Week 12 Response

The questions I had for this week were:

1.     The power of virtual economies could potentially match that of those in the real world. How can revenue services track transactions?

2.     Will MMORPGs replace real world social interaction?

3.     Why isn’t gaming addiction classified as an abusive habit?

In reviewing articles about the evolution of interactive gaming, we see the frightening new possibilities that on line entertainment has. In 1970 the advent of the command hack/slash dungeon game placed the user into a virtual world that they can create. Today, entire communities exist on line where hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of individuals can band together and kill imaginary dragons all day.  There are, however, drawbacks that have become apparent with being part of the experience. In the documentary we see an Australian boy that destroyed his room over gaming tantrums. He also admitted to playing, on average, 16 hour gaming days. Even more disturbing than this young boy’s addiction is the role game avatars have as part of a virtual barter economy. We see a grassroots industry in China called “Gold-Farming” where hired teenagers play games in order to level up an avatar. The on line figure is then sold to a Western player for a considerable sum of money. In reviewing these two backlashes of the virtual world we we see that an underground economy is being fueled by an increasingly large population of gaming addicts. These are truly frightening times we live in.

Tags: gaming addiction