World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

More "wisdom" from the father of video games.

World of Warcraft has passed the Bushnell Test. While that may sound like a good thing, it's not, really. Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Father of Video Games has been watching what his sons (the Brothers of Video Games?) have been playing. What passing the Bushnell Test is, apparently, is when the boys stop playing a game. Doesn't sound exactly like a ringing endorsement, eh?

"The Bushnell Threshold is... I watch my sons, and because they're my sons, they tend to start things at the beginning, or sometimes a little bit before," Bushnell clarified. "So they play and play and play and play, and all of a sudden, they don't play any more. They stayed with World of Warcraft for a long time.

"My older son all of a sudden got Mage 72 or whatever it is and quit. All at once. Cold turkey. I didn't think it was going to happen. And my 14-year-old is getting close to there, which is surprising."

Well, excuuuse me if I don't just fall over and abandon my gaming choices because of what a teenager does. Speaking as someone who has quit and come back to WoW multiple times, (usually returning 6-9 months away from an expansion...) they'll be back. They'll play with their shiney new game, and when it's not like WoW, the'll abandon it and come back.

World of Warcraft will disappear some day - the people will be gone and the servers will go dark. But that day is not coming for a decently long period of time. It would take at least 5 years, and things would have to go seriously wrong for WoW at this point to be completely gone at that time. Certainly more wrong than a particular teenager, even a Bushnell, losing interest.

For the full explaination of the Bushnell Test, please check here.

For all things World of Warcraft, check out the TTH WoW site.