Saw this link on a message board today...

Conspiracy theorists abound: Sony trying to expand the market, or are MMRPGs really taking over our world?

While yes the case could be made that the socialization found within an online RPG does mirror the society found outside of the game (since it is in fact, real people playing), and thusly our economics, does a group of bored teenagers and tech-saavy twenty-somethings really hold enough social value to study? I'm sure I'd like to read some of the research these guys do.

Because that's the other thing; Let's face it, EQ is addictive. Not addictive in the physical heroin way, I'm not that banal, but it's entertaining, especially for new players. The real study is can the class tear itself away to function, or will class meetings simply be big powerlevel sessions or raids? I'm sure somewhere hidden in the bowels of UW there's a psychology grad student just laughing with glee right now at the free research. (Who's the placebo? Does one student get the Horizons beta?)

And while bad jokes simply come, unbidden, to the mind regarding this most logical of progression into our digital age (Is WTFPWN a valid point to make in this class' final thesis? Could I expect a grade of dieirlplzkkthx?) something tells me that this is no joke, that rather, we are making this leap into virtuosity, for better or for worse. The real challenge is when some political science professor analyzes Dark Age of Camelot... does online war say something about our current political situations?

Clearly, George Bush would be a Zerg Warder.