Editorial: I have an avatar therefore I exist

This special issue explores the rapid development of massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) and contributes to our understanding of this fast growing research area, with particular emphasis on their business and social implications. This is reflected in the research questions addressed by the papers published in this special issue. Alex Meredith, Zaheer Hussain and Mark Griffiths undertook a scoping study to examine the extent, range and nature of different MMORPGs. Their research aims were first to present a summarised overview of all the material reviewed and secondly to provide a thematic construction in order to present a narrative account of existing MMORPG literature. Their findings suggest that whilst some games have received moderate or even substantial attention, others have had no research conducted upon them at all. This presents a problem, since the growth in both the player base and the industry suggests that a single psychological profile of ‘the gamer’ cannot be relied upon. Kim Bryceson, on the other hand, has looked at the development of an animated, interactive, three-dimensional virtual environment model. More specifically, she presented VAG—a prototype of such a virtual environment developed as a CD-based game of strategy in the context of a supply chain in the agribusiness sector. Apart from the development of the first version and a qualitative evaluation of the demonstration model she discusses the future developmental opportunities for extending VAG into a massive multiplayer online game in true virtual reality.