Is there a way to harness the popularity of multiplayer online gamers to save energy in the real world ?  Professor Byron Reeves, a media expert at Stanford University, thinks there is.  The scenario that Reeves imagines is that a player would get in-game feedback from a smart meter which tracks energy usage throughout the player’s house in order to reward the player online.  For example, if you turn off a light in an unused room, your house’s smart meter recognizes this and your online player is rewarded accordingly.
The trick is making sure that the game designers find a fun [...]

With the number of World of Warcraft players estimated at more than 11 million worldwide, the internet game is a bona fide sensation that can no longer be said to simply cater to a small hardcore fan base.  As its popularity continues to grow, we’re seeing this online phenomenon spilling over into real world. There are enterprising gamers who sell their hard fought virtual loot on sites like eBay, dating sites that cater to the game’s far flung community and even a WoW-themed restaurant that opened recently in China, but the NY Times points us to the burgeoning debate over [...]

If you walk into any Internet bar in China, you are sure to see a large number of the screens filled with scenes from the extremely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW).  The game has attracted over 1 million peak concurrent users in China and makes up more than 90 percent of the earnings for The9, the game’s China licensee.
Given the games popularity, an entrepreneur has opened a WoW-themed restaurant in Beijing to cater to its considerable number of fans.  The entrance is a re-creation of the opening animation from the game, walls are covered with WoW images and replica [...]