The New York Times has an article online, written a couple of months ago, regarding employees playing online games while at work, where it is mentioned that a study by Forrester Research showed that 4 out of 10 Americans play online games.

(Quick math break: an estimated 233 million people in North America have net access, which would extrapolate to just over 93 million online gamers in America alone. Makes that 9 million for WoW look a little less impressive, doesn’t it?)

I found this article interesting for two reasons; the first is this:

Simeon Spearman, an analyst at Social Technologies, a consulting firm in Washington, said a handful of companies had embraced the trend by setting up separate game areas.

Mr. Spearman cited Critical Mass, an interactive services firm in Calgary, Alberta, as one company that has established an entire room devoted to gaming. He said that other businesses, including Google and the Washington law firm Banner & Witcoff, have recently done the same.

The second reason is this Q&A session:

Q. Why have workplace games become so common?

A. Easy access, for one. Many Windows-based computers come standard with solitaire games like FreeCell. The Internet offers hundreds of other choices — from Sudoku to no-stakes poker to role-playing games like World of Warcraft, and many of these are free.

I dare you to find another comment on the internet that references both FreeCell and WoW to illustrate a point.

Don’t you just love telling your guild “I’ve got to log…time for work,” only to get the response “You need to get a job where you can play while you’re working, like me. ”?

Will someone please hurry up and invent the “slap someone over the internet interface“? I’m waiting.