For my research paper I would like to write on the internet phenomenon World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft (WoW for short) is one of many of what are referred to as massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). WoW was released on November 23, 2004 and was instantly praised by both game critics and game players alike, in fact, WoW holds the Guinness World Record for being the most popular MMORPG.

In my paper I will give a brief history of MMORPG’s and of WoW itself. Then I would like to investigate how gamers interact with this text and tackle the question that is most interesting to me: Why do gamers love this game so much? As a hypothesis I imagine that I will find that people enjoy WoW because it offers them the ability to be a part of a community and also to advance or better themselves more quickly in that community than they can in their day to day lives. I would also like to study the impact and effects of game play on the gamer, (what happens if someone plays too much? Can gamers become addicted?) but that may be too much to try and handle in this one paper. What do people think?

            In Terms of research I think that interviews with actual gamers seem like the best way to go, as well as blogs dedicated to the game or other games of its kind. Also the books Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role Playing Games by Matt Barton and Gaming as Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity, and Experience in Fantasy Games. In addition to these two books the library has many more relevant to this topic.

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.