Inhabitants of Virtual Worlds, Players of Online Video Games — Beware!

Abstract

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), virtual worlds, and online games that resemble them amount to a force that is both a force of light and a force of darkness. As a force of light, they provide for many a rich environment full of possibilities for recreation and entertainment, ‘an increasingly central part of both American culture and of an emerging global culture… that… has the power to re-mold the 21st century at least as radically as cinema and television did the 20th’ (Chatfield, 2010, Ch. 1). MMORPGs, as well as all other online games and virtual worlds that resemble their workings, are also spaces where real-world money can be made, with more than 80 current titles and many more under development, targeted at a player population that totals around 30 million worldwide. World of Warcraft, by Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine, California, was already in 2007 earning close to $1 billion a year in monthly subscriptions and other revenue (Dibbell, 2007). By 2012, it is clear that nomen est omen and the MMORPG business has become a massive phenomenon, burgeoning in size and scope around the world as we have known it, as well as in the virtual worlds where this new game species breeds. We are facing a global and all-encompassing immersive experience.