For many, Diablo III was hotly anticipated and closely embraced. For many, but not for all. While it may be great to spend hours delving through dungeons in an endless quest for better loot and a stronger character, Diablo III doesn’t just encourage or reward people who play the game to the exclusion of other duties in their lives – it becomes progressively more rewarding the more you withdraw. Diablo III is the sort of title that has an alignment of factors all working against the sanctity of your marriage. Firstly, by virtue of the fact that it is a PC title, players are already more likely to be away from a television in some focal living room that they might otherwise play a console game on. As an extension of that, the game player is less likely to be ousted by a family member wanting to use “the” computer, as they would be asking to use “the” TV – people are more content to sacrifice and get a quick browsing fix from a phone or laptop than they are to sit down and watch a movie on a smaller screen.
Diablo III further encourages withdraw from family by being not just a time consuming loot driven game, but by being an atmospheric one – it’s the sort of game where you want to be alone with the lights turned low, creeping through misty forests and slaying undead to hauntingly nuanced background music.
While it’s tempting to say, “Wait, doesn’t Diablo III feature co-op, which would strengthen a marriage?” the reality of the matter is that’s only successful to a certain point. If you are lucky enough to have a spouse who would as equally indulge in your pastimes as you, the final nail in the coffin comes when you’ve both mastered the game together and move on to its final challenge: Hardcore mode. If you can’t envision how someone mistiming a healing spell, resulting in perma-death, would cause fights between two people then you’ve clearly never sunk a hundred hours of your life into any single thing. If so, then what are you, like, focusing on your marriage instead?
Diablo III is The Married Gamers Staff Pick for Most Likely to Cause Marital Strife.
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