Abstract
Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPG) have become increasingly popular over the past few years. The most successful MMORPG “World of Warcraft” has to date — according to its publisher Blizzard Entertainment — more than 8 million subscribers1 who pay a monthly fee to play on a regular basis. The ongoing investment in online gaming services by videogame publishers such as Microsoft’s Xbox Live is pushing this development further and will increase the percentage of online gamers in the near future. In this context it has to be noted that MMORPG form a special subset of online games which demand a much stronger commitment than other online genres, such as first person shooters, tactical shooters, sports and driving games, which can be played more casually.
Press release from Blizzard Entertainment, January 11th, 2007.
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Wolf, K.D. (2007). Communities of Practice in MMORPGs: An Entry Point into Addiction?. In: Steinfield, C., Pentland, B.T., Ackerman, M., Contractor, N. (eds) Communities and Technologies 2007. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-905-7_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-905-7_10
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