Conclusion

What can you conclude from all these online games? World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Eve and Second Life. Four of the biggest online games out there that are taking the market by storm. More people, more hours and more effort is being put into to entertainment because of these games. I do not think it is possible to think of any other thing that people could more time into that is not helping the world at all in its quest for equality, safety and peace. Although, now that so many people are online playing these games at home by themselves you can say that less fights are being broken out in real life even though non of them are really being solved.
The more TV you watch the more brainwashed you become, simply because there is an alternate life that is being showed to you. I believe in the same way more and more people are being brainwashed as they play more and more hours of these games and although I do not know the out come you can definitely say that this next generation is going to be something that we have never seen before. An entertainment based universe is stepping into its new era.

EVE Online celebrates fourth anniversary

Eve was released in may 6th 2003,
"EVE Online came to life as players logged in for the first time and began staking their claims as pioneers in this brave new world. Browse through the celebration thread in our forum to see what devs and players alike recall as their favorite and most memorable experiences." How many games have you known in the passed that have been able to sustain your interest for more then a month, let alone four years. If you thought World of Warcraft or Lord of the rings online was endless you have got to see this game. It is not just a country or separate lands, it is not even a constellation it is a galaxy. Some parts of the game have not even been explored yet, that is how massive it is. This game is entertainment at its best.

Lord of the rings online

The new york times says that Lord of the rings online is now the number one selling game online. "a major achievement of interactive storytelling, the first game truly worthy of the ‘Lord of the Rings' franchise and a must-play for just about anyone with an interest in Tolkien or the future of online entertainment." Released this year in 2007, Lord of the rings online (lotro) is the first game that combines both online interaction with others and a story telling RPG game combined. Tolkien has taken his books to the next level. He started off with the books, then went to movies, then strategy games and now the online addition. First Wow, then second life and now lotro, are online never ending interaction games now the new line of marketing?

I decided to interview one of the bethel students about these online games.

Q: What do you think about online gaming such as World of Warcraft and second life?

A:Never played either of them, have a room mate who plays them all the time

Q:Do you think it is a ligitiment way of spending your time?
A:No

Q: Why?
A: because every now and then is not bad, but it takes away from time that you should be studying.

Q: Is your room mate addicted would you say?
A: yes

Q:How many hours a day does he play?
A:3 to 4 hours
Q:Has it affected hes friendships?
A:no, i dont think so.
Q:Does he have a girlfriend?
A:no

Recreation of Life

I wanna talk a little bit about this statement that a man made in a guild of World of Warcraft. "The key point about World of Warcraft is that it is not simply a game; it is an alternative world. It is a recreation of life, and it has built its reality in as much depth and detail as possible." Does that statement sound a little scary to you? Lyra who plays this game at age 10 probably doesn't know the difference between this alternative world and real life. It is a recreation of life, that is what makes it so different, its the same as life. People are not really playing video games anymore they are playing life, just an alternate form of it. Of course I am just playing with words here but it is a scary thing to think about.

Wow Education

Look at what Lyra learned from playing Wow:

Lyra is holding up "WTF!" Something that she learned playing world of warcraft, would you let your 10 year old kids play Wow?

Second Life classes

Not only are religious organizations creating their own worship place online but now you can virtually go to school. In second life you can take the car to school and sit in a room and listen to a teacher talk about a subject, and then interact with the rest of the students discussing the subject matter. A lot of these classes are spiritual classes where people are learning about the Old and New testament but also english and hitory classes are popular classes that are taken as well. Possibly in the next few centuries you will be able to send your kids to school through cyberspace and watch them enjoy their learning experience at home.

"Second Life provides an opportunity to use simulation in a safe environment to enhance experiential learning, allowing individuals to practice skills, try new ideas, and learn from their mistakes. The ability to prepare for similar real-world experiences by using Second Life as a simulation has unlimited potential!"

