In French, they call it "l'appat de jeu." In layman's terms, we call it the lure of the game. In gamerspeak, we just call it World of Warcrack.

There's a new article up on PopMatters about Blizzard's grand MMO, and it suggests World of Warcraft as "an alternate reality so compelling that it is preferable to the reality we live in," and for a variety of reasons as well. Elizabeth Cho, the author, mentions all the things that make WoW both worth playing and worth avoiding (if only to keep from constantly playing), from the sense of community one gets from playing the game with others to the immediate rewards a gamer can get from playing it.

In the end, she makes a choice to stop playing though. How come, you might ask, when she describes the game we love so much? It's simple really, and it's something she says succinctly as the reason why people play to begin with:

Warcraft is beautiful to behold.

Warcraft is an extremely social game.

Warcraft improves upon reality.

This last point is about human nature, rather than Warcraft:

Investment's a bit*h.