[MD] Food for Thought

[Case]

[Dan]
I asked a loaded question to be sure. Laird seemed to be rationalizing RPG's

as a Quality endeavor since such a diversity of people are playing. What if 
that's not so? The CEOs I know tend to work enormously long hours; time 
management is nearly religious with them. I just cannot imagine the CEOs I 
know playing online games with janitors (not that I have anything against 
janitors).

[Case]
On the other hand I know a speech therapist, an advertising copy editor, a
retired basketball coach, a mercenary, a real estate executive and a
sheriff's deputy with a masters in psychology who play. My experience has
been that the skills they bring to their jobs are uncanny manifested in
their playing style. The same Quality that exists in RL is displayed in VR. 

There are teenagers competing in international tournaments for hundreds of
thousands of dollars and the pots are increasing. Some of them make in
excess of six figures. First person shooters are the most competitive games
and they tend to be mind numbing but they do require cooperative teamwork.
Those games are primarily for young males. Although two years ago I saw a
young lady play more than a 100 three minute rounds of Doom III against male
challengers and she lost only one round because the other player hid from
her long enough for time to run out. Professional gamers in Asia make
sizable incomes and recruit western players onto professional teams.

RPGs are slower paced and more highly social and they attract a far greater
percentage of women. In these games players must cooperate to succeed. WoW
incorporates elements of both styles of playing by creating games like
capture the flag for players to play against each other.

IGN is a company recently purchased by Murdock along with MySpace. IGN sold
for $650 million. It is a company that originally started by buying and
selling RPG gaming accounts as well exchanging virtual currency for real
life cash. This despite the fact that in some games this is illegal and a
player can be banned from the game if caught. I have two brothers in EQ that
were illegally adopted. There are people who make sizable incomes by selling
items in games to other players for real money through various online
exchanges some of them located offshore.

So waste of time? Probably, but that depends on what you value.