Stats

From the Basic Demographics 84% of players are male and 16% are female.
Searching on the site I could not find any proper numbers on how many hours MMORPG players spent playing in one setting but I did find how many hours per week were spent playing the game a week. It seemed that the mean amount of hours played were about 21.9 with players under the age of 23 tending to play 2 hours more than players over the age of 22.  This was taken from here.

The reasons for people joining the game were usually because of the game being introduced somehow. From the study, males were more likely to have found the game by themselves or through a friend as compared to women who found themselves introduced to the game by family members or partners.

Players tended to commit to many activities while playing MMORPGs. On average players spent 3.5 hours weekly looking up game specific information and 3.55 hours reading posts from other players or posting themselves on forums. Players who were in guilds spent about 2.7 hours per week reading or posting on their specific guild site while they spent an hour related to guild maintenance tasks.  This was taken from here.

Reading some of the stories made me chuckle because I saw many a time where I was in the same situations as many of the players who gave their stories such as the “Trek” example. Other memorable moments for players included Solitary achievements, where a character overcomes extreme situations, PvP (Player versus Player) achievements, where players remembered great competition, Team achievements and so on. I believe what makes these events even more memorable is multiple inclusions of events which makes the memory even greater.
People should bother studying the information provided by the Deadalus Project because it gives insight on a culture not many people know exist, but clearly does from those who play. When over 10 million players are hooked on these types of games, this occurrence makes a statement about our society.

But sadly the case is that MMORPG players carry stereotypes that slate non-players of the game and critics (who have usually never tried a video game of this degree) to un-sympathize with players by calling them addicts (which some actually are). The stereotype usually make these people out to be unsocial, unaware, and oblivious to life. All the while I feel this is very untrue, as I believe these players maintain sharper skills in socializing and have better understandings of those around them. The one article especially described the gender bending partaken by males (from the study here) and how they had a better understanding of women, and themselves as a gender.

Looking at the research done by this group concludes that they know a certain subset of people who use these games to fulfill multiple outlets despite what the demographics say. These games are just as much as any organization. They involve structure, a common goal, socializing, self fulfillment and self value. The only difference is that this organization is built on people behind avatars.