A new way to fiddle while Rome burns Analysis/Commentary For many people, perhaps 40 million strong, the Net has become Las Vegas on a beer budget. Sites like Yahoo! Games, Pogo, and Boxerjam are pulling them in. Game sites are "sticky," says one executive. Players stay upwards to an hour-and-a-half on average, often during working hours. This means, of course, that the slaves are gold-bricking. (Ah, the gentle joy of getting paid to goof off.) Some sites provide a panic button that allows game addicts to change the appearance of their screen when their musher looms into sight. (A "musher" is the 150-250 pounds of human dog meat perched at the lazy end of a dog sled.) The advantage to playing games at work -- besides providing a stimulating distraction during the dead time spanning 8 a.m and 5 p.m. -- is that you can actually win money. To goad people to stay, and to obtain treasured personal information about them, some advertisers offer big awards for entering sweepstakes. Nevada, here I come. But employers are fighting back. Some snoop on their minions by analyzing Web logs. Others hire electronic hall monitors like Websense to block URLs or sound alarms in the IS department. What's a mudder to do? (MUD stands for Multi User Domain, a type of networked game that allows many players to engage in the same game.) No matter how corporate America feels, games are hot -- and the biggest names on the Net are putting their chips on the table. AOL recently contracted with Electronic Arts for exclusive delivery of games to its portal. Cisco has been working on a game specification (engineering standard) that will enable the computers known as routers to transfer game data quickly and efficiently. In short, the game's afoot. January 24, 2001