But I am sad to see Sen Coburn took this opportunity to point fingers at well thought-out research. And anti-pseudo, I am sure he is a patriot, but so is Sarah Palin. And patriot of all kinds can display shocking level of insight or insults.

It is time for Americans to come together to examine the wastage generated by our traditional industries, e.g. auto and finance. But to point fingers at research and Internet industry is a egregiously suicidal attempt to kill the real American strength in innovation and inventiveness.

Online cultures are spreading by the second, resulting in innovations and rich practices. Why are more and more kids and adults alike spending so much time playing games? What is the value of these games? If millions of players are spending multiple hours on Second Life or WoW, creating avatars, scripting objects, hiring players to represent them, and companies are showing commerical interest by opening up stores and conducting conferences in these worlds, the world had better pay attention to this phenomenon. Online communities are new ways of thinking about incorporating play at work, aimed at stimulating employees and increasing productivity. Online communities provide respite. It is crucial to study the economies, societies and cultures formed in these worlds for the development of better computer science applications. Turning a blind eye to games and online worlds is to regress in next-generation interfaces. Turning a blind eye to games and internet is to be ignorant about phenomena that are changing the way we live. The internet has clearly seeped into millions of lives in ways unimaginable. It takes an anthropologist/computer scientist to uncover these worlds. Science, by definition, is concerned about how the world works and deriving understandings of it. Online worlds are as real as physical worlds.

Prof. Nardi’s research in particular examines such areas as creativity, learning, motivation, and collaboration in WoW, to name a few. The findings of this research are valuable in the study and analysis of internet, education, social behaviour, work, and more broadly in understanding a major social revolution. Quoting one of her papers, “relations in World of Warcraft make the game more fun and engender a flexible learning space. Loneliness, lack of social support, and increased immobility have been shown to lead to depression in the elderly [22]. A game such as World of Warcraft tailored to the interests of various segments of the elderly population would enable them to make new friends online from their own homes, in the context of an exciting, challenging game with rich content. The game would provide mental stimulation and topics of mutual interest.” Quoting another, “Learning in conversation in World of Warcraft is erratic, spontaneous, contextual, and driven by small events. It is enlivened by playful, lightweight emotions. Such learning can support simple fact finding, the development of tactics and strategy, and the working out of a moral order.”

I think most people here are getting the wrong end of the stick, thanks for a bad job at journalism and a senator who found the article a convenient reference.

Grants like this actually free up funds to reinvest in the university and/or reduce the tax burden. A study like this (I’m not sure of the particulars of this one) would maybe employ 2-3 grad students (the grant pays their tuition and stipend, rather than coming out of UCI’s budget) and partially fund the researcher.

Additionally, within sociology, anthropology, and computer science, this study is incredibly useful. Within sociology specifically, there’s a growing interest, especially at UCI, in social networks. And in the current era of computers and Internet, virtual networks are vital to our everyday lives and critically under-studied. Examining networks and social interactions via WoW could yield important information about how these computer-based networks are emerging and evolving.

$100,000 may seem like a lot of money, but compared to the overall budget, it’s small potatoes (my department spends $30,000 in photocopying and printing in a year), and the payoff is much greater than the cost.

Those who feel strongly about the merits of researching gamers, are free to do, this is America after all. The assertion though that taxpayers should foot the bill, when people are loosing their homes, going to food banks, and millions go without health care is just grotesque, and shows a disconnect with reality by the “research community” which you profess to represent.

Also Mr. Bailey, I am neither a republican or a conservative, but any senator who exposes this kind of waste in government should be called a patriot, and not controversial. Controversial would not be so “controversial” if your journalism were more balanced, and not hint that someone has a negative character flaw because you disagree with them.

Blizzard Entertainment is one of the leaders in the gaming universe, employs 2500+ people, generates 1 Billion plus revenue and has found a way to captivate for than 10 million people with their games.

The gaming environment seems completely worth studying.

and to @whitejasminetea above, I could not agree more. . .

sorry, but from my perspective, I’m young, I’m a potential UCI student, and right now not only are my parents causing me financial aid problems, but this news just sucks. with the recession and what not, I think it would have been wiser to help out the students and their educations especially since it’s had major cuts in funding.