I guess it only makes sense that people are now putting money into a lot of virtual things. Back when there was plenty of land to either explore or takeover people could quench their desire for land. But now all the land is accounted for and the moon is not quite yet an option so people are left with a virtual world where there can be endless amounts of land that can be bought and explored. Of course a big problem with having endless land is that it isnt worth anything.

The time we put into entertainment....tse tse tse

From World of Warcraft and Second life to Active Worlds where you build your own land and territory and allow other people to visit and chat with you a big part of this world is becoming virtual. If you add up all the virtual games, Wow 7million, Secondlifes 6million and Active Worlds hundreds of thousands you are reaching a fairly large number of people that are spending over 24 hours a week on their virtual reality games. So if you multiply 13 million people times 24 hours a week you have 312 million hours a week being wasted. Thats 1.248 billion hours a month and 15 billion hours a year. I can only imagine the amount of worthwhile things people could be doing with that time. This might be a stretch but I believe with 15 billion hours a year we would be able to solve the world hunger problem. Entertainment possibly has gone too far and it will probably not end because the more you are entertained the more you need to be entertained, it is never satisfying but helping others is.

Virtually worshiping god.

Religion online seems to be booming all over, from Matrixism to buddhism people are putting up their shrines and cathedrals online. frank_scott writes, "Thanks to USA Today for publicising that religious organisations and groups are ustilising Second Life.You may be interested to know that The Hare Krishna Commmunity in fact has one of the largest and most popular areas within Second Life. A fact i find noticeably absent from your article. The Hare Krishna Community Land http://slurl.com/secondlife/Grimes/180/99/61 Provides Daily Morning and Evening Services. Hourly Lectures and Classes (By Audio) Art Gallery, Educational area, History exhibits and devotioanl park for meditation or reading. At present the Temple and Community park are 2 of the most popular and highly visited religious or devotional areas within Second Life providing services to an average of 400 visitors per 12 hrs. We would invite anyone interested in the Hare Krishna Community to visit the area." Secondlife servers are providing daily services online in a virtual world with virtual people. Musician writes back and says, "Some of these religious leaders either ignore or miss the point from what the Hebrew writer wrote: "Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhort one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching." I'm convinced this means more than plopping one's bottom down in front of a computer screen, or TV for that matter, and have virtual services. There's other reasons in addition to just worship to assemble together. No wonder so many have problems and confusion with religion!" Take a look at this picture, this is a person who walks to her virtual church and commands her character to bow down and praise god.

Easy come easy go

Although in the second world a lot of things can be established instantly you can also lose everything instantly as well. As hackers on the internet get better and better at their job the more things go wrong in second life. Play 7 is quoted, "If this copybot is some sort of story to bring even more attention to the game, then LLabs better start looking for a new concept! because Second Life is dieing a slow death. " Second life is only online and it is not flesh and blood and therefore can be terminated with a simple bug. What we all have to remember with all of these online things that we have is that it is a lot easier for it to be destroyed then for something life paper or a actual building to be destroyed. So putting too much effort into something that lasts even shorter then shot life we have already been given can really be considered a waste of time.

Virtual World aint so bad

Bulldog699 is quoted saying, "You criticize them for putting real money into something that isnt real. Is that much different than pumping quarters into the machines at an arcade, or paying for a sports ticket just to watch. Second Life, as with any other hobby, doesnt need to earn you money or contribute to the world to make it an enjoyable hobby." What is different about second life from all the other online games? Why is everyone making such a big fuss about it and not the starcraft players? People pay for intertainment all the day and this is simply one way of doing that. The sad part however is that this game makes you feel like you are accomplishing something when in reality you are not. When you play a shootem up game online you probably dont think at all about how you are accomplishing anything but when you make a million linden dollar deal on second life you really feel like you are a big deal.

