File - Ahmed EL

Historical & Critical Review
Research
Ahmed Elsabban
DGH1-2014
First of all in this research I will talk about the MMORPGs Games and I will cover those
points.
1- Introduction
 MMORPGs
 Virtual World
2- History of MMORPGs
 From the earliest stage to now a day
3- Game play style and UI
4- Culture impact as it’s:
 Multiplayers Game play benefits on real life
 Is it really destroying the player’s real life or it improves it?
1
Introduction
There’s no denying that video games are a booming business. Gaming professionals
continue to view for the attention of gamers male and female, young and old. Much of the
buzz in video games today exists in the online world. The saturation of computers and
Internet access into homes across the country and around the world has ushered in a new
era for video games.
In the past, video game play at home has been limited to consoles (Xbox, PS2, GameCube,
etc.) and single-player computer games. Online games designed for personal computers,
however, could be played by anyone who owned a computer and had Internet access.
Casual online games have been played for several years (think Tetris, Hearts, Checkers,
etc.). Now a new form of online gaming is gaining popularity.
It is also a process of socialization into a community of gamers through our observation of
players’ activities we describe how MMORPGs provide opportunities for learning social skills
such as: how to meet people; how to manage a small group; how to coordinate
and cooperate with people; and how to participate in sociable interaction with
them. We show how this social learning is tied to three important types of social interaction
that are characteristic of MMORPGs: players’ self-organization, instrumental
coordination, and downtime sociability. We conclude by discussing the societal
impacts of our findings and how the features of MMORPGs could be repurposed in
environments specifically designed for social learning.
MMORPGs
The word (MMORPG) which means Massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
It is mixes the genres of role-playing video games and Massively multiplayer online
games, possibly in the form of web browser-based games, in which a very large number of
players interact with one another within a virtual world.
Which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously by necessity, they
are played on the Internet. Many games have at least one persistent world, however others
just have large numbers of players competing at once in one form or another without any
lasting effect to the world at all. These games can be played on any platform, be it the
personal computer, a game console such as the internet capable PSP, PlayStation 3, Xbox
360, Nintendo DS, PS Vita, Wii U or Wii, or mobile devices and smartphones based on such
operating systems as Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

Role-playing
Refers to the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a
social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the Oxford English Dictionary
offers a definition of role-playing as "the changing of one's behaviour to fulfil a social
role", in the field of psychology, the term is used more loosely in four senses

Role-playing game
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Is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players
take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting
or through a process of structured decision-making or character development. Actions
taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and
guidelines
Each player creates his/her own character and, as such, has a role to fill. Depending on
the game, characters can be human or non-human (i.e., trolls, elves, animals or sci-fi
creatures). The role a character plays depends almost entirely on the person playing the
game. Characters have choices, decisions, consequences, companions, tasks, and, to
some extent, even emotions; all things that go along with playing a role in this large
online community.

Role-playing video games
(Commonly referred to as role-playing games or RPGs, as well as computer RPGs or
CRPGs) are a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a protagonist
(or several adventuring party members) immersed in a fictional world. Many role-playing
video games have origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games (such as Dungeons &
Dragons) and use much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. Other
major similarities with pen-and-paper games include developed story-telling and
narrative elements, player character development, complexity, as well as replayability
and immersion. The electronic medium removes the necessity for a game master and
increases combat resolution speed. RPGs have evolved from simple text-based consolewindow games into visually rich 3D experiences. A common criterion for whether a game
is an "RPG" is whether the game has a complex storyline, and whether the character
goes through different places, fighting bosses and communicating with both friends and
enemies.

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO and MMOG)
Is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players
simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet. Many games have at least
one persistent world, however others just have large numbers of players competing at
once in one form or another without any lasting effect to the world at all.
MMOGs can enable players to cooperate and compete with each other on a large scale,
and sometimes to interact meaningfully with people around the world. They include a
variety of gameplay types, representing many video game genres.
The key here is that these games are played on a computer, over the Internet and within
a very large online community. Some games have sold millions of copies, and these
owners are free to log on and play any time they want. This means that tens or even
hundreds of thousands of people are sharing this experience at the same time. Game
developers create an online “world” in which gamers can interact with their characters.
Virtual world
A virtual world or massively multiplayer online world (MMOW) is a computer-based
simulated environment. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual
environments, where the users take the form of avatars visible to others. These avatars can
be textual, two or three-dimensional graphical representations, or live video avatars with
auditory and touch sensations. In general, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.
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The user accesses a computer-simulated world which presents perceptual stimuli to the
user, who in turn can manipulate elements of the modelled world and thus experience a
degree of telepresence.[6] Such modelled worlds and their rules may draw from the reality or
fantasy worlds. Example rules are gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions, and
communication. Communication between users can range from text, graphical icons, visual
gesture, sound, and rarely, forms using touch, voice command, and balance senses.
Massively multiplayer online games depict a wide range of worlds, including those based on
science fiction, the real world, super heroes, sports, horror, and historical milieus. The most
common form of such games are fantasy worlds, whereas those based on the real world are
relatively rare.[original research? Most MMORPGs have real-time actions and
communication. Players create a character that travels between buildings, towns, and worlds
to carry out business or leisure activities. Communication is usually textual, but real-time
voice communication is also possible. The form of communication used can substantially
affect the experience of players in the game.
Virtual worlds are not limited to games but, depending on the degree of immediacy
presented, can encompass computer conferencing and text based chat rooms. Sometimes,
emoticons or 'smiles' are available to show feeling or facial expression. Emoticons often
have a keyboard shortcut.[9] Edward Castronova is an economist who has argued that
"synthetic worlds" is a better term for these cyberspaces, but this term has not been widely
adopted.
History
The assumption of roles was a central theme in some early 20th century activities such as
the game Jury Box, mock trials, model legislatures, and "Theatre Games". In the 1960s,
historical re-enactment groups such as The Sealed Knot and the Society for Creative
Anachronism began to perform "creative history" re-enactments introducing fantasy
elements, and War gaming was initially focused on historical subjects, other subjects also
emerged. In the late 1960s, began to use war game-like sessions to develop his fantasy
creation in 1970, the New England War gamers Association demonstrated a fantasy war
game called Middle Earth at a convention of the Military Figure Collectors Association. The
fantasy supplement to Chainmail (1971) led to the development of the role-playing game
Dungeons and Dragons. Fantasy writer Greg Stafford created the board war game White
Bear and Red Moon to explore conflicts in his fantasy world Glorantha, though it did not
see publication until 1974.
In the 1970s fantasy war games were developed, inspired by sword and sorcery fiction
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in which each player controlled only a single unit, or "character". The earlier role-playing
tradition was combined with the war games' rule-based character representation to form the
first role-playing games.
The term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, in
1997.Previous to this and related coinages, these games were generally called graphical
MUDs; the history of MMORPGs traces back directly through the MUD (Multi-User
Dungeon,Multi-User Dimension and Multi-User Domain) genre.
Through this connection, MMORPGs can be seen to have roots in the earliest multi-games
such as Mazewar (1974) and MUD1 (1978).
From the earliest stage to now a day
In 1974, Mazewar introduced the first graphic virtual world, providing a first-person
perspective view of a maze in which players roamed around shooting at each other. It was
also the first networked game, in which players at different computers could visually interact
in a virtual space. The initial implementation was over a serial cable, but when one of the
authors began attending MIT in 1974, the game was enhanced so that it could be played
across the ARPAnet, forerunner of the modern Internet.
