"I think for almost anyone who goes very far into a game like this, the original reason for playing goes away, and it becomes a way to replace parts of your life that you don't have in real life," said Oskar Asbrink, 28, a music producer in Stockholm who is known in Anarchy Online as Wolfe, president of Storm, the most powerful player organization in the game.
In addition to forming teams and informal chat groups, joining a player organization is encouraged.
Ortiz was a project, the type of player organizations stockpile and nurture, hoping to find out that they picked a hidden jewel.
Two "Toxic Fairways" studies by the New York attorney general's office, in 1991 and 1995, helped prompt environmental and health groups, player organizations, and the Golf Course Superintendents Association to adopt what was called "Environmental Principles for Golf Courses in the United States".
"The emphasis has clearly been on removing all sorts of barriers of entry," Ville Lehtonen, a 25-year-old Finn who runs Ascent, one of Word of Warcraft's elite player organizations, or guilds, said via e-mail.
"We are the players' organization," he said.
"It passed handily," said Michael Crusoe, the principal timpanist and chairman of the players organization.
"The day is past when a management attempt to control, dominate or dictate to the players' organization would be tolerated," Miller wrote.
Peter Rachleff, a labor historian at Macalester College in St . Paul said the answer was particularly difficult because the players were making a free-market argument — the right to sell their labor without the structure of a players organization.
This year, plenty of benches are occupied by the likes of Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, while owners await word that the players' organizations will give them a big league role.
The commission opened its inquiry into the transfer rules in 1998 after receiving complaints from three clubs, players' organizations in Belgium and a lobby group campaigning for sport and liberty.
