Baby dies while parents play World of Warcraft

[Veldor]

Leslie said:
It's a reality too many play them too often, and to rediculous levels in most cases.

What exactly is too much to you? 40 hrs a week? 20? 10? I'll bet you, or at least the average wargamer, spends FAR longer playing wargames or otherwise thinking or talking about them than the vast majority of MMPORG players.

Why must every group of gamers think that every other group of gamers is nuts?

Nothing in the news article suggests they were addicts. Though they very well may have been, 1 or 2 hours a couple days a week or even every day is peanuts compared to how much time the average wargamer spends playing.

Likewise the average MMPORG player these days is not a teenager. They are the slightly older if not much older crowd like us wargamers and strategy enthusiasts. This is exactly why most MMPORG have changed from what they were a long time ago. They have evolved to cater towards the more casual and/or solo players. This is less true of WoW than say EQ2, but the basic premisses still apply.

Many Many adults play MMPORGs and do so quite happily with only occasional frequency. You can no more get addicted to an MMPORG than any other type of game. Curt Shilling is a big EQ2 fan as are plenty of other notables.

Likely the fact that they had to go to an internet cafe just to play also suggests they weren't exactly rich to begin with. So all manner of special pillows and baby monitors were likely unavailable.

Did they use poor judgement? Of course. One way or the other one of them should have stayed home, or were they both to go out a babysitter of some sort left to care for the infant.

MMPORG's have nothing to do with this, nor does this event provide any reason to make any negative remarks about the MMPORG community.