Mazewar (1974)
Dungeons & Dragons, developed in 1974 by Dave Arneson and E. Gary Gygax and
published by Gygax's company, TSR, was the first commercially available role-playing
game. TSR marketed the game as a niche product. Gygax expected to sell about 50,000
copies total to a strictly hobbyist market. After establishing itself in boutique stores, it
developed a strong, lasting fan base.
Dungeons & Dragons, developed in 1974 by Dave Arneson and E. Gary Gygax and published by Gygax's company, TSR
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PLATO system an educational computer system based on mainframe computers with
graphical terminals, was pioneering many areas of multiuser computer systems. By the
middle of 1974, there were graphical multiplayer games such as Spasim, a space battle
game which could support 32 users, and the Talkomatic multi-user chat system.
Oubliette, written by Jim Schwaiger, and published on the PLATO system predated MUD1
by about a year. It was so difficult that one could not play it alone: in order for players to
survive, they had to run in groups. While Oubliette was a multi-player game, there was no
persistence to the game world. Following it, also on PLATO, was a game called Moria
written in 1977, copyright 1978. Again, players could run in parties but in this game it was
also possible to effectively play while only running one character.
Another early PLATO game was Avatar, begun around 1977 and opened in 1979, written by
Bruce Maggs, Andrew Shapira, and Dave Sides, all high school students using the PLATO
system at the University of Illinois. This 2.5-D game was running on 512x512 plasma panels
of the PLATO system, and groups of up to 15 players could enter the dungeon
simultaneously and fight monsters as a team.
These games were graphical in nature and very advanced for their time, but were proprietary
programs that were unable to spread beyond PLATO. Textual worlds, which typically ran on
Unix, VMS, or DOS, were far more accessible to the public.
PLATO
Inspired by Adventure, a group of students at MIT, in the summer of 1977 wrote a game
called Zork for the PDP-10. It became quite popular on the ARPANET. Zork was ported
under the name Dungeon to FORTRAN by a programmer working at DEC in 1978.
In 1978 Roy Trubshaw, a student at Essex University in the UK, started working on a multiuser adventure game in the MACRO-10 assembly language for a DEC PDP-10. He named
the game MUD (Multi-User Dungeon), in tribute to the Dungeon variant of Zork, which
Trubshaw had greatly enjoyed playing.
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The popularity of MUDs of the Essex University tradition escalated in the USA during the
1980s when affordable personal computers with 300 to 2400 bit/s modems enabled roleplayers to log into multi-line Bulletin Board Systems and online service providers such as
CompuServe. During this time it was sometimes said that MUD stands for "Multi
Undergraduate Destroyer" due to their popularity among college students and the amount of
time devoted to them.
MUD UI
Traveller Another early game, designed by Marc Miller and first published in 1977 by Game
Designer's Workshop. This was originally intended to be a system for playing generic spaceopera-themed science-fiction adventures (in the same sense that Dungeons & Dragons was
a system for generic fantasy adventures), but an optional setting called "the Third Imperium"
that was detailed in subsequent supplements became strongly identified with the game. The
changes in this setting over time, especially those involving "the Fifth Frontier War" as
depicted in the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society, arguably constitute the first use of
metaplot in a role-playing game.
Traveller 1977
GURPS and Champions also served to introduce game balance between player characters;
later, Vampire: The Masquerade and similar games served to emphasize storytelling, plot
and character development over rules and combat. In recent years, rules stringency has
been combined with literary techniques to develop games such as Dogs in the Vineyard
that stress player input to give players moral agency in the course of the emerging story.
1985 saw the release of a roguelike (pseudo-graphical) MUD called Island of Kesmai on
CompuServe and Lucasfilm's graphical MUD Habitat.. Other early proprietary graphical
online RPGs include three on The Sierra Network: The Shadow of Yserbius in 1992, The
Fates of Twinion in 1993, and The Ruins of Cawdor in 1995. Another milestone came in
1995 as NSFNET restrictions were lifted, opening the Internet up for game developers,
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which allowed for the first truly "massively"-scoped titles. Finally, MMORPGs as defined
today began with Meridian 59 in 1996, innovative both in its scope and in offering firstperson 3D graphics, with The Realm Online appearing nearly simultaneously. Ultima
Online, released in 1997, is often credited with first popularizing the genre, though more
mainstream attention was garnered by 1999's EverQuest and Asheron's Call in the West
and 1996's Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds in South Korea.
Roguelike UI (1980-85)
Island of Kesmai
Neverwinter Nights The first graphical MMORPG was Neverwinter Nights by designer Don
Daglow and programmer Cathryn Mataga (not to be confused with Neverwinter Nights by
BioWare). "Neverwinter Nights" went live on AOL for PC owners in 1991 and ran through
1997. This project was personally championed and green-lighted by AOL President Steve
Case. Both Club Caribe and Neverwinter Nights cost $6.00 per hour to play.
During the early-1990s, commercial use of the internet was limited by NSFNET acceptable
use policies.
Neverwinter Nights 1991
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Following Neverwinter Nights was The Shadow of Yserbius, an MMORPG on The Sierra
Network (TSN), which ran from 1992 through 1996. The game was produced by Joe Ybarra.
The Shadow of Yserbius was an hourly service, although it also offered unlimited service for
$119.99 per month.
The Realm Online was another successful early Internet MMORPG, launched by Sierra
Online. Although released just after Meridian 59, the beta was active several months before.
The Realm Online had fully animated 2D graphics, both in and out of combat situations,
which made it accessible to a wider audience compared to more text-based games or the
graphical MUDs on which it was based. Also, its gameplay and interface were already
familiar to those accustomed to the graphical adventure games earlier popularised by Sierra.
Like many of its predecessors, The Realm Online only featured simple turn-based combat,
however, it did feature a huge number (for the time) of visual character customization
options. It, too, is still running.
The Realm Online
Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, whose beta was released to Korean audiences in
1996 was one of the first mmorpgs. It is still an active game today with over 1000
subscribers.
Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds
Meridian 59, launched by 3DO in late 1996, was one of the first Internet MMORPGs. It was
one of the first Internet game from a major publisher, the one of first to be covered in the
major game magazines and the first MMPOG to introduce the flat monthly subscription fee.
Perhaps most significantly, was its 3D engine, allowing players to experience the game
world through the eyes of their characters. A cult following quickly grew for Meridian 59 that
still exists today.
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Meridian 59
Ultima Online, released in September 1997, is now credited with popularizing the genre. It
featured 3D isometric/third-person graphics, and was set in the already popular Ultima
universe. It was also a more involved, complex game than many of its predecessors.
Two years after Ultima Online, The Fourth Coming was released, an MMORPG in 3D
isometric. It was launched in France under the name La 4ème Prophétie and contributed to
spread the MMORPG culture in Europe as one of the first graphical MMORPG. It became
very popular through the website GOA until its close in 2001. This MMORPG featured a
unique communication system. The game has lost its popularity, however it is still a subject
of nostalgia for its old players and some servers continue to host players.
Meanwhile, commercial online gaming was becoming extraordinarily popular in South Korea.
Ultima Online
EverQuest, launched in March 1999 by Verant Interactive (a development venture inside
Sony it was always closely aligned with the operating entity that became Sony Online
Entertainment), brought fantasy MMORPGs into the Western mainstream. It was the most
commercially successful MMORPG in the United States for five years, and was the basis for
16 expansions (as of December 2009) and several derivative games.
In 1999, following Ultima Online and EverQuest, was another hit, Asheron's Call. Together,
these three games are sometimes referred to as the original "big three" of the late 1990s.
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EverQuest
By the turn of the century, game companies were eager to capitalize on the new market. The
concept of massively multiplayer online games expanded into new video game genres
around this time, though RPGs, with their ability to "suck in" the player, were (and still are)
the most financially promising.
