Henze actually spent a weekend in Ohio visiting a group of friends that he met online while playing World of Warcraft with his buddies from Wisconsin.

Maybe more surprising, however, is the game’s appeal for families.

King started playing as a requirement for a class and soon began playing with her son, who was 10 years old at the time.

“My son became really excited about the game and he started playing, and pretty soon my son and I were kind of holed up playing together most nights. My husband was like, ‘Hey, wait a minute! What are you guys doing? I want to play, too!’” she says. “Before we knew it, we were gaming with my brother, who I had previously been out of contact with.”

Johnson began playing WoW with her daughter and husband when her daughter was a teenager.

“Especially those teenage years, you don’t always have something to talk about,” she says. “So that was the key that held us together.”

Johnson also used the game to keep in touch with her family when she moved to Wisconsin by herself for a year for research.

“We would literally be in World together, on voice chat talking about all the stuff that you would normally talk about, while we’re shooting diseased bears,” she laughs.

“I’ve got to say that that’s particularly awesome because usually it’s impossible for parents to find something to do with their adolescent kid,” Wolfenstein says of families who game together. “Being able to get online with your teenager and do something that all of you are enjoying, that’s pretty cool.”

Obviously, though, the social benefits players receive depend on how they use or abuse the technology.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s inherently good or inherently bad,” Schmierbach says. “It kind of depends on how you play and how much you play and who you’re playing with.”

Henze puts it more bluntly.

“Too much of anything can be bad, you know?” he says. “Water’s good for you, but if you drink five gallons of it in an hour, it’ll kill you.”

If there’s any one reason why WoW catches a lot of flak, it’s the amount of time gameplay can consume.

Remember that Horde Orc Warrior? The player controlling that Orc invested more than 100 days of playing time in that character, while still playing with about 10 alternative characters. Because the game is so time-consuming, its players have garnered a cultish, fanatical reputation.

“I think some people think it’s bad because there are guys who come home from work at six and play World of Warcraft until midnight,” says Jeff Thorne, a UW-Madison senior majoring in business, who plays WoW to keep in touch with friends from high school. He says playing the game is really not as weird as people think.

According to King, World of Warcraft is not only interactive, it’s also intellectually stimulating.

“The challenge involved in this game is amazing,” she says. “It’s not something you can just sit down and button mash your way through.”

A certain amount of intensity and commitment to World of Warcraft can pay off in the workplace, as well.

“These people work hard. There’s no doubt,” Wolfenstein says of guild leaders.

“Whether or not it actually is giving them skills, it certainly builds their level of efficacy.”

“We do know of a few people who—I mean literally—have gotten jobs in business because they have run extremely good guilds and have been recognized for being good guild leaders,” Johnson says.

She says she sees similarities between the struggles of guild leaders in World of Warcraft and leaders in the workplace.

“I think anybody who wants to get their MBA or thinks they want to start a small business should probably play World of Warcraft and be a guild leader,” Johnson says.

“This is totally sexy,” Wolfenstein says. “You can see why the corporate world is interested in this, right?”

In the end, though, the social benefits and consequences of World of Warcraft are as ever-changing and as complicated as the content of the game itself.

“The more you learn about the game, the more you realize that your preconceived notions really fail you,” King says.

“It’s a little bit like a slot machine,” Schmierbach says. “You never quite know what you are going to get.”

For more on World of Warcraft terms, click here.