Sorry to hear this, but I am not surprised. WoW is a Player vs. Player (PvP) environment in which this kind of thing happens with annoying frequency. Payer vs. Evnironment games (PvE) have a much different feel and play.
I find it curious that professor Steinkuehler cherry picks her data, much to the demise of the scientific methods she claims to find at the game boards. She, unfortunately, fails to include in-game chat, which when it comes to WoW I understand to be vulgar and combative or both at once.
As to her assertion that the world of WoW is creative rather than consumptive, I say “posh”. Apparently she have never played the end game where “phat lewt rulz”. Just how creative can you get in an environment tightly controlled by game code?
The NappyOne
The game is a lot of fun, but this lady is smoking something. Other than the initial people who face new content there’s very little science in the game. They have also dummed it down with questhelper and other addons that reduce the amount of thought required for the game. Spreadsheets and min/max’ers have taken most of the math out now as well.
I actually don’t find that many “kids” playing. The most common people I run with are suppposedly in their 20’s or early 30’s. I tend to believe them on their ages when we have to stop a dungeon so they can grab a brewski.
She also left out a lot of the negatives of the game environment. I’m guessing she never ran into “nerd rage” or “loot thieves”. Not to mention “guild drama” and “ganking”.