The next generation of MMORPGs, following the "big three" of the previous decade, was to
include the medieval PvP-oriented Dark Age of Camelot, the sci-fi Anarchy Online, and
Ultima Online 2. Anarchy Online, released first in June 2001, was saddled with crippling
technical problems upon its release, mostly due to an inability to handle the huge
playerbase. Dark Age of Camelot launched smoothly four months later, introducing "Realm
vs. Realm" PvP and other innovations, and quickly passed Ultima Online and Asheron's Call
in popularity, and became EverQuest 's main rival. Ultima Online 2 was cancelled by
Electronic Arts in March 2001, as they had decided that the market was becoming saturated
and that it would be more profitable to divert resources to the original Ultima Online.
RuneScape by Jagex was also released in 2001. 2001 also saw MMORPGs move off of
PCs and onto home consoles in a limited form with the release of Phantasy Star Online;
however, due to platform limitations, it would not be until Final Fantasy XI's release that
'massive' features found their way outside of non-combat areas on consoles.
Dark Age of Camelot
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Anarchy Online
RuneScape
2001 also saw the first fully 3D sci-fi space-ship MMORPG. Jumpgate: The
Reconstruction Initiative (also Jumpgate or Jumpgate Classic and commonly abbreviated
as JG or JGC) is an MMORPG in a science fiction setting for the PC, released in North
America on September 25, 2001 by NetDevil (developer) and 3DO (publisher).
Jumpgate: The Reconstruction Initiative
In 2002 the sprite-based Ragnarok Online, produced by Korean company Gravity Corp, was
released. Though unknown to many Western players, the game took Asia by storm as
Lineage had done. The publisher has claimed in excess of 25 million subscribers of the
game, although this number is based upon a quantity of registered users (rather than active
subscribers).
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Ragnarok
2002 also saw the release of MapleStory, another sprite-based title, which was completely
free-to-play - instead of charging a monthly fee, it generated revenue by selling in-game
"enhancements". MapleStory would go on to become a major player in the new market for
free-to-play MMORPGs (generating huge numbers of registered accounts across its many
versions), if it did not introduce the market by itself.
MapleStory
In September 2002, Earth & Beyond was released. Having been in development since 1997,
this was the second 3D sci-fi space-ship based MMORPG. Earth and Beyond only lasted
two years before being shut down by developer Westwood Studios' owners, Electronic Arts.
Earth & Beyond
In November 2002, Final Fantasy XI by Square-Enix became the first MMOG to provide
clients for different platforms using a single set of servers, in addition to being the first 'true'
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MMOG to appear on a video game console due to its initial release in Japan in May of the
same year on the PlayStation 2. It would go on to provide a client for a third platform, the
Xbox 360, in 2006.
Final Fantasy XI
In March 2003, Ubisoft launched their first MMORPG: Shadowbane. Shadowbane was
notable for featuring no quests, and instead relying on player warfare to provide immersion.
To support this goal it featured player-built, player-owned, and player-razed cities and
capitals, and a system for player government.
Shadowbane
Also in March 2003 Sony Online Entertainment launched EverQuest Online Adventures, a
PlayStation 2 spin-off of the successful EverQuest MMO. This game was only accessible to
PlayStation 2 players. The game shut down on the March 29, 2012 after nine years of full
operations.
May 2003 saw the release of Eve Online, produced by Crowd Control Productions, which
had players taking the role of spaceship pilots and had gameplay similar to the series Star
Control. Though not the first space MMO (Microsoft Allegiance was the first space MMO and
was released in 1999), Eve was able to achieve lasting success. One of the reasons for its
success may have been the game's design, in which all subscribers play in one shared
universe as a result the natural partitioning of the game universe into solar systems
connected by stargates. This partitioning allows the world to be divided up in such a way that
one or more solar systems run on different servers, while still maintaining a single coherent
world.
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Eve Online
In October 2003, Lineage II (NCsoft's sequel to Lineage) became the latest MMORPG to
achieve huge success across Asia. It received the Presidential Award at the 2003 Korean
Game awards, and is now the second most popular MMORPG in the world. As of the first
half of 2005 Lineage II counted over 2.25 million subscribers worldwide, with servers in
Japan, China, North America, Taiwan, and Europe, once the popularity of the game had
surged in the West.
Lineage II
2003 also saw the appearance of Second Life. While not primarily a role playing game, it is
clearly multiplayer and online, and it is used as a platform where people construct role
playing games based on Gor, Star Trek, vampires, and other genres.
Second Life
In April 2004, NCSoft produced another significant title, City of Heroes. It introduced several
major innovations in gameplay and also featured an extreme number of possible visual
character appearances, and its comic-book superhero theme made it stand out.
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City of Heroes
Current-generation MMORPGs
The most recent generation of MMORPGs, based on arbitrary standards of graphics,
gameplay, and popularity, is said to have launched in November 2004 with Sony Online
Entertainment's EverQuest II and Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft (WoW). At the
time, Sony expected to dominate the market, based on the success of the first EverQuest,
and decided to offer a flat monthly rate to play all of their MMORPGs including EverQuest,
EverQuest II, and Star Wars Galaxies, to keep from competing with itself. While EverQuest II
was a commercial success as predicted, World of Warcraft immediately overtook all of these
games upon release, and indeed became so popular that it dwarfed all previous monthly-fee
MMORPGs.
At present, World of Warcraft (WoW) is one of the most played games in North America,
and the most subscribed to MMORPG worldwide, with a total of over 10 million customers.
The closest MMORPG to World of Warcraft is in terms of paying subscribers is RuneScape
with more than one million subscribers and even more free players. RuneScape is also the
world's largest free MMORPG, though it receives less media attention than WoW. With the
release of these newer games, subscriptions began to decline for many older MMORPGs,
even the year-old Lineage II, and in particular Everquest. The current MMORPG market has
World of Warcraft in a position similar to the position of Dungeons & Dragons in the tabletop
RPG market, with both games' market share being greater than 50% of the overall market.
World of Warcraft (WoW)
In August 2005 Sony Online Entertainment acquired The Matrix Online, and the game was
shut down at 11:59pm, 31 July 2009. It is the first game Sony has ended.On April 25,
ArenaNet (a subsidiary of NCSoft) successfully launched Guild Wars, introducing a new
financial model which might have been partly responsible for the game's success. Though
definitely an online RPG, and technically having a persistent world (despite most of the
game's content being instanced), it requires only a one-time purchasing fee. It was also
designed to be "winnable", more or less, as developers would not profit from customers'
prolonged playtime. Other differences compared to traditional MMORPGs include strictly
PvP-only areas, a relatively short playtime requirement to access end-game content, instant
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world travel, and strategic PvP. The game is designed around the max level cap of level 20,
so players will not run into the level-spreading problem when grouping. For these differences
it was termed instead a "Competitive Online Role-Playing Game" (CORPG) by its
developers. With five million games purchased as of April '09, Guild Wars is still continuously
profitable (due to several stand-alone games) but is still not viewed by some as a serious
competitor to WoW in terms of profit and number of players. However, the alternative nature
of the payment system in Guild Wars means that the game does not aim to "compete" with
WoW rather than exist alongside it, and in that sense it can still be considered a large
success.
The Matrix Online
Guild Wars
There has also been significant competition (and potential for profit) among free-to-play
MMORPGs. A few of the most successful of these are Silkroad Online by the publisher
Joymax, the 3D sprite based MMORPG Flyff by Aeonsoft, Rappelz by nFlavor, (with
Aeonsoft and nFlavor merging in 2010 to become Gala Lab Corp) Perfect World by Beijing
Perfect World, the 2D scrolling MMORPG MapleStory by Wizet and finally the free-to-play
converted Shadowbane by Ubisoft. Most of these games generate revenue by selling ingame "enhancements", and due to their free nature have accumulated huge numbers of
registered accounts over the years, with a majority of them from East Asia.
