Page 243 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

222 � mAnAgIng the moBIle workForCe

With over 11.5 million monthly subscribers, WoW has around 62
percent of the MMORPG market. What are MMORPGs, you say?
It stands for massively multiplayer online role-playing games, which
have become a worldwide phenomenon.
These online games often have tools to facilitate player commu-
nication and require varying levels of teamwork during parts of the
game as players protect others from dire situations or help them build
wealth, skills, or community. Relationships between players can range
from short meetings to highly structured and organized groups. So
fascinating is the nature of these virtual relationships and interactions
between players that they have led to academic research by psycholo-
gists and sociologists.
Massive online games don’t have to be for adults, however. Re-
member playing with LEGO bricks when you were younger? LEGO
bricks are little interlocking plastic blocks of various colors such as
red, yellow, or blue that kids can put together in various ways to cre-
ate creatures, buildings, people, or other imaginary situations. Now
the company is creating a LEGO massive online game, targeting a
much younger eight- to-thirteen-year-old audience than games such
as WoW have. Zev Barsky is a key player on the team LEGO has put
3
together to create this virtual universe. Interestingly, he leads a virtual
team himself.