Professor plans ‘Warcraft’ book

A University of California, Irvine professor said she is working on a book dissecting online game World of Warcraft from an anthropological perspective.

Professor Bonnie Nardi, an anthropologist and professor of informatics at the university, said the book started when she received a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation last year to explore why U.S. players of the Blizzard Entertainment game are more likely than Chinese players to modify World of Warcraft, the Orange County (Calif.) Register reported Monday.

Nardi said she spent countless hours in Beijing cafes and other parts of China studying how Chinese players approach the game.

She said her book explores ideas about play and how digital technology shapes play. It will be a while before it’s out — I have one more major round of revisions.