I've been asked this question a hundred thousand times, and I'm sure every person who follows this blog has wondered the same thing. If you look at where JMTC was at the time, it makes no sense, so allow me to dive into my thought processes and explain what led up to me quitting this game we all love.
5 Reasons Markco Quit Wow
1. Drama - Bloggers especially, are filled with drama and a quest to be the best. Because of how quickly JMTC gained a following, I was a target at all times. I had to stay on top of my posts and every other activity or else I'd be accused of copying everyone. I tried my best (and still do) to run a blog where it didn't matter how big you were, you could still have a say in the conversation, but many bloggers still look at blogging as a zero sum game, or worse, a harmless hobby. I said it a hundred times and I'll say it again, there's plenty of room in the wow blogging community for more top bloggers. That being said, one of the main reasons I quit was the childishness of the entire drama filled blogosphere. Childish behavior that even today I still find myself getting sucked into. I've even removed my blog roll so that I no longer have to worry about bloggers complaining about who's linked and who isn't. If you are a blogger and want to get linked on this site, simply submit a guest post.
2. Boredom - I, to this day, can still talk about making wow gold with enthusiasm and excitement in my voice. Over time I would chop out the boring parts of the game, one by one until all that was left was the gold. First raids, then pvp and finally I realized that even making gold had become boring to me. I still love talking about how to make gold and showing people how to do it, but physically doing it myself is devoid of enjoyment. That's what happens when you make 2.1 million gold, you get tired of it all. For the six months before I quit wow completely, the only thing I did was log in, try out new gold strategies for the blog and log out. Eventually I decided it was time to pull the plug.
3. Career - Yes, even though I make enough money to more than support myself with my online businesses, I still feel that I should work a 9-5 job and have a career. I don't feel good about myself unless I'm working full time, it's just part of who I am. I realized that I could not survive working 10-16 hour days writing a blog and working full time, so I made the logical choice and went with career over blogging. I still blog "full time" on The Traffic Blogger but it requires very little effort compared to what I did with JMTC and I'm growing it far slower.
4. Friends Quitting - Without a community to play with Wow feels very stale to me. As guilds broke up and friends moved on, I found myself with far fewer people compelling me to log in.
5. Health - In six months I lost 60 pounds and it wasn't just from an insane amount of exercise (3-6 miles every day), the part I didn't tell anyone was that I had cut my wow time in half in order to do this. Staying up late playing video games and eating chips is not a mature decision, even if you get paid to do it.
For every reason I had to quit wow, there were a hundred reasons I could come up with to stay. These included friendships, the appreciation of this community, joys of slaughtering alliance, etc. In the end it was a very gradual decision that took almost a year to reach full fruition.
Are you down to just gold making? Will you quit wow in the near future? The dirty little secret to wow is that your friends are often your #1 reason for playing. Even if you feel the game is not as good as it once was, the communities you take part in keep you coming back for more. What is your reason for playing wow? Have you had a complete opposite experience?
Side Note: JMTC is hiring new writers! All you need to do is send me an example post, I'll publish it and if it does well I will work with you to create a schedule that you can follow and pay you 50% of adsense earnings per post.
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35 comments: on "5 Reasons Markco Quit Wow"
Anonymous said... June 9, 2011 at 8:15 AM
Reasons #2-5 are all legit (and good for you for quiting a game that is designed to keep you playing FOREVER).
However, reason #1 sounds real whiney; my initial response to that is "man-it-up." Imagine others on top of their game quit because of public criticism. Lebron ain't scoring what he should. King's last book sucked. Deniro's last movie blew. Blizzard's last patch was lame. But they are all still plugging away.
In short, Haters will Hate. But Haters sure love when they get under your skin. Quit for good reasons, but don't let anyone make that decision for you.
Pikuin said... June 9, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Slow news week?
BigNick said... June 9, 2011 at 9:02 AM
I gotta disagree with you there anon. I think #1 is a very legit reason for quitting. Being under constant fire from all sides just gets to be quite stressful. I don't know about anyone else, but if I'm playing a game, I don't want it to be stressful, but rather relaxing and fun.
Anonymous said... June 9, 2011 at 9:03 AM
I feel just the same.
Sitting at 5.4M gold and counting, bored to death and lacking motivation in this game.
I think it's time to try and stir up some shit in the real world, so that people realize how messed up the societal structure is.
daniel.stewart1993 said... June 9, 2011 at 9:18 AM
@ First poster, it's not whiney whatsoever, did you not see the post on colds blog attacking Markco directly? No, I didn't think so.