On July 1, 2009, Ubisoft shut down the Shadowbane servers.
Many of the most recent big-budget contributions to the market have focused on giving
players visually stunning graphics. In 2007, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of
Angmar (LOTRO) was one of the first of these to meet with commercial success, followed by
the problematic 2008 launch of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and the Player versus
player focused Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Much like LOTRO, many of the
games in development with big expectations have multi-media tie-ins, such as Star Wars:
The Old Republic, and Star Trek Online.
The current market for MMORPGs has Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft
dominating as the largest MMORPG, alongside other titles such as Final Fantasy XI and
Guild Wars 2, though an additional market exists for free-to-play MMORPGs, which are
supported by advertising and purchases of in-game items. This free-to-play model is
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particularly common in South Korean MMORPGs such as MapleStory, Rohan: Blood Feud,
and Atlantica Online. Also, there are some free-to-play games, such as RuneScape & Tibia,
where the game is free, but one would have to pay monthly to play the game with more
features. Guild Wars, and its successor, Guild Wars 2, are exceptions. They avoid some
degree of competition with other MMORPGs by only requiring the initial purchase of the
game to play.
Game play style and UI
As of today, there are more than 50,000 people playing EQOA in the United States
(Woodcock, 2004). The game takes place in a fantasy world broadly inspired from the works
of authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien. The game is set five centuries before the PC-version of
EverQuest and takes place on a single continent, Tunaria, in the larger world of Norrath.
Much like pencil-and-paper role-playing games, players select a “race” (e.g. elf, human,
dwarf, etc.) and a “class” (e.g. wizard, warrior), both of which will affect their attributes and
abilities. Players then take control of an “avatar” or virtual body in an elaborate 3D space,
where they battle a variety of creatures and accomplish quests to progress in the game and
develop their character.
To study life in EQOA we chose to adopt an ethnographic stance. Ethnographic field
research involves the study of groups and people as they go about their everyday lives. The
term “participant observation” is often used to characterize this approach, since the
researcher seeks to immerse himself in others’ worlds in order to grasp what they
experience as meaningful and important.
Ethnography therefore entails “some amount of genuinely social interaction in the field with
the subjects of the study, some direct observation of relevant events and open-endedness in
the direction the study takes”
However, virtual worlds such as the ones represented by EQOA pose a methodological
challenge to the ethnographer. Indeed most of this approach is based on the ethnographer
“being there” in the field to observe – but this “there” is nebulous at best in the case of online
spaces.
Still, a majority of researchers believe in the virtues of “virtual ethnography” (Hine, 2000),
that is, an adaptation of traditional ethnography to the study of cyberspace. As Mason puts it:
“A virtual ethnography is one that fully immerses the ethnographer into the consensual reality
experienced by groups of people who use computer-mediated communication as their primary, and often
only, means of communication. As such, the online or virtual persona of the participants are the main
focus of the ethnographer. Generally, researchers have wanted to focus on the person at the keyboard; a
virtual ethnography reverses this and works instead with the persona that has been projected into
cyberspace by the typist.”
A virtual ethnography is then, simply, an ethnography that treats cyberspace as the
ethnographic reality.
This remains a controversial step, but it is not the purpose of this paper to discuss this
controversy in great depth. The interested reader is referred to, to get an overview of the
debate.
The study started with the selection of a server from one of the six EQOA offers in the United
States and the creation of new characters. To balance the view of the game as much as
possible, one of the authors selected a combat-oriented class while the other selected a
“combat-assist” class We logged in regularly – at least twice a week, sometimes much more,
each time for at least two hours over a three month period. We tended to play at the peak
18
times, which seemed to be weeknights, especially Fridays, and afternoons on the weekend.
Through this regular participation we progressively became members of the community of
players on our server. As our characters evolved we joined “guilds” (semi-permanent groups
of players) and participated in activities of increasing difficulty and complexity. All of these
activities were recorded using a video camera connected directly to our consoles. This
provided us with a rich set of ethnographic data we later analysed in depth using a
combination Conversation Analysis and open-ended coding.
Overall we recorded close to 100 hours of gameplay from EQOA.
Through our participant observation of EQOA, we developed a member’s perspective of
what life is like there. This perspective then greatly enhanced our ability to understand the
natural player practices captured on our videotapes. By reviewing the videotapes and
reflecting on our own experiences, we began to identify the primary types of social
interaction in which players tend to engage – from the initial “grouping sequences”, when
several players decide to band together, to the humor and small talk occurring between
game events. Through these observations we can see how players acquire the skills needed
to participate fully and meaningfully in the wider community of a game.
Games like EQOA strongly encourage players to team up with each other. The quests are
specifically designed to be too difficult for a single character, and so players must find help in
order to complete them. In addition, experience points can be earned more efficiently if one
is in a group with others. Therefore, there is a built-in motivation to band together with other
players. However, there is no automatic way to join a group (unlike in another successful
genre of multiplayer games: First-Person Shooters. In games such as CounterStrike,8 any
new player is automatically assigned to a team). In EQOA players are on their own to find
others who are willing to play with them, and it is only through interaction with other players
that one can find willing teammates.
Technically “grouping” simply involves one player using the “invite to group” command and
the recipient selecting “yes.” Once grouped, the two share a “group chat” channel and
automatically share experience points from enemies killed by either player.
The most efficient way to gain experience points is to battle opponents while grouped with
others. By working as a team, you can defeat higher-level enemies (which give more
experience points) than you could defeat on your own. The initial inviter is then the “leader”
of the group, in a technical sense, in that only he or she can invite additional members
(four is the maximum group size) or disband the group.
While technically grouping is quite simple, socially it is more complex. Although any player
can extend a formal invitation to any other at any time, there are standard shared ways of
grouping. These grouping practices emerge and become established over time, and novice
players, or “newbies,” learn them through observation and participation. For example,
players tend to form groups in particular places. In EQOA there is a “coach” system of
transportation by which characters can teleport between towns. To use a coach, the
character must go to a stable in a town and talk to the coach master. It is these coaches that
informally serve as grouping spots. Players go to coaches to meet up with other players
looking to join a group, check each other out, and offer invitations.
Once at a coach, there are a variety of ways to form a group, yet the standard method is for
one player to solicit an invitation and another player then to extend one. Players can use a
“looking for group” command which when used automatically produces the following kind of
message in the chat box:
G shouts: 22 Shadowknight seeking group!
The format of the message accomplishes several things: it displays the message to
everyone within “shouting” range, announces the level and class of the character, as well as
the desire to join a group.
Another player can assess the level and class of the character to determine if he or she
would be a good fit and then approach the character, or more commonly, simply extend an
19
invitation based on this information. Although the “looking for group” command is part of the
game’s design, players then improvise on its basic format. That is, players will manually type
(or program) customized messages that resemble the “looking for group” message, but
which provide more fine-grained information. For example:
B shouts: Lvl 29 SK Seeking XP Group!
O shouts: Level 23 Frontier Cannibal Shaman needs group for Long XP Grind
V shouts: A lvl 9 bard seeking a xp grp…PST or INVITE
M shouts: UNEMPLOYED 13 Shaman
LOOKING 4 A GROUP W/ A REAL TANK!
L shouts: Group around level 23 with a healer looking for more!