Another New world that has taken the market

Second life is a 3-D virtual world that is made entirely by the residents. People can have a new life online where they interact with other people, make business deals and create a living environment that they always dreamed of. This game started back in 2003 and now over 6 million people play it around the world. The game actually has its own curency called linden dollars. You can buy liden dollars by exchanging your real life money. In the last 24 hours the game has made over 20 million dollars. It costs ten dollars a month just to play the game and that does not include the extra money that you pay to get linden dollars.

Some stuff people had to say about the game

"This is a petition to destroy all that is evil. I know what your thinking, a game can't be that bad...o god yes it is. Nerds such as Austin Smith have played and played their hearts out for countless hours untill they have no soul. They strive for goals such as gaining new levels, picking up epic items, and learning a new spell...hmm I think they have their prioties mixed up. Spend sometime with family, go outside and enjoy the weather, go out on a date.....nevermind that. Well all I ask is that we, people of common lands rise up to destroy Austin Smith and World of Warcraft. " link

"I’m sick of this god dammed game! it is like the plague and it is currently infecting my circle of friends and turning them all into anti social zombies. It all started with one of my mates buying the game, and he some how convinced a couple people to join him in playing it. From there it spread like wild fire, it gets worse everyday. At lunchtime all they talk about is wow, and when they get home they play it til the crack of dawn. Im seriously considering just hanging out with other mates that are not zombified. If anyone out has a friend who is considering buying WoW stop him before it is too late.

On topic: because of these reason i would like to injure/hurt anyone involved in the making of this game." (By, Nadji Death to WoW — 5 months ago)

"My bofriend has now convinced all his mates to buy it, and none of them have met up in three months, they are a close group of mates and used to meet 3/4 times in the week and at weekends, to go for a drink have a night of poker, enjoy each others company watch a movie or whatever, one of his mates even lives next door to him, but they don’t even see each other and only communicate through WOW. They have all lost all their social skills and can no longer interact on a normal level. Although it’s frustrating i feel sorry for them and angry at the gaming world for creating this monster that is destroying human kind, meanwhile i am still more or less a warcraft widow!!!" (by, rammars1977)

A War Craft "widow"

Somet people are really upset over this game as a reply by rammars1977 says,

"My boyfriend has now convinced all his mates to buy it, and none of them have met up in three months, they are a close group of mates and used to meet 3/4 times in the week and at weekends, to go for a drink have a night of poker, enjoy each others company watch a movie or whatever, one of his mates even lives next door to him, but they don’t even see each other and only communicate through WOW. They have all lost all their social skills and can no longer interact on a normal level. Although it’s frustrating i feel sorry for them and angry at the gaming world for creating this monster that is destroying human kind, meanwhile i am still more or less a warcraft widow!!!"

Even worse nadji in a blog titled "death to Wow" says:
"I’m sick of this god dammed game! it is like the plague and it is currently infecting my circle of friends and turning them all into anti social zombies. It all started with one of my mates buying the game, and he some how convinced a couple people to join him in playing it. From there it spread like wild fire, it gets worse everyday. At lunchtime all they talk about is wow, and when they get home they play it til the crack of dawn. Im seriously considering just hanging out with other mates that are not zombified. If anyone out has a friend who is considering buying WoW stop him before it is too late."

"On topic: because of these reason i would like to injure/hurt anyone involved in the making of this game."

Some people can take this game but it is evident that some people cannot. What is going to happen to the youth in our day as these games start to increase?

Take a break from Wow for lent

At this time a year it is always good to look at your life and see what you are doing good at and what needs to change. Sometimes you can't really tell if you need to change something or not and that is where lent comes in. During lent you can take a break from anything and see if you can withstand a week without it and if you can you are doing fine but if you can't that might be a problem. This week Kelsey came up to me and told me that she was taking a break from Wow for lent. This is a girl who is building continuing a strong relationship with her boyfriend through Wow and now she makes is making an even more mature move. Regardless if you are religious or not try taking a break from lent, not only does it allow for you to check if you are maintaining a healthy balance of life and computer games but it also gives you a lot of time off during that week that allows you to re asses things in your life. Take some time off and breath and maybe not do anything for a while in this busy crazy world, and you never know you might find something that you have been wanting for a long time.

