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A World of Warcraft World
An anonymous reader writes "On ebay people are paying real money to buy WoW gold... while some guy in Korea murdered another guy over a rare sword that existed only in an MMORPG. This essay looks at the way more and more people are failing to draw a distinction between their real and online lives and takes it to its logical, yet utterly insane, conclusion." Amusing, and with more than a few ounces of truth.
I'd like to see a study on the percentage of people that drop out of college due to WOW and how many actually recover.
I used to play EQ a lot, I was pretty hooked on it for about a year. I don't regret it, since I had a lot of fun times, but looking back, I certainly burnt a lot of hours in Norrath. My brother got really hooked on it too, and he's not even the complete nerd that I am. There were certain people there who were pretty terrifying though. For example, I often heard people talking about how they were skipping school in order to spend the day playing the game, and my brother once even got paid (EQ money, but still) to guard someone's character while he took a nap at the keyboard. This guy was so thoroughly obsessed with the game that he wouldn't leave the computer - not even to sleep.
Take these stories as warnings. You might not think yourself capable of such things, and okay, I doubt you'll end up killing anyone, but even a stupid little game can become a major feature in your life if you're not careful. Especially when you have to pay per month, since it's so easily justifiable - you're only getting your money's worth, after all!
Here's a link to a phsychologist who's making his living on studying people who play MMORPG's.
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/
I've filled out his surveys for 4 or 5 years.
At the site you may find many tools for characterizing your personality type and how it relates to the alternate reality of the games. As well as analysis of how MMORPG's have affected people en masse.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
The sword was worth a good 5000 yuan on the open market. Adjusting that for GDP, that's around $3000 in the US.
Now how many americans have gotten murdered over $3000 or less? A lot.
It's a popular meme that crime in America is "so high that it's not newsworthy." Crime happens all over the world and no higher in America than anywhere else. Crimes are more often prosecuted here than anywhere else, and many crime rates are proportionally lower here than in Europe. There are several places to look these stats up, but here's a site from Google that summarizes them:
Stats
Of course I am not going to quote you numbers, but I'm suggesting that this idea is not arguable.
In other words, you won't cite anything but will declare your argument inarguable. It's sad that this is what passes for insightful commentary on Slashdot these days!