51�Թ�

Millions of people play "massively multiplayer online" or MMO games, in which they play together in a virtual world.

"Our study extends the understanding of nonwork-to-work enrichment to the MMO gaming context and reveals how a hobby, as an understudied subdomain of life, could benefit work," said Shirmohammadi.

"The purpose of the present study was to examine hobby -- an understudied but prevalent part of the nonwork domain -- to understand if and how MMO gaming positively enriches employees' work domain," said Shirmohammadi.

Shirmohammadi's team conducted a qualitative study among 23 employed MMO gamers who had an average of 20 years of video gaming experience and had played MMO games for at least 10 years.

But the decision to make this pivot was divisive within the studio, which employed a lot of "old-school MMO developers", according to Matt.