The MMORPG experience

Researchers are studying it, professors are teaching about it. I'm referring to the virtual worlds of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). The most successful to date is World of Warcraft (WOW), with 4 million players worldwide, a quarter of them in North America, the Christian Science Monitor reports in an in-depth look at what draws so many players. Writer Greg Lamb leads with the story of 16-year-old WOW player Trevor, who was pretty obsessed with it for a while, much to his mom's concern. "But then … Trevor started his junior year of high school and began a part-time job. He decided he needed to cut way back. Now he plays at most a few hours a week." That is actually not unusual for most WOW players, Greg reports, noting a small minority for whom temporary obsession "can lead to bad habits or worse." He goes on to describe how social MMORPGs are for many players, how much there is to explore in these vast "worlds," how playing with real people behind characters provides spontaneity and unpredictability that keep it very interesting. Then there are gender issues (the pluses and minuses of having a male or female character) and economic ones (the opportunity to buy and sell virtual objects and real estate with real money).

Meanwhile, CNET points to new research in Germany showing a "short-term causal relationship" between first-person shooter game play and "brain-activity patterns" considered characteristic of "aggressive cognitions and effects." The researchers watched the brain activity of 13 guys between the ages of 18 and 26 while they played "Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror." They were hooked up to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) system while playing. "The research will appear in the January 2006 edition of Media Psychology," CNET adds.