Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. What a mouthful. I used to play one. I stopped playing when I stopped having fun playing. But with the couple years of experience I did have in the fantasy world, I recognized the game as a social phenomenon, one that has only grown since I stopped playing a few years ago. There are millions of people around the world who log in daily to play dozens of these games. That's millions of people who are forsaking the bodies  they were given to enter and grow in one produced only by pixels. I wonder what the implications of games like World of Warcraft and Everquest are for the people that play them. They have certainly been proven to be an addictive experience, but from my experience they can also be useful tools for social networking. It seems almost oxymoronic that games like these can improve interactions and produce leadership qualities even, but from my experience they can and do. But they've also destroyed lives, led to suicides, and been a measure for a person to withdrawal from reality.

MMORPGs are microcosms of the human experience. How could they not be? When you are playing one you pick a body and make a life for yourself. You can make the game whatever you want, you can befriend anyone you want, and have whatever job you want. Sounds sort of like the real world and there is even potential for your character to shine above the rest. The entire point of MMORPGs is that you can always improve. You can always do more and become better. The problem that I see, is that it's not real, you're doing it all from a computer screen and not actually experiencing it. Your pixels are experiencing it. When a person's personal aspirations involve the improvement of their character before their actual self, something has gone wrong.

Internet gaming addiction is at once similar and not to other addictive substances. All addiction deals with fantasy to some extent, but MMORPGs are really the only one where the person fully interacts with the fantasy. The world doesn't go away, it's always running even when you're not logged on. With drugs and alcohol the fantasies are distorted realities that need to be refueled, MMORPGs are experienced soberly. In my eyes it is as dangerous as the other forms of addiction. But my eyes also tell me it is something that can't be fixed. (Actually, I thought once how great it would be if you died in a game and as punishment the game wouldn't allow you back on for a certain amount of time.)

But while the media largely focuses are attention on the addictive habits of the game, they neglect the positive aspects and the social building. There are real friendships developed inside these games. When I played I had friends that felt as real to me as the ones who I actually know and see. There are personalities inside these games that aren't their characters, they are real people with real emotions and aspirations and every other facet of humanity. So while it is easy to say these games are bad and only lead to destructive habits, after playing for however long I did, I'm certain that I learned important social skills and communicative ones. When you lead groups, you are leading people with different skill sets and capabilities. When you lead guilds you're dealing with an even larger group of people. Leadership doesn't change much from these games to the real world.

So how should we interact with these games? As a form of entertainment? It is certainly in everyone's right to play what they want. I just hate seeing people really get hurt by their time spent on these games. Should more responsibility be placed on the game makers to provide for less addictive properties? That sounds good but also too idealistic. How can you remove addictive properties from a fantasy world?