Are multiplayer online games more compelling, more addictive?

When "World of Warcraft," a new multiplayer online computer game, came out last November, Trevor Maltbie bought it immediately. Through the winter and into the spring, the 16-year-old high school student in Ipswich, Mass., played it more and more. By summer, with school in recess, he was playing up to 15 hours a day.

"It got to be embarrassing," he says. "It got addictive. It's a pretty addictive game."

Trevor's mother, Jan, became concerned. "He was putting every spare minute into it," she says. But then, as summer gave way to fall, Trevor started his junior year of high school and began a part-time job. He decided he needed to cut way back. Now he plays at most a few hours a week. "He seems to finally have gotten bored with it," Mrs. Maltbie says with relief.

That ability to quit seems true for the majority who play "World of Warcraft" and other MMORPGs, short for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Most players become intensely involved in the challenge of the game for a while, but eventually tire of it and move on to some other activity.

But for a small minority, obsession with these games can lead to bad habits or worse. Some players have been known to avoid eating and sleeping for many hours at a stretch while lost inside the game. In August, a South Korean in his 20s died after he spent 50 hours, taking only short breaks, playing an online game at an Internet cafe. One early MMORPG, called "Everquest," has earned the nickname "Evercrack."

Many reviewers and players say that "World of Warcraft" is the most elaborate and compelling MMORPG yet. More than 4 million players worldwide, 1 million of them in North America, have plunked down $45 for the software and $15 a month to play.

But besides holding the potential for addiction, MMORPGs also create intriguing social and economic situations. Academics are studying life both inside these games - including in-game systems of commerce - and outside. Players buy and sell their characters or online goods in the real world for actual dollars. Players in China and elsewhere are said to play the games to make money. They accumulate online "gold" that they in turn sell to other players for actual currency.

Nonetheless, experts are divided about whether obsession with "World of Warcraft" and other MMORPGs should be labeled as "addictive" - so-called electronic opium - since unlike drugs no physical dependency is involved.

Whatever the label, observers agree, players obsessed with these games do have a problem. "They have withdrawal symptoms. They can't wait to get back on [the game] again," says Maressa Orzack, director of the Computer Addiction Study Center at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Mass. She's treated many people who've been unable to stop playing MMORPGs and who've neglected their jobs, schoolwork, and families. The games, with names like"City of Heroes," "The Legend of Mir," and "Asheron's Call" "are made to be addictive," she says.

Despite repeated requests, the maker of "World of Warcraft," Blizzard Entertainment, declined to comment on whether its game was addictive or if it would offer warnings or other help to players.

Most MMORPGs let players control a character or avatar to explore on-screen worlds. Characters become more powerful as they accomplish tasks such as killing a monster or finding a magical artifact. By working together with others online (in teams or guilds), players defeat other human-controlled characters or an enemy controlled by the game.

The games are booming in South Korea, Taiwan, and across Europe. Last Saturday, the China Daily reported that a MMORPG developed in South Korea, called MU, has reached 32 million players in China.

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