Living in the world of warcraft

[ganto 0]

Hi

 

I saw a swedish tv program where a professor, Jonas Linderoth, talked about MMORPG and the effect of it. He also mentiond that he made a study about WoW and managed to find a copy of it; in english even. As its a study made for the goverment here, The Swedish Media Council, and its freely availiable to download/read by anyone.

 

Really intresting reading, especially for me as an old player of WoW.

 

The report concentrates on the following questions:

• What makes the game especially time consuming?

• How do the participants themselves experience their play?

• Which problems/conflicts crop up in playing the game, especially in terms of the amount of time it takes?

 

Read it here: http://www.medieradet.se/upload/Rapporter_...arcraft_eng.pdf

[enci 0]

wow, interesting read ganto

 

Ive never tried wow, but from what I read I have to say its brilliant. Both as a game and a business move. And judging Blizzard for their financial incentives are just wrong imho. There are a lot of companies who make a hell of a lot of money by buying up copyright licenses and releasing crappy games every year (coughEAgamescough), so earning fortunes with a good game doesn’t bother me. After all its purpose is to keep players on the servers, and wow seems to excel at this. Im not saying that obsessive gaming is a positive thing, but any hobby can be addictive. After some point anything may have a strong influence on how you spend your days. Gaming is just less accepted socially. At least here. But it’ll change I think, virtuality is becoming a common thing (in the economically more developed part of the world that is). Whether its our escape from a fragmented and atomized society, I dont know. *shrugs*But I don’t see it as inferior to other “meaningful” past time activities.