(Activision)

Well, here's a real sea change in Internet culture: In a quarterly earnings call yesterday, Activision's CEO revealed that 1.3 million gamers have bailed on World of Warcraft since January. 

It's almost like they all realized they could really use some IRL sunshine!

According to the Wall Street Journal, WoW subscriptions have dropped from 12 million at their peak in 2010 to 8.3 million today. Most of the losses were in "eastern regions of the world," but westerners are leaving, too. In hopes of stemming the tide, the company plans to "push out more content, such as new story lines and experiences, at a quicker pace."

CEO Bobby Kotick did a pretty dismal job of sounding upbeat about their prospects:

"'While we do believe further declines are likely, and we expect to have fewer subscribers at year-end than we do today, "World of Warcraft" remains one of the most successful franchises in the history of entertainment,' Mr. Kotick said on a conference call."

Sorry guys, but no golden age lasts forever. (I learned that from Lord of the Rings.)

A screengrab from the failed campaign.

Good news for the MMORPG enthusiasts out there: Democrat Colleen Lachowicz won her race for a state Senate seat, despite a campaign to convince voters her World of Warcraft hobby rendered her unfit for public office.

In the run-up to election day, someone created a website called "Colleen's World," which complained that, "In Colleen’s online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments.... Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world." But it seems the residents of Maine were unconvinced. The AP reports she cinched the race with 913 votes.

Everquest, however, remains beyond the pale.

YOUR GOD CAN'T SAVE YOU NOW. (Photo: Screencap)

Is no Internet community safe from the outrageous depredations of the hackers? The latest victims of their villainy: World of Warcraft. Forbes reports that, on Sunday morning, a mysterious attack swept through the game, slaying thousands of avatars.

It was as swift and terrible as the coming of Ringwraiths.

Forbes reports on the terror:

“It was really weird. I was [away from keyboard] for like one minute, and when I came back I was dead and so were everyone else,” wrote one player on a World of Warcraft forum. “Really creepy. I wonder what happened.”

There's footage of the killing fields here; be warned, however, that the video may disturb you.

In the forums are even more tales of the wholesale destruction. One player reported that, "Today at 14.30 Orgrimmar got nuked, killing almost everything except for a few NPCs, all players and most of the NPC civilization died including Garrosh and Gamon, our two greatest douchebags." Betabeat has literally no idea what that means, but it sounds serious, like it was the Black Death meets the Rapture with a little Alas, Babylon thrown in for good measure.

Other players, after listening to the speculation, decided simply to light out for the territories and wait out the troubles. One noted that, "All I can suggest is that we stay outside the cities for now," while another proclaimed, "I think I'll go back to questing, Orgrimmar ain't safe right now as I see it..."

Blizzard HQ offered what looked a little like condolences, if you squint:

“We apologize for the inconvenience some of you experienced as a result of this and appreciate your understanding.”

Fortunately all the lost souls can be resurrected because World of Warcraft is, after all, a video game. (Excuse us, an MMORPG.)

Screengrab from ColleensWorld.com

Colleen Lachowicz is a Democrat campaigning for Maine state Senate and an avid World of Warcraft player. Republicans supporting her opponent have a real problem with Ms. Lachowicz's activities and therefore have gone all out to make sure voters learn the evils of the online world she inhabits.

Politico reports on the warnings issued to Maine voters regarding the candidate's life online. Read and tremble, constituents:

In an unusual press release issued Thursday, the Maine GOP attacked Lachowicz for a "bizarre double life" in which she’s a devotee of the hugely popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft. In the game, she's "Santiaga," an "orc assassination rogue" with green skin, fangs, a Mohawk and pointy ears.

Maine Republicans also mined Ms. Lachowicz's posts on liberal blog DailyKos for foul language and incendiary barbs directed at famous conservatives like Grover Norquist.

The party built a website with screencaps of the candidate's writing. Visitors to ColleensWorld.com are greeted by an animated gif repeatedly morphing a photo of Ms. Lachowicz into her Warcraft character and a blurb about her Internet presence that concludes, "Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world."

We're probably just a decade or so away from a presidential candidate explaining why they drunkenly created (then forgot) a Brony-centric Tumblr one night in 2011.

(Photo: Joy of Tech)

If you spent the entire weekend slumped on your couch deep in the wilds of Reddit or mindlessly clicking the Stumbleupon button, here is some good news for your Monday morning: According to a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, Internet addiction is supported largely by anecdotal evidence, so "It's not a clear enough syndrome that you can say at this point it's clearly a disease." Huh.

Dr. Charles O'Brien chaired the working group that was responsible for determining whether or not Internet addiction should be classified as an official disorder. Ultimately, the group decided that more research needed to be conducted before your World of Warcraft obsession could officially be called a sickness. We think we know a few people who'd make some worth test subjects, though.

Even more curious than their reluctance to acknowledge our inability to unplug, is the way that some doctors are treating Internet and gaming addiction:

There we met with three young men who had been in some form of treatment for their obsession with video games -- everything from "talk therapy" with counselors to "virtual-reality" treatment, which is designed to create negative associations between the player and the game they can't stop playing.

Curing an addiction to virtual reality with virtual reality? *Insert Inception joke here*