Extremely interesting article up on wow insider. Link at the bottom of the page.

it's just about virtual reality - in particular, virtual reality experiences that millions of people are seeking out. From a religious perspective, people are making their lives rich and meaningful and interesting in these virtual worlds. The grant project was to expand on that and say, 'Ok, in what other ways are virtual worlds meaningful for their participants?

Another statement from Dr. Geraci struck me as particularly interesting when discussing the evolution of religious thought as applied to the MMO player experience.

For example, in World of Warcraft, you get people who can build communities and reflect on questions of ethics. These communities matter to the players; the online friends are really important to them even if they never meet them in a physical, conventional reality. The questions of right and wrong appear throughout the game, engaging good and evil, of course, but also environmentalism, consumerism and other moral concerns. There are these little ways that World of Warcraft provides a kind of religious experience but also this really big question of how one becomes more than oneself, which ties into a wider religious phenomenon of transhumanism. Within transhumanism, science and technology are used to fulfill fundamentally religious goals such as eternal happiness, becoming smarter, wiser, and more powerful, even acquiring immortality, which is a key religious goal.

There are certainly narratives about ethics to be found in WoW -- one could argue the entirety of Mists of Pandaria was a reflection on the use of force, when it is justified and when it is not, to give just one example. There have been quests that explored the permissibility of torture, that discussed the spiritual damage that choosing the ends justify the means perspective can have on the psyche, that have displayed the desperation of people who felt forced to the edge. But to my eyes all of these experiences pale in comparison to the first part -- the player built communities Dr. Geraci mention reflect less on the ethical questions presented by the game's narrative, and more often on the ethical questions presented by the game's experiences - to my perspective it's less important what we think about the story of Arthas than what we do in that raid when the item we want drops. Do we collude with other players to deny someone we don't like that piece of gear? Do we steal it and hearth out? Do we obey the strictures set down at the raid's beginning? These questions are individually answered, of course, but their impact is more immediate than ruminating over whether Garrosh Hellscream went too far in the Pandaria campaign.

You can read the full article here.