M shouts: Grp seeks a caster lvl 20-23 PST
In these variations on the “looking for group” message, players may reveal more about their
characters, reveal what kind of group they wish to join, and reveal what they want the group
to do.
Other important aspect of grouping practices are level matching and class balancing. In
order to fight effectively and maximize experience points, a good group should contain four
members, all around the same level of experience (levels range from 1 to 60), and with
complementary classes (combat roles are explained in the next section). A good group
leader will assemble the most balanced group possible given the characters available on the
scene. When deciding whether to invite a character or whether to stick with a group, players
will assess whether the group is adequately balanced.
For example, in the following exchange, E, C and M are in a group and have just lost their
fourth member. They return to the coach at Darvar Manor to recruit another player. E, the
group leader, uses the “Who” menu to scan the names and attributes of all characters in the
vicinity. The members then discuss what class of character to try to enlist.
C tells the group: what should we get… caster? tank?
C tells the group: these ogre shadowknights look badass
M tells the group: get damage deal if u can
E tells the group: what’s damage deal?
M tells the group: a damage dealing class
In other words, M advises E to try to enlist a warrior- class character or “damage dealing
class” (e.g. warrior, paladin, shadowknight) who can inflict extensive damage to an opponent
using weapons.
In another case, R is assembling a group for the explicit purpose of traveling to a particular
town, Moradhim, rather than for the typical purpose of gaining experience points. He also
specifies the range of levels he is looking for, which is rather large.
R shouts: looking for a group lvl 8 to 12
R shouts: for help getting to mor10
R (level 8) has successfully recruited A (level 9) and then invites T (level 12), who is a
significantly higher level than the others.
When T accepts, A points out that the inclusion of T in the group will preclude A and R from
gaining xp (based on the game design) because T’s level is too high.
A tells the group: u know we wont get any xp now
A tells the group: no offense
R tells the group: i know and i don’t care for it right now
It is through this interaction with A and R that T learned that level matching matters when
assembling a group. Usually after these formal invitations have been accepted (although
also sometimes before), the players exchange bows and textual greetings and begin to plan
what they will do and where they will go.
At any time following the initial grouping, they may discover that they do not all work well
together, that they have diverging plans, or even that they do not like each other. A group
member may then leave, or be kicked out and begin the grouping process all over again.
20
Thus, we see that grouping practices in EQOA are somewhat complicated and that
becoming competent in them requires in-game socialization.
While the mechanics of how grouping is accomplished in the game is quite different than
meeting people in real life, in many ways they are similar.
The closest real-world equivalents to grouping at coaches in EQOA may be situations like
pick-up basketball or singles’ bars. One goes to a particular place, surveys the potential
teammates or partners who are available on the scene, approaches those who seem to be
the best fit, and in the end makes due with whomever they can get.
In summary, grouping in EQOA gives players experience in approaching and meeting
strangers. In some ways, virtual worlds are ideal places for learning to meet new people
because they are safer than real life and the costs of rejection and losing face seem to be
much lower. In this they resemble singles’ bars, or pick-up sports games. They also teach
how to assemble a well-balanced, efficient team – an important skill in today’s workplace.
Once a group is formed, each player has to learn how to play his or her role correctly: it is
not just hacking and slashing. As we mentioned earlier the game’s quests are purposefully
too difficult for a single player, and group members must coordinate their actions in order to
succeed. Over time, the entire community of players has evolved several cultural practices
to deal with this issue of coordination, practices that newcomers must learn.
Initially when newbies engage in group combat, they tend to attack the computer-controlled
opponent in individualistic ways. Each group member does their own thing, but they are not
necessarily coordinating their attacks. However, when playing with more experienced
players (or by browsing the game message boards), they soon begin to hear mention of
particular combat roles: “tank”, “healer,” “caster,” and “melee.” A good group is one that is
balanced in terms of the classes that can play these roles, and experienced players know
how to play the role that is appropriate to their character’s class.
The most efficient combat strategy is to attack only one opponent at a time. This is the
responsibility of the tank (rugged weapon-fighting classes): he “pulls” (or attracts) a single
opponent toward the group, and then “taunts” it so that it only attacks him.
This facilitates the work of the other group members. While the opponent is focused on the
tank, the healer can then focus his efforts on just one person – the tank – although the
healer is responsible for keeping everyone in the group from dying. Failure can occur if the
tank pulls several opponents at once, causing the healer to be overwhelmed, run out of
power, and eventually everybody dying for lack of healing. Similarly, the tank also distracts
the opponent from the caster. The caster can cause the greatest amount of damage to an
opponent using spells, yet he is extremely vulnerable and will die quickly if attacked. It is the
responsibility of the tank to make sure this doesn’t happen and, if it does, the responsibility
of the healer to remedy it. Finally the melee (weaker weapon-fighting classes; see M in
Figure 3, who is barely visible between the gnoll and the tree) assists the tank in combat and
in keeping opponents away from the healer and caster.
In other words, these roles, and the corresponding classes, are interdependent: individually
each one is fairly limited, but when working together, they can be more effective than any of
them could be on their own. In playing these four combat roles, if a group of players can
tightly coordinate their actions, they can efficiently eliminate hordes of opponents. The result
is an “xp grind” which enables them to progress through the levels of their class at a rapid
pace.
While learning the terminology and functions of the combat roles is a significant
accomplishment for the newbie, these are not enough. Performing a particular role takes skill
and practice. Within a group, a great deal of learning goes on. More experienced players
often teach “newbies” the subtleties of their role by offering tips during the course of combat
or modeling correct technique.
For example, on one occasion, C and E are playing with a much more experienced Z who is
“powerleveling” them. In power-leveling, a more advanced character helps less advanced
characters gain xp at an accelerated rate. Although the designers have tried to prevent any
21
type of power-leveling, the players have discovered a rather complicated workaround. This
workaround has become part of the shared game culture, and on this occasion, Z is teaching
the others how to do it. C is learning to play the role of “healer” and E “caster.” Z advises
them on each role:
Z: are you chaining heals or just using one?
C: I’m casting it several times, should I be doing something different?
Z: use two different heals and alternate
E: z, what are you casting?
E: or were you casting during the fight?
Z: detonate once then on second it was freezing strike
Z: i didnt till mob was half down or youll lose xp
E: what are u going to cast to keep the
E: nm
Z: I can’t keep agro
E: right
Z: or ill do too much damage. I can only drop once you get it half way
E: so you’re just doing less than half the dmg?
E: got it
For the novice player, power-leveling is rather confusing; however, through player-to-player
teaching, it can be mastered after only a few sessions. As illustrated above it requires the
low level player to start attacking a single monster (or “mob”) until its health is down to half
its initial value, at which point the higher level player steps in to kill the monster in one blow
(here, using a powerful spell such as “detonate” or “freezing strike”). Any breakdown in this
process can result in players not receiving experience points, dying, or both. This example
illustrates how, more generally, learning to play a combat role is a central element in fitting
into the game community, and how it can only be learned in-game through participation and
interaction with other players.
Playing EQOA is, therefore, a really important source of learning how to be a good
teammate.
Playing a combat role in the context of a group is very similar to playing a particular position
in a sport in the real world. To be successful, players must learn the technical aspects of
coordinating their actions, as well as the more general ability to cooperate. In fact, our
observations reveal that players who refuse (consciously or not) to play these group roles
are quickly shunned. Among the social skills learned we can list:
• Leadership:
Advanced players must learn to be good conductors and orient the activities of newcomers.
Style is of the essence here: this is a game after all, in which players want to have fun.
As such, authoritarian dictators are rarely successful.
