Chris Selig

I have been playing video games since I was five years old. Whether on my Nintendo, my Dad's work computer, or at the arcade, I loved playing video games. I wasn't until many years later that I realized the motivations behind these cravings to play video games lies not within any primitive urge for violence, as some lobbyists would claim, but rather a deep-seeded desire to explore and understand new and strange worlds and engage in fantastic adventures that would realistically be impossible. Video games are an escape mechanism for me. My life wasn't particularly unpleasant growing up; in fact I grew up in a nice home with a nice family. As McLuhan states, "Games are dramatic models of our psychological lives providing release of particular tensions." I have always had a strong creative side, and games that are exceptionally creative or possess particularly elaborate story lines tend to attract me more than, for example, sports titles or racing games. The Legend of Zelda series has been one of my favorite mediums of escape over the years. I have played through some of the titles in this series at least a dozen times. Why? Because it makes me feel heroic, if only for a fleeting moment. I am aware that it is merely a simulated adventure, but even a simulated adventure is capable of providing a distraction from the tensions of real life.

I am not alone in this. Millions of gamers spend billions of dollars a year on video games for various reasons, all of which likely stem from one single motivation: to engage in a life other than their own. McLuhan believes that people must succumb to the machine - become a "puppet" of the machine for it to work. The game mimics real life in that people must give in to the rules of the simulated world, just as people must give in to the rules of their real world. He concludes that games in fact both teach us how to adjust to this "collective demand" and provide a release from it.

In a book I am currently reading called "Paid to Play: An Insider's Guide to Video Game Careers", I learned that some employers are now considering World of Warcraft to be an acceptable reference for collaborative experience. This is especially true if you are the head of a guild. The skills necessary to run a guild are somewhat similar to the skills used within the video game industry. So in a sense, World of Warcraft is a game that both provides a release/escape from life, and teaches skills necessary to succeed in life. World of Warcraft provides a new type of game play never thought possible. Gamers have never before had the ability to create alternate persona's and live out a "second life" in a virtual world... A Brave New "Virtual" World.

"Death Engine" is an example of a WoW guild.