if you do enjoy the odd pint whilst gaming, the game provides enough of a distraction to significantly reduce your intake. Thus you'll be drinking less per week and drastically reducing your risk of liver damage, diabetes, alcoholism and falling over on the way home. The same is true for food. The strength of the immersive compulsion is such that you will no longer take sustenance until it is absolutely biologically necessary. A mere side effect of this masterful game is the instilling in its players that discipline which no amount of diet books, fads, cults and motivational videos ever could! The WoW diet is the holy grail of weight loss programmes because it actually works and you don't have to do anything other than what you already can't stop doing. Food and all its pleasures become secondary to WoW. In fact, more often than not find yourself feeling fuller when your character chows down on some Roasted Quail ingame after a particularly tough battle.

Critics may now feel that the combined financial and medical benefits of the WoW addiction come with too high a social cost. How can one maintain ones love life or network of friends whilst still nurturing the addiction? Simple; all you need to do is introduce your significant other to WoW, which will probably occur naturally when he or she realizes there is a third party to the relationship, and a good 90% of the time, the game will do the rest. In WoW, you are a veteran of many battles, opulent arms trade tycoon and vastly better looking by default, especially if you are a cow. Replace your offline persona with your online one in your significant other's mind and you're made. You can buy your loved ones powerful epic items, which they will treasure forever and bring immense social cachet at a fraction of the cost of real world gifts. Plus, nobody will steal your girlfriend if she's playing WoW all day, ideally on your LAN. Ingame relationships are a growing trend (I could link empirical studies, but its far better if you take my word for it.Here's a start.) and the consensus seems to be that guys who want to live the dream and meet their match ingame can increase their chances by playing a Warrior and Tanking for a large guild. Nothing turns on the ladies like a guy dying for them again and again. Jewelcrafting warriors score double, since you can make wedding rings! On the other hand, females should play bitchslapping rogues, ideally Dwarves, since this will be the best way to bring the target of your affection into line as efficiently as possible, by demonstrating the leet skillz he will inevitably assume you haven't got due to being stupid, male and a gamer.

Finally, all this gaming time might seem frivolous, a missed opportunity for career development. Wrong again! Addicts in the mid to late stages find that they have developed typing skills of a court reporter. In addition to this transferable ability, those who progress anywhere in the virtual economy will have developed a complex understanding of economic factors, salesmanship and the unwritten rules of capitalism, perfect for starting your own business after you get fired. Leading a Gronn-slaying raid group is far more challenging than motivating a team of reader's digest salesmen, and twice as hard to keep in line, and all this is discounting the obvious military careers your newfound tactical acumen can afford (again, there are dozens of studies and US Army press releases that can back this up... this article has some info,but I'd take it with a pinch of salt or 5) , and numerous jobs within WoW itself, which positively require an addiction. So take note of these recommendations, and next time you have dreams about massacring Orcs in Azeroth, or even wake up with your head on the keyboard, just smile; its doing you nothing but good.