Instead, good high-level players are more empathic. They reinforce “good” group behaviour
(e.g. a tank carefully pulling a single monster) and point at coordination problems (e.g.
recommend that a caster stands away from combat).
• Sensitivity to others’ needs:
Players need to observe the activities of other group members and adapt their actions
accordingly. If the healer is overwhelmed and out of power, for instance, it is bad practice for
the tank to immediately start bringing fresh monsters toward the group.
Players who do not act according to others’ needs are quickly excluded from a group.
Combat sequences are only a fraction of the game.
EQOA has a certain rhythm built into it, where combat alternates with periods of “downtime”
(e.g. between opponents or while traveling from one location to the next). These calmer
22
periods are an opportunity for the players to chat with each other about a variety of topics,
game related or not. Some game designers, such as Raph Koster of Ultima Online and Star
Wars Galaxies, consciously and strategically use periods of downtime – short periods in
which player must wait – in order to try to encourage social interaction among players
(Koster, 2004). Thus downtime is an important opportunity for players to learn and exercise
sociability (Simmel, 1949), that is, social interaction that is pursued for its own enjoyment
and need produce no extrinsic results.
Indeed, playing MMORPGs is essentially about hanging out with people recreationally. In
some ways, they simulate features of “third places” such as a local pub: instead of having a
few drinks, a game of darts and a lot of laughs with your friends, you battle a few monsters,
explore a rich landscape and have a lot of laughs with your friends. Games like EQOA are
not focused purely on instrumental coordination (i.e. how to kill monsters): there are
opportunities for sociable interaction too.
.
Game Theory
In this chapter we will go over some theories of game design which are not officially
recognized but are reasonable and can be proven. If these theories are correct then it
will make designing a fun game all the easier.
There are some primary aspects to a fun game, the challenge, the risk, reward, loss, and
innovation.
Challenge
People play a game for the challenge it poses, this challenge is usually set at the
beginning of a game. There are 3 types of challenges.
Completion: The challenge to complete/finish the game.
Compounding: The challenge compounds as the player progresses in the plot.
Ultimatum: The initial challenge is too great for the player to take on so the player must
gain ability by playing through the game.
Risk
Every game presents a risk factor, which is - if the challenge is lost then there is a
negative consequence and if the challenge is won then there is a reward. The topics of
reward and loss are discussed below.
Without a risk factor there is no point in playing a game. If there is nothing to lose, there
is no challenge. If there is nothing to win, there is no point in playing.
To calculate risk use the following equation:
The amount that can be
lost (or already has been) added to the amount that can or has been won.
Reward
The reward is the positive consequence of conquering the challenge; it can be anything
from an increase in score, new items, or a cut-scene.
Tangential reward: A reward that has nothing to do with the eventual completion of the
game. These rewards can be things such as cut-scenes that are cool or even unlocking
new modes and mini-games.
Compounding reward: A reward that builds on itself. This could be defined as score, or
even completion of a level. Therefore the value of the compounding reward increases
each time it is attained. These rewards can be completion of a level (which compounds
into the completion of the game) or even score.
23
Calculating reward Reward is calculated by the difficulty of the challenge plus the effort
given
It is best that the reward is greater than or equal to what had to be done to get the
reward. There are some exceptions - for example compounding rewards; though the
initial reward was less than the effort the final result is certainly greater.
Loss
The loss is the negative consequence of failing the challenge; it can be anything from
loss score, to a game over.
Tangential loss: A loss that has nothing to do with the eventual completion of the game.
Maybe you lose an item that was fun but had nothing to do with winning the game.
Compounding loss:A loss that builds on itself. Losing points, or an extra life (which can
compound into a game over or ultimatum loss) Therefore the effect of the loss increases
each time it is attained.
Ultimatum loss: A dangerous but effective element, this is, if the player loses a certain
challenge they fail the greatest challenge and they receive the ultimatum. Usually a
permanent game over (meaning all progress is lost). This can destroy the replay value
very easily.
Calculating loss: The difficulty of the challenge plus the effort put in.
Difficulty
According to human nature, it is inevitable that a person will learn and gain more skill
presented a challenge and a chance to grow - therefore a game must increase in
difficulty as the player progresses in order to continue to be challenging.
Difficulty is an important aspect of the structure of a game. There can always be a
challenge, but if the challenge presents no level of difficulty then the challenge is
useless.
The difficulty is calculated by how much logic and skill is required of the player to
complete a challenge.
Logic and skill: The required input from the player, what is actually challenged. As the
game progresses (in most cases) the challenge difficulty increases and therefore the
required logic and skill increases.
24
Culture impact
MMOs emerged, over the last few years, as a central topic of ongoing world-wide
conversation about online activities. An increasing number of people spend an increasing
number of their online time in synthetic Many of the endless activities that people can do in
Virtual World involve (or even require) collaborating with other players. Within this
perspective Virtual Worlds seem to solve the fear of some media scholar that the spreading
of online realities could lead toward a more isolated society made of people “bowling alone”
This huge social side of MMOs led many scholars to observe these worlds in terms of online
communities and social capital It has been observed that while MMOs at large are a very
viable third place for informal sociability within guilds activities this social capability seems to
fade as players are more involved into long-term social network and their activities become
more “hard-core”.While not providing a so good environment for social capital and social
networking (guilds are far more viable for bounding existing communities than bridging with
new people) guilds are able to create specific in-game emergent cultures This paper aims to
contribute to the ongoing debate about emerging culture in MMOs by describing a specific
aspect of guilds culture in World of Warcraft: conflict and how guilds can deal with it. By
exploring how a guild manage to face and solve game related problems this paper aims also
to contribute understanding how concepts like power and leadership emerge from the
players-game interaction in World of Warcraft and in Virtual Worlds.
The study of MMORPGs is highly relevant to research on social interaction in Shared Virtual
Environments (SVE) and avatars at work and play in these environments. Although many of
the theoretical implications of social interaction in virtual environments have been explored in
the artificial confines of Virtual Reality (VR) research laboratories, MMORPGs are the only
existing naturalistic setting where millions of users voluntarily immerse themselves in a
graphical virtual environment and interact with each other through avatars on a daily basis.
The opportunity to study what people actually do when they choose to be in a virtual
environment with thousands of other people cannot be overstated, and the results and
implications of a survey study of 30,000 MMORPG players will be presented in this chapter.
Playing computer games is becoming more and more a social experience. Players often sit
together in front of a single machine, sharing skills and expertise to accomplish a game’s
objectives (King &Borland, 2003); and as soon as machines could be connected to one
another, gamers were quick to exploit the possibility to live and play in shared virtual worlds
(Cherny, 1999; Cuciz, 2001). It took the recent explosion in Massively Multiplayer Online
Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) – games like Ultima Online, EverQuest2 and Star
WarsGalaxies3 – however, for mainstream media and public opinion to realize that computer
games have become full-fledged social worlds in their own right(e.g. Kolbert, 2001).
Despite this new attention little is known about how these games work in practice as social
worlds.
What kinds of interactions do players have with each other? What kinds of knowledge and
practices are shared across the game community? To shed more light on these issues we
are conducting abroad, exploratory study of the social dimensions of multiplayer online
games. As part of this study we examine the range of social interactions that are
characteristic of MMORPGs and the opportunities they provide for exercising and learning
basic social skills.
There has been a lot of research in the past on the use and effects of games on teaching
Games that are used in professional contexts include:
25

Games for teaching a specific curriculum (e.g. mathematics)
Henry Jenkins and the members of the Education Arcade symposium for instance, are
interested in developing or using games to teach students some of the basic knowledge
traditionally acquired in school.
While not directly concerned with games, the work of Abelson and diSessa (1981)
illustrates how computers can be used in a “fun” way to learn a curriculum.

