Sounds like the start of a Ricki Lake show

Back when when I was in college in UL, we had keycode access to a couple of the computer systems labs. This was to allow us to work on our projects 24/7, obviously their way of training us to get used to the strange working hours of commercial software development!. This was back in ‘95 when MMORPGs didn’t even exist, back when MUDs were as sophisticated as it got (ah, Mortal Realms, I remember you well). But LAN based gaming was just becoming popular around that time. I’m pretty sure Quake (and Civilization, I know what you mean Justin) probably knocked a few points off my final QCA as a result. I still play a little Halo 2 online but it’s a real take-it-or-leave-it stress reliever for me – there is no plot or long-running theme – each game lasts 10 minutes and that’s it.

A decrease in national productivity is the only thing that will prompt governments to look at this, and I’m not even sure that is really a role we want our government to play. For example countries like China (where MMORPG usage is huge they are attempting to introduce fatige rules into the games that rewards the player less and less the longer they play. It will be interesting to watch where this all goes…

There was even a funeral/memorial online in the game for her, bloody mad. She’s dead after playing a computer game, jaysus come on!

I know these things can be addictive, I am also currently logged into flickr, an addiction in itself. But real life, no matter what, no matter how bad, is real life, not virtual reality.