An official review of the literature might be a bit of overkill for this topic, however, it may be prudent to define some terms and give a background of massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG). Today millions are attracted MMO’s. Gathering more than 11 million people, WoW was the most popular MMO of 2008. Most people know the stereotype that is associated with gamers. People say that they just need to get outside or that they have no social life. Some of these gamers will spend 70 hours plus per week playing these games.
Yet, despite all the stereotypes thrown about by people and society, there are a number of articles that show support for the idea that games can be socially engaging (4,5,6,). Additionally, these articles have stated that games may also show support for group efforts from gamers and this idea is further supported by two academic papers written by Nicolas Ducheneaut and his research team (2,3). However, while there is some support from these papers for games being group activities, both suggest that games are more about the individual surrounded by thousands of others.
This is an idea that I would like to refute. I think that Ducheneaut and his team have interpreted the data with the wrong spin. I would like to take another look at their data and reinterpret it. Furthermore, I have gathered further support from the book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and also from the widely popular South Park (1, 7). Using these various sources I would like to put forth idea that is written in Rheingold’s book in Chapter 5. The idea is this; that some of these gamers are not addicted to the game, rather they are addicted to the social aspect of the games and that the people playing these games are being as social as anyone else is, albeit in a new medium (9).
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