(May 10, 2006) — “Probably around three-thousand hours,” said Junior Jose Olegario with a grin on his face, describing the time he invests in World of Warcraft . A jaw dropping three-thousand hours invested in a video game, spent on a new genre rising up and gaining all sorts of clout in the industry: The Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). The genre has been a very long time in coming but with refinement it has now become mainstream among gamers. Leading the way are games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI . MMORPGs throw the player into a massive world in which interaction with other players is key to succeeding in various tasks. The main point is to level your unique character until it can no longer gain levels any longer. At this point a player would partake in a slew of “End-Game” activities. However, one does not need to level; they can raise other skills such as a craft in order to power the virtual world’s economy. The game is so complex that the world has its own living breathing economy which suffers from inflation and various influxes in price. The genre is slowly coming into the mainstream and has caught national attention. Just in May, Time has featured the creator of World of Warcraft on their list of most influential people. The game is sucking in users by the millions, as Blizzard Entertainment has reported that over four million users have subscribed in order to play. Within our school we have many who dedicate their time to these games. Sophomore Brian Seo put in over 600 hours before finally quitting the addicting World of Warcraft. “It just started to take too much priority over real life things…” he said in justification of his quitting the game. MMORPGs are still very young in terms of their conception, but there is no doubt they hold a very bright future. There will always be gamers who wish to have a second-life even in the form of a game.