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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Sandbox   >   Is World of Warcraft really a hub of sociability?

Is World of Warcraft really a hub of sociability?

By on July 9, 2009

In a pleasing reversal of the usual “EverQuest destroyed my marriage” story, the BBC has highlighted stories where World of Warcraft has brought families close together.

Covering relationships which led “as I’m sure you can imagine cybersex”, students leaving home and a father working on business far away, it paints a picture of Warcraft as a way of staying in touch with friends and family.

I’m all in favour of seeing games in a positive light. It definitely beats “Death by PlayStation”, but it doesn’t seem as if games have been fully accepted as  normal part of our everyday lives either.

Surely, when games are part of our lives, these stories won’t exist. In the same way that no-one would write a story headlined “Relationships are being struck up in modern meeting places known as “bars””.

What do you think? Should this kind of story really be news?

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com