> to put it dramatically and over the top - the world is burning and the brightest minds play games. sort of an inverse ender's game.
Well, you can look at the games like EVE as a big social simulations - they're sandboxed worlds very much resembling the real one, but they iterate faster and you (i.e. the authors) can alter the constrains and see what happens. I think MMOs should be studied in greater detail.
People wasting time is a sad thing, but failure to learn from any good data that comes out of it is also sad.
Well, you can look at the games like EVE as a big social simulations - they're sandboxed worlds very much resembling the real one, but they iterate faster and you (i.e. the authors) can alter the constrains and see what happens. I think MMOs should be studied in greater detail.
People wasting time is a sad thing, but failure to learn from any good data that comes out of it is also sad.