The Guild

In 2007, Felicia Day created a mini online series called The Guild. The story follow a girl who goes by the name Codex in the fantasy MMORPG that she plays. Her addiction to the game and the odd cast of characters whom are part of her guild, play out many of the negative stereotypes and beliefs about the gaming community. There is the idea that online social groups are not "real" friends or social supports. It touches on online romance, although in this case it was one sided. The whole humor of Day's hit series plays on the new culture that sprung online, specifically with games. Even from the first episode, you get a huge dose of "gamer culture." Watch one episode or all of them. What kinds of themes or culture references do you see?

Watch.

Or read more about The Guild here:
The Official Guild Website
Wiki

-Patricia Chan

Are virtual-game players more depressed?

I'm a daily visitor to digg.com and came across an interesting article that made me reflect on my life as an avid gamer and the lives of my gamer friends and family. The article posed the question of whether virtual-game players were more depressed than those who don't play virtual-games. According to a study by the Northwestern University that surveyed 7,000 EverQuest II players, highly active players get more depressed or that depressed people are more likely to be active role players.

With this in mind, I started reflecting on my life as an avid gamer, a regular at cyber cafe's, and as an "anthropologist" and came to the conclusion that virtual-game players are more depressed than regular people. I'm not saying that everyone who plays MMO's and MMORPG's are depressive people, but I feel that even my friends at cybercafe's are generally depressed people or have some kind of "stuff" going on mentally. On average, we spend countless hours on a computer screen, sometimes not eating, sometimes not sleeping. Why? I feel that depressed people tend to use MMO's or MMORPG's to escape reality. I don't feel that gaming causes depression, maybe aggression when people don't know what they're doing, but if anything, I feel that gaming is an anti-depressant because it releases endorphins in your brain, allows depressed people to form social networks, interact and chat with people, etc.

What do you think?