In a 'World' of their own 03
Author: From:http://www.buyfastgold.com/wow/
Some gamers are dismissing this as overzealous hype by the media and medical professionals.
Ezekiel McCaslin, a sociology graduate student currently studying online role playing games such as WoW, said that most of the efforts to label gamers as addicts are being driven by agenda-oriented politicians and that research on the effects of gaming is limited.
"I don't know if there's anything substantial бн anything you would consider well researched," McCaslin said in regards to the existence of literature on online gaming that he knew of. "There's lots of people playing tons of games that are totally normal."
McCaslin added that some doctors had recently attempted to add video game addiction to the American Psychological Association's manual for diagnosing and treating mental disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, and failed.
McCaslin, who said he's been playing video games since he could pick up a controller, said that gamers keep playing WoW because game-play is simple and it rewards them regularly and often in the form of new abilities and in-game items.
"It's easy and it's straightforward," McCaslin said. "There's a lot of instant gratification."
WoW has also made it into popular culture. The TV show "South Park" aired an episode making fun of WoW and online gamers in October, 2006, titled "Make Love, Not Warcraft." The episode went on to win an Emmy, and Lawless and McCaslin both said that it's given gamers everywhere an undeserved bad reputation.
"People who weren't exposed to (online games) before, they were (surprised)" McCaslin said. "My TAs at the time came up to me and they said 'oh, are you one of them?'"
Lawless said that he's going to keep on playing no matter what people think.
"I don't care if people make fun of me," he said.
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