< img width="100" height="90" border="0" src="http://omidr.typepad.com/twitchblog/images/9.jpg" title="9" alt="9" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; float: left;" /> Going to the midnight launch of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion pack I expected to see one or two nuts (besides the one accompanying me) and a lot of geeks. What I didn't expect to find was a pretty accurate demographic spread of Southern California; ranging from dyed in the wool geeks to what one less politically correct than I might term "hot chicks". Even a square-jawed security guard sidled up to me at the top of the line to ask me if I played. He's a level 60 mage.

We've seen a lot of crazy lines for launches recently, what with the PS3 and Wii launching at the end of 2006; but I didn't expect to find people who had been queuing up since 6.30am for a videogame, easier to mass manufacture than a console as it is. Still, if ever there was a living example of how far video gaming has progressed in terms of the demographic it reaches - everyone, basically - it was this World of Warcrack line.

I met middle-aged and upwards folks who have been playing Blizzard games since time began; and I met high school kids high on caffeine and planning their Tuesday morning illnesses. I met professionals and I even met a three year old girl who had accompanied her mother along for the launch; daddy having been unfortunate enough to have to queue up for his copy on the snowstruck East Coast earlier that night.

So there you have it - everyone's a geek nowadays.