In addition to whether or not PE should be viewed as a virtual community, my research has highlighted other areas which have interested me and which I would like to investigate further.

One of these I have touched on earlier, namely the purchasing of virtual real estate. Both this and the purchase of or trading in virtual items of value leads to very complex legal questions, as highlighted by Damgaard (2002), Lehdonvirta (2005) and Humphreys (2004), amongst others.

Project Entropia's rather lengthy manual concludes with a section on the "Conditions of Use" which clearly states (p. 62) that "all virtual items are part of the system and MindArk retains all rights, title and interest in all parts ... you may acquire, create, design or modify Virtual items, but you agree that you will not gain any ownership interest whatsoever ..."

There would appear to be a severe conflict of interest between MindArk and those who hope to profit from their efforts on Calypso. The section quoted above would seem to imply that a player could have her virtual property expropriated by the company at any time and without her consent. This is obviously an area which requires some form of resolution.

Another point of concern is the problem of addiction to online gaming. Dr Stephen Kline and Avery Arlidge (2003) found that 21.6% of the EverQuest (another MMORPG) players they surveyed admitted to a sense of addiction, with 3.9% actually experiencing difficulties with friends and family because of their playing habits.

The issues mentioned here, along with others which are sure to surface as numbers of players and online games increases, strongly suggest that academia address them with some degree of alacrity, and treat them seriously given the gravity of the consequences which have already arisen and those which we have yet to experience.