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Love In The Time of Warcraft

Via Edge Online, an article at the Wall Street Journal talking about the process of finding love in an MMOG. From the article: "Nick Yee, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at Stanford University who studies online games, found in a survey earlier this year that 29% of women players and 8% of men said they had gone on to date someone they met in a game. He says the games are filled with scenarios that shed light on players' personalities. A risky raid on a dungeon, for example, can reveal whether someone is a team player. 'These are trust-building exercises,' he says. Players 'are constantly having to make decisions like, Do I run out and save myself or help the others survive?' Situations that reveal so much about someone's character are less common in the real world, he thinks. Yankee Group, a Boston technology-research firm, estimates that MMOGs, which can be played simultaneously by thousands of people using the Internet, are played by 25 million to 30 million people world-wide."

13 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. i know all there is to know about the crying game by metasecure · · Score: 4, Funny

    for those times when that bouncy night elf female isn't who you thought she would be !

  2. My God! by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone saying something positive about games? Someone is suggesting that healthy relationships can arise from gaming?

    We need to stop that. Those stereotypes and social stigmas are time honored and sacred traditions. If we lose those, the terrorists have already won.

    I need to be able to say, "Well, at least I didn't meet my wife online!" in order to point out how obviously better I am than everyone else. I got drunk at a bar and knocked my wife up and that's how I became happily married. My son and his son are going to do the same thing if I have anything to say about it!

    This is change & I don't like it. We need to stay as static as possible and prevent this from becoming the norm. Sure kids in my day listened to rock music and went to dances despite what our parents said ... but kids today go on the internet and I've seen the things on there--it's the devil!

    Someone get me Jack Thompson, we need a man of religious convictions that will secure the sanctity of this nation!

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:My God! by kryten_nl · · Score: 2, Funny

      Someone get me Jack Thompson, we need a man of religious convictions that will secure the sanctity of this nation!
      Channeling Jack at your request:

      Marriage is a sacret institution between a man and a woman, NOT between a night-elf and an orc.

      --
      For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
  3. Something Awful by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
    Love. Warcraft. Two awful somethings that are something really awful together.

    Epic Mounts, Part 1 and Part 2.

  4. lollerskates by MrSquirrel · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now if only in-game avatars matched their users. I'm sick of going on dates with 40 year old men when I thought I was going to meet a 20-something "long cool woman in a black dress" (to quote the Hollies).

    --
    A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
  5. Druid Pick up lines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Hey Baby my Stamina isn't the only thing that gets bigger while in bear form.

  6. Baby, You Mean The World Of Warcraft To Me by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 2, Funny
    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  7. Part of the eHarmony matrix? eHarmony MMPORG! by siberian · · Score: 3, Funny

    "As part of your eHarmony compatibility profile you will experience dungeon raids and other exercises designed to determine your true compatibility.'

    "When Johhny cast the spell of Eternal Light and destroyed the dark lord I just knew he was the man for me!"

    eHarmony MMPORG

  8. Sad man by Threni · · Score: 2, Funny

    > Nick Yee, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at Stanford University who studies
    > online games

    And you thought `media studies` students were a waste of skin...

  9. Re:i know all there is to know about the crying ga by fobbman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ah yes, WoW. Where the men are men, and so are half of the women.

  10. Re:It's All in the Numbers by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 2, Funny
    Actually it's probably just because there are so many more male gamers than females...(say 1 in 5 gamers is a woman)

    Do you mean that all those lovely Blood Elves are guys!!! Now you've totally burst my bubble.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  11. I know of such things by Arkham · · Score: 2, Funny

    There is a married woman in my guild who is cheating on her husband with someone she met in my WoW guild. I feel really bad for the guy. It's not all roses.

    --
    - Vincit qui patitur.
  12. Re:i know all there is to know about the crying ga by Sathias · · Score: 3, Funny

    MMORPG = Multiple Men Online Role Playing Girls

    --
    Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.