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Just when you thought you've witnessed every last means available for 2008 US Republican Presidential hopeful Ron Paul supporters to reach out to voters, now comes word of a World of Warcraft March. Say what? Cinamablend.com reports that last night, a group of Ron Paul supporters (participants claim there were three hundred participants) created Alliance characters on the Whisperwind server of the popular MMORPG and marched from Ironforge to Stormwind under the guild tag . Marchers used the Deeprun Tram linking the two cities, rather than taking the hazardous overland route. The event was a source of annoyance for many regular Whisperwind players, who faced long queue times due to the sudden influx of marchers onto their server. Horde players were thankfully able to vent some of these frustrations by killing some demonstrators who traveled to the gates of Orgrimmar at the end of the evening. How many of those Horde players were actually Fox News personnel in disguise is not known. World of Warcraft is not just some silly video game played by nine-year old nonvoters. Its reach is immense. World of Warcraft (commonly known as WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It is Blizzard Entertainment's fourth game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. Although its initial release was hampered by overpopulated servers, the game became a financial success. On July 24, 2007, Blizzard announced that the user base for World of Warcraft had reached a new milestone, with 9 million players worldwide. There are more than 2 million players in North America, 1.5 million players in Europe and 3.5 million players in China as of January, 2007 and as of August, 2007; the game has over 9 million subscribers worldwide. The game has been consistently ranked as one of the best by review sites and has won numerous awards, including GameSpot's Game of the Year Award for 2004 and IGNs Editor's Choice Award. These types of skill games are running the risk of falling under online gaming prohibition that the likes of Ron Paul are trying to prevent. In an interview with Gambling911.com's Kira Wissman, Paul insisted that the "Internet should not be regulated" as many in Congress are attempting to do. “I believe strongly that the Internet should not be regulated by the federal government and believe even more strongly that people should be free to engage in the activities they wish, as long as they are willing to take responsibility for their actions. “The majority of people in Washington were afraid to support the internet for fear it would label them ‘pro-porn’ or ‘pro-gambling’.” Another popular skill game platform is SkillGround, a Groove Games company, that has been incorporating many of its games into some of the largest European publicly traded gaming firms such as Sportingbet. Like all gaming entities, they have been closely watching the legal situation surrounding the Internet and potential regulation - even dismantling - of the skill gaming enterprises. Paul is not alone in his quest to see that the Internet keep from being policed. A grass roots trade organization, iMEGA.org has challenged recent legislation prohibiting some forms of online gaming and has vowed to stand up for Internet freedom issues, something the ACLU has failed to accomplish up to now. ---- Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher CCostigan@CostiganMedia.com Originally published January 3, 2008 12:33 am EST
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World
of Warcraft March
for Ron Paul