While running your character on a long trek through your favorite MMO, have you ever imagined how great it would be to get so much exercise in real life?

The marketing site for Mana Energy Potion has posted a fascinating account of how two WoW players connected treadmills to their PCs and used their own 6mph locomotion to power their avatars:

We decided on a run from the gates of Shadowglen, through Dolanaar, to the sentries of Darnassus. We took level 1-2 elves so there would be a real danger that we'd get attacked along the way...

 

I'd first like to point out that Eli is in quite good shape. I, however, am not... We thought it would be a good representation of the gamut of gamers if we both ran the race. We donned the cheapest heart monitors we could find for kicks...

 

Eli and I stayed pretty even throughout the whole run. But about 3 minutes in, my heart rate reached over 205 BPM, and my max is around 195 BPM. I had to slow down to a walk because I thought I was going to pass out. Running in WoW is no joke... 

Blizzard's success, along with its recent acquisition by Activision, has even business types sitting up and taking notice.

The World of Warcraft publisher is currently profiled by Business Week, where scribe Matt Vella does a good job explaining Blizzard to the suit and tie crowd. And while most gamers will automatically think of WoW, Starcraft and Diablo, the company has its fingers in a surprising number of pies:

Blizzard presides over an ever-expanding universe composed of not only blockbuster games but also action figures, novels, manga, board games, pen-and-paper role-playing games, apparel, and conferences. In South Korea, where competitive video gaming is a televised sport, Blizzard's decade-old game StarCraft inspires such fervent loyalty that tournaments still draw some 700,000 spectators a year, nurturing a niche industry worth $40 million annually. Legendary Pictures, the studio behind blockbuster comic book adaptations like Batman Begins and 300, is currently working on a big-budget, live-action film based on WoW slated for 2009. 

Video games are powerful learning tools, according to research presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Boston.

As reported by the Associated Press, researchers presented findings that games can help kids solve problems and make surgeons better at stitching up their patients. From the AP:

"The single best predictor of [surgeon's] skills is how much they had played video games in the past and how much they played now," said Iowa State University psychologist Douglas Gentile. "Those were better predictors of surgical skills than years of training and number of surgeries performed," Gentile said. "So the first question you might ask your surgeon is how many of these [surgeries] have you done and the second question is, 'Are you a gamer?'"

One study even explored whether World of Warcraft improves scientific thinking.

Researchers looked at a random sample of [WoW] 2,000 discussion posts... The study found the game encouraged scientific thinking, like using systems and models for understanding situations and using math and testing to investigate a problem.

 

The vast majority of those participating in the discussion posts, 86 percent, shared knowledge to solve problems and more than half, 58 percent, used systematic and evaluative processes, researchers found.

 

The forums show that gamers are "creating an environment in which informal scientific reasoning practices are being learned" by playing the online games, said Sean Duncan, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Not all was sweetness and light in regards to video game research, however, as the AP article points out:

Other studies confirmed earlier research that found students who played violent games tended to be more hostile, less forgiving and believed violence to be normal compared to those who played nonviolent games.
 

How can we preserve the history of events which occur in virtual worlds? And why would we want to?

The BBC reports that researchers at the University of Texas, Austin are studying ways in which MMO history could be recorded. Said Prof. Megan Winget (left):

It's a huge challenge for archivists to deal with digital information. One of the most interesting problems for digital preservation is interactivity and how difficult that is to preserve. Video games offer all of the same problems as digital art. They are interactive, very complex and a lot of people get involved in making them happen...

 

We want to raise the consciousness in the industry about how important these records are. I do not think they save anything or it's saved in such a way that they would not be able to recognise the significance of what they are holding.

 

Key events mentioned as perhaps worthy of documenting include an outbreak of  virtual plague in World of Warcraft, the assassination of Lord British in Ultima Online and the death of Morpheus in The Matrix Online. Said Winget:

A lot of people have mentioned [Lord British's death] to me as a pivotal moment in their lives. I would like to talk to people who experienced that, saw it happen or where they were when they heard about it. Maybe we can talk to the people who did it and whether they knew Lord British was [Ultima series creator] Richard Garriott.

A report issued by the ESET Malware Intelligence maintains that July's most prevalent forms of malware targeted online gamers.

From Global Threat Trends - July 2008:

During the month of July 2008, close to 12.72% of all threat detections were flagged as Win32/PSW.OnLineGames. This is a family of Trojans with keylogging and rootkit capabilities which gather information relating to online games and credentials for participating. Characteristically, the information is sent to a remote intruder’s PC...

