Apparently if you’re a professor, you can turn your hobby into something they pay you $100,000 to continue doing as “research.” Well, sort of. That’s almost the case with UC Irvine’s professor Bonnie Nardi who got a large grant from the National Science Foundation to study the absurdly popular and addict online role playing game, World of Warcraft. An avid player herself, Nardi wants to study why American players modify the game more than Chinese players:

"We are examining the many reasons for this disparity, including cultural and institutional factors. The vast majority of Chinese players are not ‘gold farmers’... They’re ordinary players like anyone. The media has blown that story out of all proportion. Many people think Chinese play for a job. They play for fun...

[The] Chinese have invented some interesting ways to play with the in-game economy... Ways that I have not observed here in two years of studying ‘World of Warcraft.’ Chinese players are more attuned to the aesthetics of the game... They talked more about color schemes, animations, architecture, and so on more than American players..."

What? The Chinese play games for FUN? She’s making all sorts of breakthroughs already! I mean, I thought that they were also so good because there was some government funded WoW camp they all went to so the Chinese could learn to dominate all worlds, real or not. Also, it’s interesting to note that Nardi has already spent two years “studying” World of Warcraft. That’s quite a racket you’ve got going there Bonnie. I’m going to ask OTR if I can get $20,000 to “research” Fallout 3 when it comes out. It’s for a story guys, a brilliant groundbreaking story, I promise!