So, the first thing that came to my mind while jumping into this book was, “what in the hell is this chick talking about?” As a person who has never played WOW, or for that matter any MMO video game ever, it is difficult to understand the rhetoric of what the author is saying. It’s almost like learning a foreign language, or an inside joke that only people who play the game understand. Early on in the book the author gets into the differentiation between PvP and PvE gameplay. Her discussion of PvP gameplay reminded me of one thing, South Park –the episode in which they make fun of PvP gameplay in WoW.

Further on in the book the authors argument became more clear to me.She reiterates throughout the book the fact that online games have a stigma about them that assumes multiple stereotypes about MMO gameplay. Players of the game are often stereotyped as being basement dwelling guys with no social life in their 20s. The author points out multiple times that this is not at all the case, and the social world and implications that are created in WoW are far more complex.

The author proceeds to debunk the stereotype that people who play online games are anti-social losers, by describing the complexities of chat logs she had with players, making the argument that online games actually produce vastly more complex social networks than thought by those who have not played them.

I think that the author makes a really good point in this section, that MMOs create an extremely complex social networking system. Just thinking about holding over 20 conversations with different players, and creating such complex social relations through playing the game gives me a headache.