Games for therapy
Coming essentially from the field of psychology, a number of past and current efforts are
under way to build games that have a therapeutic component. The Self-Esteem Games
project at McGill University (Baldwin et al., 2004), for instance, designed games to help
players feel more secure and confident in themselves.

Games for training
These particular games are used to put players in a specific situation reproducing reallife. Flight simulators, such as the popular version offered by Microsoft, are the most
well-known examples.
Closer to our own research interests, games have also been designed specifically to teach
interpersonal and intercultural communication skills. But these, as well as the other
examples we have mentioned before, all have a point in common: they were designed
consciously and specifically to promote learning. In this they differ from most of the computer
games played nowadays, MMORPGs included, which are designed primarily with
entertainment in mind. But while enjoyment is often the principal benefit of playing video
games, the more recent crop of MMORPGs make social learning part and parcel of the
game (Jakobson & Taylor, 2003). Some game designers have clearly expressed the intent
to create games where socialization is encouraged and rewarded (see Koster, 2004).
Multiplayers Game play benefits on real life
Early on in our observations, we were struck by the social complexity of current multiplayer
online games. Most accounts of games focus on the seemingly mindless task of killing
monsters and accumulating experience points to make your character evolve. While it is true
that players spend a significant amount of time in combat (which is not as mindless as it may
seem), they spend even more time simply communicating with other players. At a minimum,
talking with others helps to accomplish the game’s objectives (e.g. asking questions about
the location of an object or creature). But more often than not, talking with others is an
intricate part of the game.
For instance, Everquest’s “quests” are too difficult for a single player so that only a
coordinated and complementary group of players can accomplish them composing a group
and performing a specific role within it are therefore essential tasks in the game.
• Real social abilities required
26
As a result, gamers need to do much more than mindlessly accumulate experience points
(xp): they also need to increase their social capital within the game’s society. In other words,
they need not only learn the game commands, but they must also become socialized into the
game community. To be recognized as a good player you need to learn the lingo, perform
your instrumental role well when grouped with others, and more generally demonstrate that
you are an interesting person to play with. If you succeed, others will include you in their
“buddy list” to encourage further interactions. In short, these games are all about having the
right social skills.
• Have its own language
As players enter the game world, they are confronted by a bewildering array of new and
foreign concepts much like a stranger entering a foreign culture.
Online games, particularly of the role-playing fantasy genre, share a rich culture that dates
back to at least the 1970s. This includes entities, concepts, lingo and practices evolved out
of the early textbased Multi-User Dungeons, penciland- paper based games such as
Dungeons and Dragons and interactional practices borrowed from Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
and Instant Messaging (IM), for example, brb or “be right back,” afk or “away from keyboard,”
and lol or “laugh out loud”.
The game manual, however, says nothing about these concepts: instead, the greatest
resource in learning how to play is fellow players. In fact, it seems game companies have
even acknowledged this fact implicitly. Game manuals are frequently quite skinny, limiting
themselves to a cursory description of the most basic commands. Players are encouraged to
ask questions in the game and to rely on the players’ community for knowledge.
Although it is not an explicit goal of MMORPGs, social learning nonetheless occurs all the
time as a normal feature of participation in a “community of practice In the course of playing
the game, there are a multitude of opportunities for social interactions with other players and
through these “situated learning” occurs.
Opportunities for situated learning in the MMORPG we have examined fall into four
categories or modes of social learning:
• In-game, in-context discussions.
The social nature of MMORPGs is due in great part to their communication infrastructure. All
MMORPGs offer, at a minimum, a textual chat system similar to IRC. It is used by the
players to communicate whenever something of interest happens in the game. This allows
for a tight feedback loop between the events happening on the screen and the comments of
the members of a group. In other words, MMORPGs allow information to be exchanged “on
demand and just in time, not out of the contexts of actual use”– a central principle of good
learning environments.
• Out-game, out-of-context discussions.
Communication between the players does not stop when the game is over. Instead, the
game spills out into forums and websites, some maintained by the game producers, and
some entirely player-created. These discussions are also important occasions for knowledge
transfer. Players can be producers of knowledge and not simply consumers .
• Observation.
27
Most of the game’s activities are accomplished in plain view of other players.
Players learn a great deal simply by watching what other players do. Observing activities in a
densely populated spot allows the players to engage in “legitimate peripheral participation”.
• In-situ teaching.
For many in-game practices, asking about them, reading about them, and observing them
are not enough. Learning to do them oneself requires practice and teaching from a more
experienced player. We found episodes of direct teaching between players to be quite
common.
In learning the game community’s shared culture and practices, players draw on all four of
these modes of social learning.
Although Lave and Wenger point out the centrality of practice in social learning, they say
surprising little about particular practices within which learning can be situated. In the
remainder of this paper, we drill down on such shared practices in EQOA. Furthermore, we
highlight the potential these practices provide for learning basic social skills in addition to
learning the particular game practices themselves. In this vein we identify three types of
social interaction that are most important for becoming a competent member of the game
community:
• Self-organization among players:
As we mentioned earlier, accomplishing the game’s objectives requires coordination among
players. For this players must organize themselves into small groups. Activities such as
group creation, group maintenance, and group disbanding are important moments where the
players can observe and learn how to behave as a member of the game community.
• Instrumental coordination:
This covers moments in the game when players have to work together as a team to
accomplish the game’s objectives.
Being able to perform a role reliably is a mark of
a player’s social competence.
• Sociability:
This includes things such as humor (or its absence), small talk, players “catching up” with
each other. This is as important to social cohesion, if not more, than instrumental
coordination.
We will now describe how social skills are acquired and demonstrated (or not) during these
three types of interactions and four types of contexts. We will illustrate how successful and
unsuccessful social learning happens through several example of player- to- player
interaction extracted from our video data.
28
• Guilds and emergent culture
Guilds are a persistent association of players that gather up together in order to receive
mutual benefits or to reach a common goal. This kind of social structure deals, in order to
exist and to reach its goal, with game dynamics and rules. It has been observed that this
process lead to the emergence of specific “sub cultures” that are shared within guild
members or MMOs players. This specific guild cultures can be rather vast and complex and
can apply far beyond the borders of the game. Especially observing MMOs guilds it’s easy to
note that the game experience is larger than what happen online during the game sessions.
Every guild, from the smallest to the largest, has some kind of online space to enhance
collaboration between members or to coordinate the activities of the guild. While many other
extra-game tools (such as game guides, cheats collection etc.) used to enhance the game
experience can easily be defined as paratextual elements the status of these tools is more
uncertain. While they obviously enhance the game experience by making group coordination much easier at the same time they don’t have the game as main text but the
relations and the social structures that take place within the game. Many guilds have active
forums or mailing list where they can speak about the game but also about general real life
issues. While all this interconnected activities that happens online makes it hard to define
where the game begins and ends, problematizing the magic circle, it appears evident that
MMOs and guilds are an interesting object of studies for social network research. MMOs, at
large, have been observed and described using the concept of third place showing that they
seems to work as a viable place for social capital construction able to improve the bridging
process At the same time guild status is more uncertain. While has been noticed that they
are able to act ad a place for easy conversation between members similar to what happens
in a third place other studies seems to point out that “as gamers becomes more involved in
long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more hardcore the
function of MMOs as third place begins to wane.” This paper aims to contribute to this
ongoing debate by investigating a part of guild culture that has been surprisingly not studied
until now: conflicts and how these are handled within guilds. By studying conflicts, where
they generate in game dynamics and how they are handled by guild culture and formal rules,
this paper aims also to start investigating how the power, defined as the power to influence
or force someone’s action, is redefined within MMOs.