 

It’s important for participants in MMORPGs...  like Lineage and World of Warcraft, as well as “metaverses” like Second Life, to be aware of the range of threats ranged against them: not just harassment nuisances like griefing and pointless quasi-viral attacks like grey goo, but phishing and other scams that can result in financial loss in the real world. Their objective in such cases is to steal account information or game items and then resell them on the black market (or at any rate on eBay). 

ESET issues monthly threat reports. For the past three months, online gaming has been at the top of their malware threat list.

An attempt to block Activision's merger with Vivendi has ended with a ruling issued by William B. Chandler III (left), chief judge of the Delaware Court of Chancery.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, the judge has apparently taken notice of what World of Warcraft - one of the leading assets in the merger - is all about.

In denying a municipal pension plan's request for a preliminary injunction which would have put the Activision-Vivendi marriage on hold, Judge Chandler wrote:

In some ways, perhaps, the world of Mergers and Acquisitions is a massively multiplayer role playing game as well. Like in World of Warcraft... the participants in the M&A field take on certain roles, interact in their own community, hone specialized skills, and even develop a unique, somewhat curious vernacular.

 

One particular quest in the world of M&A is disclosure litigation. In the instance of disclosure litigation presently pending before this Court, the world of M&A meets the World of Warcraft.

 

In the role-playing game that is this disclosure litigation, both sides have played their respective roles well. Like any game, this one has rules, and the most essential rule of disclosure is materiality. Because the plaintiff could not establish the materiality of its final three disclosure claims, the motion for a preliminary injunction is denied. . . .GAME OVER.

GP: Very cool, indeed, your honor. Read the full decision here (31-page pdf).

A 38-year-old ex-convict was arrested in February after he allegedly abducted a mentally-challenged 16-year-old girl. According to FBI documents, suspect David Faboo (left) and his intended victim met while playing World of Warcraft, where Faboo's avatar was named "Avelys".

Faboo was apprehended by Oregon State Police five hours after picking the girl up near her home in California. Because the case crossed state lines, the FBI later became involved. Special Agent Scott Medlin of the FBI's Sacramento Division filed a search warrant on April 21st seeking, among other things, WoW account records for Faboo and his intended victim.

According to Agent Medlin's affidavit, Faboo told a roommate that he intended to marry the victim in both real-life and in WoW. Faboo subsequently purchased a teddy bear, cell phone, chocolates and a promise ring for the girl. When stopped by police, these items were recovered, along with rope, several knives, condoms and sex toys. Faboo had also constructed a makeshift bed out of plywood in the back of his Dodge pickup truck.

Along with WoW records, the FBI also sought account data from MySpace, where Faboo maintained a page as well as e-mail records from Yahoo and MSN. FBI documents indicate that Blizzard, MySpace, Yahoo and MSN all cooperated by providing the requested data to investigators on CD.

The FBI search warrant affidavit characterizes Faboo as a "traveler," a class of pedophile who travels to meet victims. Chief Dan Boon, who heads the police force in the victim's hometown of Wheatland, California, told the Sacramento Bee:

We can't emphasize enough that parents really be aware where their child is spending time on the Internet. If you're not, this kind of thing can happen.

Read the FBI's World of Warcraft search warrant application here (51-page pdf)... 

WoW is popular fodder for satirists these days. This time, it's The Onion with World of World of Warcraft...

Can't wait for this one to launch!

Via: Destructoid

Sunday's Boston Globe offers a fascinating interview with Oregon psychiatrist - and GamePolitics reader - Dr. Jerald Block, who specializes in treating online game addiction.

Block believes that "Internet Addiction" should be recognized as an official diagnosis.

From the story:

[Block] believes that psychiatry needs to do a lot of catching up in order to understand why people get stuck in games like Warcraft. One problem: Most therapists have no idea what a "guild" is or what it means to hit Level 60. Because of this language barrier, many gamers wind up begging for help in online support groups rather than seeking out mental health professionals.

Interestingly, Block said that addicted gamers feel worse about their habit than those addicted to pornography:

BLOCK: ...the computer gamers tend to be harder to treat. People feel a lot of shame around computer games. Whereas, it's socially acceptable to have a porn problem.

IDEAS: You can't be serious. You mean your clients are more ashamed of ...

BLOCK: ...playing World of Warcraft than looking at porn. Yes.

