An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense ‘intuitive linear’ view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress [at today’s rate], ” wrote Ray Kurzweil, futurist, scientist and author.

According to Kurzweil, modern society is at the cusp of that exponential curve. Of the emerging technological phenomena, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have been among the most heavily scrutinized.

Cheaper than heroin and proportionately less fashionable, MMORPGs (EvetrQuest 2, World of Warcraft, MapleStory and Guild Wars, to name a few) boast 15 million subscribers worldwide, half of which are accounted for by World of Warcraft alone.

The trend begs the questions: What’s the appeal for players and how is it being fostered by manufactures?

In 2005, MMORPG companies made more than half a billion dollars. By 2009 this number is expected to double.

Blizzard Entertainment, the maker of World of Warcraft, invites its players to “enjoy hundreds of hours of gameplay with new quests, items, and adventures every month,” for which it charges between $10 and $15 monthly. In addition, the initial purchase is $20, plus $30 more for the expansion pack. This makes the total cost for a year’s worth of play time about $230, times eight million, which puts industry revenue at roughly $1.8 billion a year.

The stereotype of an addicted gamer has become widespread enough in modern society to warrant comment from the cultural thermometer South Park. But if there is this notion that people who play RPG’s are “excessive,” it needs to be qualified.

Most players who play three hours or less a day Monday through Friday — meaning less than 15 hours a week — are categorized as “leisure gamers” in a report published by Parks Associates, a market research and consulting firm.

After Michael Marasco, a former game store manager, was told that a gamer had played 78 hours in one week after taking time off of work, he replied, “That’s nothing.”

On the more extreme end of the scale are people like Seattle resident Nathaniel Eastland, a player who’s been with the game since 2004, shortly after its release. He usually runs his day 18 hours ahead (or five hours behind) because the members of his guild are Australian.

A Yahoo support group has been formed to deal with the problem of people who have lost their loved ones to the game. It describes itself as a place where anyone who has a relationship that’s been affected by someone’s addiction to MMORPGs can come and vent about it.

With more than 2,600 members, it encourages those who are addicted to “stop leveling and start living.”

While and other games are “widowing” unfortunate girlfriends, perhaps the reason people play online RPGs fanatically is simpler than previously imagined.

“I think that most people, though, just find the game fun and use it as an easy way to fight boredom,” Eastland said.

As long as people have been aware of boredom, they’ve been finding ways to fight it. Television, radio, theater and books were the original weapons of choice.

The Internet offers the opportunity to disconnect just like other traditional entertainment mediums, but it is unrivaled in its ability to provide interactivity.

“I’d like to say that I know a few of [my fellow players] personally, but in all honesty, I also feel that you can only get to know someone so well over the Internet,” Eastland said.

Most modern MMORPGs have guilds or clans that naturally form social organizations of players both inside and outside of the game, and players’ addictions are often attributed to this aspect of the game.

“It’s like being in a gang,” Marasco said. “If you’re not there [online for a specific quest], then you’re not part of that gang…That’s why they call it Warcraft.”

Many gamers don’t hesitate to admit they appreciate the social benefit it offers them.

“At first it was something for me to do with some real-life friends of mine,” Eastland said. But as less of his friends played and he continued, “It became more about playing with the people I met in the game, and having fun doing things like raiding with them.”

Reach reporter Elizabeth Mortenson at development@thedaily.washington.edu.