----------
When I first found out you quit wow I wondered why but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I do however feel why you left a legitimate group of reasons and if anybody feels 'hard done by' or think you should 'toughen up', I think you all should try and take a position like Markco did, he brought the whole gold making community together at jmtc and made it better. If you're going to complain to him for that, more fool you.
Braidy said... June 9, 2011 at 9:29 AM
Totally understand you!
I only play to make gold now. I have always played on PvP-servers, and mostly did WPvP. But when it died out as all city guards destoyed the joy of it, as they had to guard the chickens. This is the reason I make gold. Because that's the only PvP left worth playing...
I miss old "WoW" a lot!
Yow said... June 9, 2011 at 9:47 AM
Hey man I love ur blog, Maybe wanna Link my blog to yours and i do same to yours =)?
www.thastorlol.blogspot.com
Girl gamer from finland =P
Writing is from 2.7k warrior POV :)
Cheers!
Silverthorn said... June 9, 2011 at 10:00 AM
If you won't be needing that 2.1 million gold, can I have it please?
I didn't think so, but come on, I think somebody just had to ask! :)
What's fun is fun. If it's supposed to be, but isn't, don't do it! Good bye, thank you, good luck and... maybe you'll be back some time.
Anonymous said... June 9, 2011 at 10:33 AM
When did you quit WoW Marcko? Just now or a while back?
The Gold Queen said... June 9, 2011 at 10:47 AM
The outcome of reason one is a real shame, as there are lots of pleasant, and new and aspiring gold bloggers out there.
I choose who goes on my blogroll, if they're not nice or they aren't helpful, they're quietly removed without a fuss.
http://www.thegoldqueen.com/resources/
daniel.stewart1993 said... June 9, 2011 at 10:55 AM
I think it's around about 6 months ago he quit.
Markco said... June 9, 2011 at 10:57 AM
I quit wow right after cata launched. I was on and off for about three months and then ended my account. I will still post when it's needed.
I'm thinking that I need to turn jmtc into far more voices than just one or two and so I'm working to get more writers on staff.
Back in the day when the blog wasnt so well funded I had 20 writers but couldn't justify paying them all. The commission model I use with mageshadow is working great and I will use that to pay hopefully many more writers.
Anonymous said... June 9, 2011 at 12:01 PM
All good reasons to walk away from the game!
I myself have not even bothered to level my 80 up to 85 after Cata...
I play my alts(low level),and am up to 10k gold just from goofing around on these lowbies.
The game has lost something for me too-I have more fun logging on to make some gold than any other part of the game!
I wish you luck,and thanks for all the gold making tips!!
I hope to be able to end my wow addiction as well,soon.....lol
TheSiz said... June 9, 2011 at 12:13 PM
I gotta say Markco, gotta take the good and bad. But taking out the blog roll is definately not a good idea. Most people read your blog then off to the others. I like the blog, but might have to add another blogger that has a roll on it as my favorite. It seems that your letting other dicate this blog, and its the train to lose its steam very very fast. Good luck as I try to view the site from time to time.
Anonymous said... June 9, 2011 at 12:39 PM
WTH are you thinking Markco?
I'm fine with you not playing the game anymore.
What I'm not fine with is you disabling the blog links on your site.
I'm a daily visitor! You leave me no choice except to find a new hub to get my daily dose of gold info if you are gonna change your site.
hint* The Undermine Journal.
Shape up Marcko or ship out dammit.
Mageshadow's podcasts and the community blog links is what JMTC has going for it. Noone cares if you quit the game. We didn't quit yet and so that matters more to us.
Where is Mageshadow? I love his unassuming and unobtrusive style.
Now get on board and offer your readers some substance. I personally don't want to buy your gold guide and could care less about Alto's Mysterious Fortune Card guide. Hmmm...maybe you need to start playing the game again to be capable of writing a NEW GOLD GUIDE???? You could sell video downloads you know. Faid from Nerfaid blog made an excellent how-to video and she should think about selling downloads. $2.00 for a how to make gold video is something I might and others might pay for.
You do have something to give to your community of readers and it's not you personally or your personal problems. Face that and JMTC will succeed.
<3
Brent said... June 9, 2011 at 2:06 PM
Some thoughts..
Point 1 as a reason to quit feels like some others have said lame. I know it impacts people differently but the need to not deal with crap is just part of life. It is a lot easier to see as you get up in years.
Wow gold is too easy to get once you understand how easy it is using the various addons. It is the one thing that I got from your writing that let me hit my 2million in less than a year. I knew how to make gold but my pace wasnt as fast until I found quickauctions 3. Even I have tailed off the gold making as it is pointless at this time.
