(NB there is even now an online WoW rehab clinic, WoWDetox, for those worried about their use).

Like many others, this blog covered the debate - but since then has not featured much WOW or even gaming news. So this week we're going to put the spotlight on something really positive coming out of the WOW community and try to redress the balance a little as regards some of the bad press that perhaps inevitably surrounds the addiction debate.

In that spirit then, congratulations to the makers of WoW sitcom The Guild, which has recently been picked up for a second (online) season by MSN video, with a bigger budget and wider release planned. A great example of quality fan-created spin-off media doing well.

For those new to the show (which claims to have over 10m viewers), The Guild is a sitcom about a group of WOW players who meet in the real world. Created by Buffy The Vampire Slayer actress Felicia Day, the show is delivered in short episodes of three to six minutes, with the first series comprising ten in total.

I have just watched the first season in its entirety (it comes in at around 45 mins total) and found it very entertaining and well crafted. The show is pretty simple in terms of set-ups and plot, and relies on an excellently funny script which is well acted by the cast (including Felicia Day). The WOW humour probably means the show will struggle to make it onto television - but its brilliant online success thus far renders this slightly irrelevant in my view.

As well as producing the show, the creators run a Guild website with other such fun as blog posts from the show's characters and my personal favourite - a twitter stream from Vork, the in-game clan leader, which features great posts like 'spent hour lecturing Macy's cosmetics employee that perfumes are more expensive and 148X less effective than naturally released pheromones'. Brilliant (when you watch a few episodes and see Vork's character you'll understand...)

Anyway, for those who fancy a pretty funny dose of geeky humour (though not neccesarily WoW players - I have never played but still followed and loved the show) check out www.watchtheguild.com for the first season and a range of info and links on the second. As well as being a quality show, great press for WoW players (who, let's face it, sometimes get a bit of a kicking in mainstream media), The Guild is also an exciting example of semi-professional/professional online digital media and a success story in what is an ever maturing new medium. Well done guys!

Dejan Levi

Not for the first time I found myself wondering - how serious is gaming addiction, and also who or what (if anything) is to blame? It can't be a simple case of pointing the finger at Blizzard and ignoring the wider contexts in play...

Firstly though one quick observation about the release evening. As thousands of fans waited outside stores all night in order to ensure getting a copy, with many dressed up as favourite characters, camped outside shops with mock battleaxes and pointy hats, the whole thing reminded me of the Harry Potter mania of recent years or maybe even the Beatlemania of decades gone by. 

This surely is an indication that gaming is slowly but surely encroaching ever closer to being viewed as a credible mainstream entertainment format, which can only be a good thing - though judging by how few titles inspire such devotion there is still a long way to go.

Anyway onto the issue of addiction, which I do believe to be a serious one. There can be no doubt that many WOW players do play the game to levels that justify the use of the word addiction. While many would say that since they feel they can stop tomorrow then such terminology is harsh, the same arguments are often used by smokers and drug addicts in denial about the level of their habitual dependence.

This is by no means to say that all WOW players are such - indeed the majority are probably what one could describe as casual or hobby gamers, but nonetheless there is a significant portion who could be termed gaming/WOW addicts and it is these players who are here relevant.

The interesting thing about the public debates in which gaming is discussed is that sadly often highlighting such issues has the negative consequence of pushing gaming back towards the margins of the entertainment world by virtue of the stigma that comes from the addiction problem. Yet the logic is the same as implying that all who drink alcohol are addicts to varying degrees, and that alcohol and pubs inherently are harmful and damaging things - something we would all probably see as an overly simplistic rationale.

This is the huge problem faced by Blizzard and other game developers - it is that their product is often perceived to be a huge part of the problem, when in actual fact this is the same as blaming a pub landlord because a pubgoer ends up very drunk on a regular basis. After all, how is playing WOW any different from watching television? (Some would argue that as WOW contains a social aspect, it is actually less of a problem in terms of the consequences of addiction). But for some reason since the average Briton watches just under four hours of television a day then the bar for an addict is much higher - and since even 'non-addicts' do it - tv addiction is somehow less wierd.

The fundamental challenge in tackling gaming addiction is not simply to do with getting developers to design games differently, nor is it a problem which can be solved solely by awareness and discussion of the issue - though obviously both of these things are important.

The most pressing initial task is to understand gaming addiction, something which can be difficult especially for people for whom games are a strange and bizarre hobby. It is time to recognise that gaming addiction is essentially pretty similar to many other common addictions (which we both understand and tackle better). It affects people in a particular way, and on the surface would seem less immediately dangerous - but regardless of this it can cause serious long term problems for the (mostly) young people affected by it.

Ultimately blaming Blizzard, WOW, or anyone else is short-sighted and unconstructive to addressing the issue. Firstly we must look in detail at the details of gaming addiction and recognise where it is similar to other addictions and where it differs - only then can we identify strategies for solving the problem. The blame culture which dumps the responsibility at the door of developers or gamers solely simply offloads the problem and stigmatises all gamers at a time when the industry is making huge strides into the mainstream of entertainment media. In answer to the question above, perhaps it's better to deploy another question; does one blame a television company or a television channel when we discover that someone watches it for ten hours a day, every day? No, me niether...

Dejan Levi