IDEAS: Why?

BLOCK: As a society we understand that porn is something people do, and you can see a psychiatrist and get treated for it. But gaming is hard to describe to anyone else. So these people can't explain their situation to friends. In fact, it's hard to give you an example of what my clients talk about, because gaming is enormously complicated.

Block has also studied the relationship between violent games and school shootings, but believes the issue is complex and enmeshed in the shooters' "relationship" with their PCs:

With these shooters, their last act was to turn against their own computers. As a psychiatrist, I think that's relevant.

Here's a great video from Super Deluxe for frustrated WoW widows...

Via: Los Angeles Times

Last week GamePolitics reported that Jeanne Stevens (left), Republican candidate for the Connecticut legislature, is a World of Warcraft gamer.

In an detailed follow-up inteview with Stevens, MMO site Wandering Goblin learned that the would-be legislator maintains a trio of Horde avatars on the Alexstrasza server:

It was my father who introduced us to WoW three years ago. The boys would watch him play and he’d let them make his characters jump and dance. Then my brother began playing and naturally I began too. We haven’t stopped since.

 

I have three characters... a 70 Orc hunter (12 beast mastery, 26 marksman, 23 survival); 58 Troll shaman (43 elemental, 6 enhancement); and, a 53 Blood Elf rogue (36 assassination, 5 combat, 3 subtlety)... I dislike PvPand generally only tag my characters if I’m on a specific quest. I play to relax and typically will help one of my younger sons with their quests – they have multiple low level characters. I guess I’m mostly PvE.

Gamers will be pleased to hear that candidate Stevens is no fan of video game legislation:

Parents need to start parenting! You are the adult. You are responsible for what happens within your home. If you don’t like the content of a t.v. show, game, book, etc., don’t allow it in your home – that is your choice – you get to be the legislator, you make the laws of your home. Don’t abdicate that responsibility to the government. Exercise your own common sense – way back when, I enjoyed listening to Howard Stern on my commute to work – if he was getting too raunchy for my tastes, I changed the dial – and, I never listened to him if my kids were in the car.

You won't find GTA IV at the Stevens homestead, however:

WoW is the sum total of my experience. We’ll get Lich King when it comes out. The boys play Xbox live, Halo and Call of Duty series, though Guitar Hero is getting quite a bit of play now. As a parent, I will not allow GTA in my home – that is my choice. If you’d like to play it in your home, go for it.

Wandering Goblin even tossed in a Jack Thompson question. Stevens fielded it like a true politician:

He’s entitled to his opinions.
 

GP: Terrific interview by Wandering Goblin, even if they did mess up the title (The WoW-Playing Congressional Candidate). Stevens is running for the Connecticut House of Representatives, not the U.S. House.

By the way, judging from the pic supplied by Stevens to Wandering Goblin, the candidate must have been munching on WoW's Savoury Deviate Delight.

Can the skills which enabled you to reach level 70 in World of Warcraft help make you an effective legislator?

We may find out, as the Connecticut Republican Party has nominated attorney - and WoW player - Jeanne Stevens (left) to challenge for a seat in the State House of Representatives. As reported by the Shore Line Times, the former Manhattan prosecutor enjoys playing WoW. Unfortunately, no info is provided on her in-game avatar.

Stevens, also a member of the Republican Town Committee in Madison, commented:

I'm a bit of a bulldog once you tell me I can't do something... I have nothing to lose.

 GP: We wonder whether it's harder to defeat a political boss or a raid boss?

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul's rampant Internet popularity is about to take an amusing new shape.

WoW Insider reports that a World of Warcraft guild will march from the Alliance cities of Ironforge to Stormwind (GP: that's a helluva long walk!) on New Year's Day in support of Paul's candidacy. From the WoW Insider story:
 

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's internet regiment has come to World of Warcraft - a group of his supporters are planning to form a guild on Whisperwind and do a march from IF to Stormwind (which means they'll probably be Gnomes or Dwarves, which is too bad, because I liked the idea of "Trolls for Ron Paul") on New Year's Day at 8:30pm EST.

The Ironforge to Stormwind route was probably selected because those cities are close to starter locations. That gives Ron Paul supporters who may not have a character on the Whisperwind server the opportunity to quickly create one and jump right into the march without the need to spend time leveling up.

The question now becomes: will Horde players mount a raid in an attempt to disrupt the march?

GP: Actually, no. I just took a quick look and found that Whisperwind is not a PvP server.