I am not ashamed to be a World of Warcraft player. I spend on average about two hours a day playing the game. That takes into account the weekends when I overindulge and the weekdays when I may log in for a few arenas, if at all. I have accomplishments in-game that I'm proud of, and I find it really thrilling to share my thoughts and experiences with the readers of WoW Insider. I proudly wear geeky, WoW-oriented shirts, and proclaim myself as a gamer.

Every once in a while I think to myself that I should do something different with my time. But then I remember that it's some good clean (not to mention cheap) fun that I can share with my friends and family. On top of that, I really enjoy my play time. For an extra-added benefit, I can't remember the last time I was actually bored, with the game or anything else.

An interesting news article hit my inbox today. Dr. Jerald Block is a psychiatrist who specializes in treating pathological computer use. His most stunning statement was that many of his clients were more ashamed of their World of Warcraft addictions than obsessions with internet porn. I can't quite wrap my brain around that.

Dr. Block also believes that previous studies of gaming addiction have been focused on the wrong group. He claims that adults, rather than teens, obsess over online gaming. He is probably right on both accounts. This may lead to a paradigm shift in gaming research.

Do you ever find yourself ashamed of playing WoW?

[Via Boston.com]

Now this is something that could potentially provide endless debate fodder. While stumbling around the web, I came across this page; a collection of term papers written by undergraduates at San Antonio's Trinity University for the class "Games for the Web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-line Games".

The subjects addressed include "Sexism in WoW", "Real World Transactions of Digital Items from MMOGs", "The Prisoner's Dilemma and Factional Conflict in World of Warcraft", and my personal favorite, the oh-so-socially relevant "Wizards vs. Engineers: The Rumble in the Proverbial Jungle". There are several others covering a wide-range of topics; I haven't had the time to read them all yet, but since I eat this stuff up, I might not get much work done today.

Of course, the real question this begs is: why couldn't assignments have been this cool when I was in school? Do you have any idea how severely the nuns would have beat me if I had asked to write my term paper on a video game?

*sigh*

We reported a while back on Edward Castranova, one of the prominent economist studying the economy of MMO's.  Businessweek Online has a featured interview with Mr. Castranova (I wonder if he's related to the new drummer for Journey?), in which he discusses his new book on the subject, and the future of online MMO economies.

The economic aspects of MMO's are a fascinating subject for me, as I've said before, and this article is a great read for anyone interested in the subject. You can find the full interview here.