Letters to the Editor

Off the Grid

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In resposne to "The MMOG Connection" from The Escapist Forum: I would agree with Solipsis. It is a lot smarter to stop framing activities as being in 'real life' or 'not real life'. Perhaps it would be more meaningful to distinguish activies as being leisure or non-leisure.

This is helpful because gamers and non-gamers spend our leisure time doing stuff they enjoy. It can include casual TV watching, scrapbooking or training for a marathon. These leisure activities can be more or less social or physically involved but generally none of them are any worse than the other.

When we place these activities on a level playing field then it just becomes a question of time. Leisure activities are perfectly harmless unless you're doing them at the expense of the non-leisure activities which need to happen for you to live a functional life.

Obviously the definition of a "functional life" is subjective. And it is this subjectivity that makes the video game aspect entirely a non-issue. Gamers and non-gamers alike have ongoing negotiations with friends, spouses and employers about how we're going to use our non-leisure time.

- lamewalletchain

What's ironic is that your experience in world of warcraft let you meet your current girlfriend, but your experience in everquest was a factor in your previous divorce. You can create connections, but you can also lose them due to the nature of the MMO itself.

There's always the double-sided aspect to it, so it's hard to really trumpet it.

- neispace