The God father

This goes back to my freshman year in college; where I had a genius room mate who would work during the day and play World of War Craft at night. My bed laid about a foot off the ground and the bed itself added a half a foot to that. In a small dorm room my room mate would sit right next to me on his desk and play Wow while I slept. Everynight, Sunday through friday night I would hear the sound of clicking as I fell asleep. The great thing about this set up was the consistency, no matter what my room mate would be there and before I fell asleep we would talk about everything. I and a few other guys called him the God father because his desk was below his lofted bed and he had a white sheet that would hang down the side so we couldn't see anything but his shadow reflecting off his computer screen. When ever you had a question you could go there at night and while he clicked away he would explain how the world functioned from a scientific standpoint and how he proposed to his fiancey in 11th grade(who was playing Wow with him at that moment). Although this computer game had taken over 50% of his life he still brought character to the dorm and was there when you needed him.

Are these gamers Anti social people who live in a cubical?

About 2 weeks ago I moved into a my dads house that he inherited from his grandfather a while back. In the last two weeks I have had three full time workers move in with me where just the one out of the three was a World of War Craft player named Nate. Too make a long story short Nate had about five friends that he made from playing video games and all five of them came over to my house set up for a lan party in my basement. A lan party is simply a bunch of guys hooking their computers up together to play any sort of co op game. They all brought their own gaming desk, with their monitors and game towers that looked like could start gravitating any minute. You should have seen the basement after these guys were finished setting up. They had the basement looking like a spaceship from Star Wars. At this point, if you are still reading, you are thinking that these guys are a little nerdy; which I thought at first as well. But then I found myself wanting to go down stairs and hang out. While these guys were playing World of War Craft on their computers down stairs I was sitting upstairs by myself wanting to hang out with them. They were having a great time all through the night doing quests and joking around with eachother. What other setting can you think of where you could sit down with your friends for 8 hours and have a great time while joking around on a regular bases?

Wow spices up long distance relationships

A weird thing just happened today where I was in class and had a World of War Craft site up and a girl walked behind me and asked me if I played Wow. Embarrassed of being on the site I quickly told the girl named Kelsey that I did not play but just was doing a blog on video games. To my surprise she told me that she had been playing the game for 3 weeks now and is totally addicted to it. Then totally throwing me off from my theme of "video games destroying relationships" she gave me an instance of Wow keeping her relationship going and even exciting. Her boyfriend goes to a community college south of Minneapolis while she is in a private school north of St. paul. (to give you a picture). She said that during the week her boyfriend and her would get online together and "kill guys". Kelsey and her boyfriend get to talk and play at the same time where in the passed all they did was chat on msn. Wow is spicing up Kelsey's long distance relationship. Kelsey gets to talk about her day with her boyfriend while her boyfriend gets to play video games. Who would of thought. So if any of you have a long distance relationship that is dwindling start play World of War Craft!!

"Wow" vs Girlfriend

I moved in to a new dorm this year with different room mates and had a hard time getting along with them. We simply just did not have anything in common. Most of the day my room mates would be on their computer playing World of War Craft online or as they called it "Wow". So I talked to my girlfriend about starting Wow to get to know my room mates and she said it would be a good idea and even bought me the game!! Soon after playing the game I started realizing how many guys in my college alone had been playing. It was almost as if every person I talked to were suddenly Wow players. The Wow players had a little community and it was hidden to everyone else unless you played it. All I would talk about with these new world of War Craft friends was about the new world I had enter online. Through my conversations I started hearing about tragic stories about many college students just like me starting the game and all of the sudden being so hooked on it that it would consume them enough to make them leave school. Worse then that I started hearing stories about girlfriends fighting Wow for time with their boyfriend and even relationships being destroyed because of the online game. How tragic is it that we are now choosing video games over our closest friendships in life. To be continued...