No blog roll. The only reason I really come to JMTC was for the links to the other blogs. I liked reading your writing when you were doing it. Nothing against Mageshadow but his topics just too often dont attract my attention. In most cases I only go see a couple of writers. Interesting writers are like Foo who describes his thought process and battles. Cold(yes evil person....being sarcastic) writes very well. My interest isnt in how to make gold as that is easy. My interest is what is new and changing. Your site was how I would go to the other sites. The battles amongst the bloggers has changed how often I come here now.
As to bloggers infighting.....i have always hated posts of blogger vs blogger both on your site and others. None of it is worth taking the time to read. I really dont care about the various petty fights. Keep it amongst yourselves.
Interesting read as always. Good luck with your career.
kevin said... June 9, 2011 at 2:07 PM
Must say im sad to see you leave...but to answer your last question as this:
Ive quit and come back to wow many times throughout the years. There was always a small community helping me come back and then i found gold making. I now play on moon guard to do some rp(NOT ERP) and use the RPing to also help me make some gold with vanity items. Overall when making gold i would say a mix and match of doing it is a better idea then just sitting at the ah making all that gold. Ive currently bought vials of the sand,majority of my epic gear,tundra mount, and now about to buy mechano-hog, and all the while sitting on top of 165k gold with 10 decks in the AH. Point is you have to also have fun with your gold or it will suck...
Anyways sorry for horrible grammar and i wish you the best of luck in life.
Adam Paul said... June 9, 2011 at 2:59 PM
Wait, mageshadows podcasts? Haha!...
He must mean the Friday night jmtc meetings.
I can completely understand why he tok down the blogroll. It was the #1 root cause of some of the worst parts of all this drama going on.
The time has come to start holding bloggers to a higher standard than we all are. Lots of people are getting away with repackaging the same posts over and over again--yet mage is the onl one ever getting grilled for it. All the other bloggers get to utilize lame excuses like "everyone does it" or "who cares" bu when it comes to JMTC mage is posting original stuff its just not up to the par that some people want.
I take what mage is doing over most every other blogger around is doing which is lazy blogging and "borrowing" posts from other blogs because no one has told them that they are doing wrong.
I know one blogger who removes people from their blogroll because the content they have is stolen from the very site they removed! How isn't that a problem?
All this drama stuf is ridiculous and I am more than happy doing addicted to azeroth now. It allows us to completely reset all the relationships and invite genuine people on the show who we support and want to hlp out. We've even reached out to auctiion house junkies! All this sillyness hasjust worn us all out and we create it for ourselves so we really can't complan.
The Lost Meeple said... June 9, 2011 at 3:26 PM
I don't "borrow" other blogger's posts. Everything that is written about here is either from in game experiences ( for example I'm currently leveling through BC content and flew up to the elemental plateau area and decided to turn that into a post ) or through research/mmochampion/ptr changes and such.
I'll be honest I will occasionally pull a post idea from the forums but that's about it. I don't go browsing for posts on other blogs. The idea simply sounds terribly stupid to be honest.
To be quite frank I don't read much of the content from other blogs, I simply don't have the time to keep up with 10-15 blogs/posts per day. Is that bad? Perhaps, but there is only so much time in a day. I will occasionally catch a good post here or there and go " Why didn't I think of that?? " but that's about it.
Also as Adam said, Addicted To Azeroth isn't my Podcast - it's his. Sure I may be part of it and will hopefully be on the show sooner or later, but it's not my podcast.
June 9, 2011 3:25 PM
Kuja said... June 9, 2011 at 4:46 PM
Aww no more blog roll :( It was so useful to check other blogs afterwards. Oh well, have to add more to my own blog roll then so favourites won't become too crowded :P
If someone's wow blog is missing from it, poke me!
Admin said... June 9, 2011 at 4:53 PM
Anonymous,
Thanks for letting me know about having a MFC guide, I wasn't aware I had one...
iiimjiiim said... June 9, 2011 at 6:24 PM
For anyone feeling the loss of the JMTC blogroll you can find over 50 gold-making blogs (along with their associated RSS feeds) at The World Of Warcraft Gold Blog Directory.
I'd recommend building your own personalized "blogroll" by adding the RSS feeds of gold blogs you enjoy most into a stand-alone RSS reader or the web-based Google Reader.
TheGimp said... June 9, 2011 at 7:09 PM
Markco quit for very strong reason, and although he quit he has still posted some articles that are strong and great advice. The guy looks at the who, why and when of making gold, not just the buy Item A and sell it for Amount B type posts that sometimes come around.
Mageshadow gives us the hidden/forgotten ideas as a second line of posting, comming from his own experience or research (without all the bells and whistles, what you see is what you get)
Combine these together and JMTC is still great.
I have my own blog, and i still check JMTC out and love listening to Markco and Mageshadows ideas.
