There's an enormous amount of plowing gaming revenues back into housing, economic diversification and so on.

From the moment that the first plow blade bit into the crust, the homesteaders began to destroy the foundations of their new life, and in a very few years the crust was gone--used up, scattered, blown away by the dry summer winds.

There was an enormous amount of firepower,

I think they're seeing it. I think people are seeing the enormous cost of housing vs. what people make.

It is one thing to say you're going to introduce online gaming, but it is another thing to say it's really fun to play with, ... Just because a console's Web-enabled doesn't mean it's fun to play with. Somebody's got to come up with an online game that people want to play.

Commentators frequently blame MMORPGs for an increasing sense of isolation in modern life. But virtual worlds are less a cause of that isolation than a response to it. Virtual worlds give back what has been scooped out of modern life. The virtual world is in important ways more authentically human than the real world. It gives us back community, a feeling of competence, and a sense of being an important person whom people depend on.