World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG, duh), apparently does have some redeeming social and scientific values. World of Warcraft players are renowned for single-handedly supporting Doritos as a brand and driving down the price of shampoo, but did you know that they also provide valuable data on viral epidemics and disease outbreaks? Well, for $10 a month and losing your chance of ever getting laid again, you too can be part of the magic!

According to a team of researchers, including Tufts University's School of Medicine's own Professor Nina Fefferman, the massively popular game can be used as a "disease model," a virtual environment in which epidemiologists can study the effects of a disease outbreak and the effects it has on human behavior.

In 2005 a computer glitch turned deadly as the “corrupted blood” plague spread rapidly through the World of Warcraft's digital environs, infecting player avatars and creating quite a panic. According to Fefferman, "The players seemed to really feel they were at risk and took the threat of infection seriously, even though it was only a game." Hell, they even had digital leper colonies. This shit is serious.

Then again, you’d take it seriously too if you invested forty hours a week in order to win the Valiant Girdle of Osteoporosis Prevention from the Demon Lord Blacksteel Pendragon deep within the depths of The Mountain of Most Grievous Peril and Everlasting Woe.