Also remember JMTC isn't just a blog, its a community, the forums are full of some amazing people with brilliant ideas, Check out people like Whitewolf who has a great understanding of the psychology of sales.
Remember people making gold takes effort, so use a little extra and save the Blogs you like manually, the loss of the blog roll isn't that big a deal really, and if it upsets you then check our PW:G's blogging directory.
Right ill step down from my box and leave you with my two copper :P
Gimp
Faid said... June 9, 2011 at 7:20 PM
No offense regarding the content, but 99% of the reason I started and continued to come here was for the blog roll, not the site itself. To be honest I probably won't visit JMTC anymore now. :(
Dicci said... June 9, 2011 at 11:18 PM
I agree with Faid, the main reason I came here was for the blog roll. But I still read this blog because if I don't then I get an in-depth explanation of the drama from Catharsis every day, and we all know he can ramble ;)
If he reads this comment: <3 love you haha
Anonymous said... June 9, 2011 at 11:22 PM
Same here Faid. The blog roll was why I came here. It felt like a nice central place to move from.
Gaiwyn said... June 10, 2011 at 3:01 AM
The forums are where it's at anyway. I understand why Markco quit. When the game doesn't do it anymore, it's time to either take a break or move on. If only we all had the strength to do so.
(Ps. SWTOR looks neat!)
It really is about the social aspect. If you hang out with guildies and/or friends, it makes the whole MMO experience that much better.
Heading towards permanent quitting myself (having quit temporarily many times in the past but always slinking back), but it still feels like it will be a waste of six years and around 200 days played if I do - though the longer I hold out, the worse that reasoning gets, right?
I think it's the whole being part of a community that encourages me to keep playing. Can't keep posting to WoW forums if I don't play now, and they are places that I still feel connected.
Anonymous said... June 10, 2011 at 3:04 AM
imo someone who just visits this site for the blogroll has no idea how to manage his favorites. the content here at jmtc still offers a lot of information to everyone out there. no matter if you are a gold blogger or a casual gamer trying to get the gold for your some epic gear or whatever. if you don't like the posts of mage then go visit the forums. there is some amazing stuff too.
@markco
i fully understand your reasons. wow is a mmorpg. the community of the players is a very important part of the game. over the course of the last 5 years i saw too many people come and go. currently my motivation to keep on playing wow comes from raiding with a rather small but successful guild. these guys are the closest to "friends" as they can get in an online game. over the last 4 months i started to do all my ah business through the remote service. 200 transactions a day is not that much but enough for about 5-10k profit a week
Warcraft Econ said... June 10, 2011 at 4:04 AM
Sucks to see you quit Marco. We also used the blogroll to check out recent posts.
Recently we created a gold blog directory and their respective RSS feed links. Here is the page: http://www.warcraftecon.net/?page_id=4267
Please let us know if we are missing any even though there are over 40 up to date blogs in that blogroll.
Bobbins said... June 10, 2011 at 4:49 AM
The blog roll was the best anywhere. Now it is gone I'll probably use this blog less.
Thx Fluxdata (above) will check out your suggestions.
Syl said... June 10, 2011 at 5:34 AM
The exact same reasons for me as for you, maybe with the exception of nr. 1. work did play a great role, if time is more limited, you really aren't ready to compromise and sacrifice so much for the game anymore (and WoW was constantly that for me in Cata). it better be great or it's not worth it anymore..
And big gratz on that weight loss and managing to go back to a healthier lifestyle, btw! :)
I had huge back issues for years due to raiding and it's slowly looking up now.
Uzuri said... June 10, 2011 at 6:30 AM
Add me to the list of people who are sorely going to be missing the blogroll. I'll still stop by occasionally (especially for the podcasts which I enjoy immensely); however during this past week it has become apparent JMTC either cannot or will not provide the information I want.
Anonymous said... June 10, 2011 at 11:16 AM
Mageshadow does not podcast? Huh?
A2A is too new to say it's been Mageshadow's venue all along.
Maybe they were never podcasts/beancasts/sproutcasts and instead were just recordings on JMTC?
Mageshadow is a fine moderator.
>Cold sells the Mysterious Fortune Card guide---NOT Alto. Apologies Alto!
Darth Solo said... June 11, 2011 at 2:06 PM
Funny, most of these are my own reasons for quitting WoW. Except for friends, because I didn't have any friends in WoW, played all on my own. I'm at a stage now where I get nauseous when I imagine going back to playing WoW but I still blog about it and I still follow what goes on in the game.
Tim said... June 14, 2011 at 2:23 PM
So Marcko, does this mean that your 20k Leveling guide is closing now, or will you be getting help from your guest posters to keep it running?
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