3pointD.com

The Holman family, together in Guild Wars

Nice to see that the Washington Post today has an unabashedly positive spin on massively multiplayer online games and their power give far-flung family and friends a different way to connect.

Although computer games have often been thought of as a pastime for the antisocial, communal online worlds such as the one in Guild Wars are the hottest things in games these days. . . . Game companies don’t track how many families play online games together, but they say the trend helps drive their popularity. Some families play games to maintain contact from far-flung towns; some parents play online games with their kids in the next room as a way of bonding with them. Game designer Jack Emmert, at Guild Wars publisher NCsoft Corp., played his own game, City of Heroes, to stay in touch when his brother was serving in the Army and based in Korea.

I think I can count a dozen instances of this kind of thing that I know of. Nice to see it get some wider readership.