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Majority Leader Eric Cantor incorrectly cites WoW study as using $1.2M in federal funds, actual cost is $5k from NC State [UPDATED]
Earlier this week U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R - Virginia) called out, amongst other things, the wasteful government spending by a World of Warcraft study conducted by North Carolina State University's Gains Through Gaming Lab. The study he was citing, as published on his own blog: Pay to Play Video Games: The National Science Foundation spent $1.2 million paying seniors to play "World of Warcraft" to study the impact it had on their brain. Majority Leader Cantor is focusing on this as part of federal spending from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that could be cut instead of the bipartisan sequester that will be taking place later this year, unless Washington is able to avert it. After publishing a story on the World of Warcraft tie-in, we were contacted by Jason Allaire (who we previously interviewed on the study), Associate Professor at North Carolina State University, and co-director of the lab where the study took place. He had the following to say: The funding for the WoW study ($5K) came from NC-State as part of a pilot research funding program. The results of the WoW study were published last year ... so for some reason that paper got equated with our NSF grant. We do in fact have $1.2 million dollar grant from NSF that examines what aspects or mechanisms are responsible for improvements in cognition due to playing digital games and funds our development of a game based on these findings. This NSF grant is still on going. Allaire follows up with: The NSF study has absolutely nothing to do with WoW. So just when exactly did the WoW study start and how is it funded?
