WSJ: Gamers find love in MMOs
It goes without saying how MMO games have embedded themselves into our culture -- we have heard for some time about quite a few people who have found love in MMOs, gotten married in-game, and have even seen a few funerals take place in the virtual world. Page one of the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article, tackling the very topic of finding offline love through online gaming.
In a survey conducted by Stanford University's Nick Yee, a Ph.D. student, 29% of women and 8% of men have admitted to have gone on dates with someone they met in a game. Yee attributes this phenomenon to the "trust-building exercises" of working in team scenarios -- how one player acts during an in-game raid may reveal traits relative to the avatar's actual personality, through "situations that ... are less common in the real world."
The stories featured in the piece are fascinating, with one man quipping "I have to remember two wedding days and two engagement days," referring to how he and his wife had separate ceremonies both in the virtual world and in the real world.
