Over at Smarthouse, they've written an interesting article on sodas and how it affects gamers. It's funny how that works though, since the information they've put in is applicable to most soda-drinkers.

The strangest thing about this article is how soda is presented much like a drug. While specifically mentioning Coke and how there used to be cocaine in it a very long time ago, they may have taken the angle a bit too far, even while trying to explain the problems with having too much sugar in your system. That being said, the article is insightful for showing what happens in one hour after grabbing that soda, but also makes it somewhat alarmist.

For instance, they mention that you take in your daily recommended allowance of sugar within the first ten minutes of drinking that one soda. "You don't immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness," the article continues, "because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down."

Even more interesting here is their description at the forty-minute mark:

Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dialate (sic), your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.

So, are gamers taking drugs? Maybe, but then so is everyone else as far as this article is concerned. The sugar and caffeine crash they talk about here should happen to almost anyone who drinks a soda, but is probably more noticeable in people whose butts are parked around a PC or console, such as ourselves.

Still, it kind of explains why some gamers fall asleep during those eight-hour raids through Molten Core and still don't mind having gaming marathons. Maybe we should get more exercise besides DDR. What do you think?

Hmmm, it seems that over in China, there are MMO Cola wars instead of a next gen console war. You see, China's local online game company The9 said that they have a tie-up with Pepsi for their Guild Wars promo, which will start closed beta testing on the 29th.

The more popular Coke also had its share of MMO tie-ups in the form of gaming giant World of Warcraft. Recently, Coke had a WoW- themed commercial which featured Taiwanese all-girl pop band, S.H.E.

Pepsi also signed a deal with Shanda, another company and The9's competitor, which opted to launch its latest MMO, Magical Land at around the same time. Unfortunately, Magical Land wasn't much of a success, and Pepsi didn't renew its partnership with Shanda after that.

Now, Guild Wars is another thing. Although it's not as massive as WoW, the MMO's quite successful in its own right. Will this partnership give Pepsi an edge in the MMO/Cola wars? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, check out the S.H.E./WoW commercials we found in Youtube, thanks to 477605598 and miaming, respectively.

Check out the other video after the jump - click on the "Full Article" link below.

The real world is seeping through the World of Warcraft as we speak. And seeping along with that reality are The Benjamins. Lots and lots of it.

Just how profitable is World of Warcraft? A multinational company and household name like Coca Cola, has teamed up with the immensely popular MMORPG, with hopes of selling their brand to the 7 million subscribers of the game. In China, Coca-Cola put World of Warcraft figures on 600m Coke cans and even released a series of commercials that stars Taiwanese superstar group S.H.E. There are hats, T-shirts, a board game, seven novels and a movie in the works.

Vivendi's brainchild has also spawned sweatshops packed with 500,000 people "gold farming" or accumulating in-game currency and selling it. These days a level-60 night elf with “great gear, skills and 100 gold to spend” is fetching for $289.99. Most of these players are Chinese, Mexican and Russian players.

If you're not really familiar with the MMORPG world, you'd think it ridiculous how these enthusiasts have become like a slave almost of the game. Professor Edward Castronova, Comolan’s creator explains the phenomenon as succinctly, "The real draw is the map of meaning the game provides. In the real world if you work in a coffee shop, that has no meaning. In the game if you are told to take this box from this village to this castle because something really important will happen, then that has more meaning than making a latte for some customer.”

It may sound absurd but the general consensus is that the success of the massively-multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft lies on men in tights. Damion Schubert, Lead Combat Designer, Bioware elaborated on this phenomenon through a talk he gave at the recently concluded Austin Game Conference titled "Moving Beyond Men in Tights."

"I think that we as an industry are very myopic about what people really want, what they're actually looking for in terms of the innovation side of the industry," says Schubert. Adding that too many people are focused on replicating the success of World of Warcraft, that being revolutionary goes out the window.

He pushes the metaphors further by saying that "WoW is Coke," and unless you have some Pepsi money you can never topple this giant. But the biggest question is how did WoW become a Coke and everybody else a Pepsi? Is it really the men in tights?

Before this goes anymore cockeyed, Sony Online Entertainment game designer, Raph Koster, has narrowed it down to five reasons - combat-oriented, classes, grindtastic, men in tights (of course), and gamey games.

Combat-oriented doesn't necessarily mean that gamers are looking for a new way to whack somebody, but that they are looking for something repetitive. And to quote Koster, "People WANT to play these games for hours and hours a month because this is where they spend their social time."

Classes as Schubert pointed out, makes a lot of sense for the developers. As an example he says if a developer were to add a new skill to a system without class limits, the problem would not be easily solved. "You basically have to compare a billion possible combinations to a billion other possible combinations," Schubert said. "Classes help keep that under control."

Probably the most irreplaceable of all the ingredients that make up an MMORPG are the experience points and levels. Not only does it allow players to know where they are in the food chain, but also the promise of new abilities, fame, riches, and glory that comes along with it.

Men in tights embodies the fantasy genre that majority of MMOs are built on. Schubert expounds on this stating that fantasy is suited to MMO games because it's ideally suited to the player's sense of progression. It can start players out against giant rats and move along to orcs, dragons, demons, and other nastier creatures.

An admitted gamey guy, Koster has this to say to developers, "Make a world, but don’t depend on players finding their own fun. Some enjoy it, but most don’t. In the Sims online, there was a way to find the stuff tat was good — you don’t want users to wade through crap."

If men in tights are really what gamers are looking for, should we stick to the successful men in tights formula? "I'm not saying don't innovate," Schubert emphasized. "I'm really not… but I really want you guys to be sure that you're not over-innovating, that you're not going out of bounds. Be sure that your innovations are things that players want."