Is it really destroying the player’s real life or it improves
it?(with users opinions)
• Who Plays MMORPGs?
Many MMORPG users have stable careers and families of their own [28]. 50% of
respondents (n = 2846) worked full-time, 36% were married, and 22% had children. The
data showed that teenagers, college students, early adult professionals, middle-aged
29
homemakers, as well as retirees were part of these environments. Indeed, these seemingly
disparate demographic groups would oftentimes be collaborating and working together to
achieve the same goals similar to the ones mentioned earlier. This finding is particularly
striking given that these disparate demographic groups seldom collaborate in any real life
situation.
• Time Investment
The demographic reality of these environments is important to establish to frame the
significance of the following data on usage patterns. Users spend on average 22.72 hours (n
= 5471, SD = 14.98) each week in their chosen MMORPG. The lower quartile and upper
quartile boundaries were 11 and 30 respectively.
The distribution showed that about 8% of users spend 40 hours per week or more in these
environments – the equivalent of a normal work week. The significant amount of time that
users are willing to invest in these environments is further highlighted by the finding that
60.9% of respondents (n = 3445) had spent at least 10 hours continuously in an MMORPG.
The correlation between age and hours spent per week was not significant, implying that the
appeal of these environments is comparable for high-school students, middle-aged
professionals and retirees.
• Emotional Investment
The appeal and salience of these environments is further demonstrated by the degree that
users are emotionally invested in their avatars and the environment. When respondents
were asked whether the most positive experience they had experienced over the period of
the past 7 days or the past 30 days occurred in an MMORPG or in real-life, 27% of
respondents (n = 2170) indicated that the most satisfying experience over the past 7 days
occurred in the game, and 18% of respondents indicated the same when the wording was
changed to “over the past 30 days”. With regards to the most negative event, 33% of
respondents indicated that the most negative experience over the past 7 days occurred in
the game, and 23% of respondents indicated the same when the wording was changed to
“over the past 30 days”.
Open-ended questions asking users to elaborate on examples of these experiences drew
responses that revolved around interactions with other users [31]. Typical positive
experiences involved an unexpected altruistic or courageous action by another user.
He showed rare courage by staying until everyone was clear, including me, knowing that he
would probably not make it out alive. That was the most selfless thing I had seen done
before or since. He stayed, knowing the corpse retrieval that awaited him, the experience he
would lose, and the wasted time he was about to experience because of it. He could have
run and lived, but he didn’t for our sakes. When you make sacrifices for people, they will
remember, and the best groups are those built on loyalty, self-sacrifice, and courage. [male,
32]
On the other hand, typical negative experiences involved the selfish actions of other users,
or actions or behaviours that constituted an attack on the competence or self-worth of a
user.
30
“I was playing my enchanter at the time, and his partner turned out to be an enchanter, a level higher
than I was. I was medding up after buffing the group and switching my spells back to hunting/guarding
spells, when the new enchanter started casting everything I had just cast, overwriting everything I had
done, telling the group what to do and commenting on how they obviously hadn't had a chanter with
them who knew how to take care of their group and they were lucky he was there, he'd make sure they
didn't get into TOO much trouble. I disbanded and headed for the zone, in tears of frustration. To be
overwritten, pushed aside, and belittled was unbearable. [female, 36]”
What is clear is that these environments encourage both time and emotional investment
from the users, and that users derive salient emotional experiences from these
environments.
• Motivations
The usage patterns of users force us to examine what makes these environments so
appealing. What motivates users to become so invested in these environments? User
responses expose the varied and multi-faceted reasons for why users engage in these
environments.
After many weeks of watching I found myself interested in the interactions between people in the game, it
was totally absorbing!!!! The fact that I was able to immerse myself in the game and relate to other
people or just listen in to the 'chatter' was appealing. [female, 34]
I play MMORPGs with my husband as a source of entertainment. Overall it can be a cheaper form of
entertainment where you can spend quite a bit of time with a significant other. To play well you end up
developing more ways of communicating. [female, 31]
I like the whole progression, advancement thing ... gradually getting better and better as a player, being
able to handle situations that previously I wouldn’t have been able to. [male, 48]
No one complains about jobs or other meaningless things. It's a great stress reducer. I like that I can be
someone else for a couple hours. [female, 28]
Currently, I am trying to establish a working corporation within the economic boundaries of the virtual
world. Primarily, to learn more about how real world social theories play out in a virtual economy. [male,
30]
Having an empirical framework of articulating motivational differences between users is the
foundation to understanding the emergence of more complex behaviours and interactions in
these environments. This framework provides the foundation to explore whether different
sections of the demographic are motivated differently, and whether certain motivations are
more highly correlated with usage patterns or in-game preferences or behaviours.
In an attempt to create an empirical framework for articulating motivations for MMORPG
usage, a series of 40 statements covering a broad range of motivations were generated
based on open-ended responses as well as Bartle’s [32] theoretical framework of “Player
Types” based on his experience in MUDs.
Examples of the resulting items include: “I like to feel powerful in the game,” and “I like to be
immersed in a fantasy world.” These statements were presented using a 5-point Likert-type scale and
then analysed using an exploratory factor analysis to arrive at a parsimonious representation of the
associations among the 40 items [28].
The analysis produced five factors. The “Relationship” factor measures the desire of users to
interact with other users, and their willingness to form meaningful relationships that are
supportive in nature, and which include a certain degree of disclosure of real-life problems
and issues. The “Manipulation” factor measures how inclined a user is to objectify other
users and manipulate them for his personal gains and satisfaction. Users who score high on
the “Manipulation” factor enjoy deceiving, scamming, taunting and dominating other users.
Users who score high on the “Immersion” factor enjoy being in a fantasy world as well as
31
being “someone else”. They enjoy the story-telling aspect of these worlds and enjoy creating
avatars with histories that extend and tie in with the stories and lore of the world. The
“Escapism” factor measures how much a user is using the virtual world to temporarily avoid,
forget about and escape from real-life stress and problems. And finally, the “Achievement”
factor measures the desire to become powerful in the context of the virtual environment
through the achievement of goals and accumulation of items that confer power.
It was found that male users score higher than female users on Achievement and
Manipulation, whereas female users scored significantly higher on the Relationship,
Immersion and Escapism factors. In other words, male users are more likely to engage in
these environments to achieve objective goals, whereas female users are more likely to
engage in MMORPGs to form relationships and become immersed in a fantasy environment.
These gender differences resonate with findings by Cassell and Jenkins [33] and suggest
that MMORPGs do not have one set of factors that appeals to everyone equally well, but
instead, have a host of appealing factors each of which draws in users with different
motivations. With regard to how these motivations related to usage patterns, among male
users, age was inversely correlated with the Manipulation (r = -.33, p < .001) and
Achievement (r = -.27, p < .001) factors, implying that younger male users tend to objectify
both the environment and other users for their own personal gains. Among female users,
age was inversely correlated with the Manipulation (r = -.15, p < .001) and Immersion (r = .13, p < .001) factors.
The articulation of the different reasons why users engage in these environments allow
researchers to explore usage preferences and behaviors in relation to the motivations of the
user in addition to gender and age differences. It is simply not the case that all users engage
in these environments for the same reason.
• Relationships in MMORPGs
When asked to compare the quality of their MMORPG friendships with their material world
relationships, 39.4% of male respondents (n = 2971) and 53.3% of female respondents (n =
420) felt that their MMORPG friends were comparable or better than their material world
friends,15.7% of male respondents (n = 2991) and 5.1% (n = 420) of female respondents
had physically dated someone who they first met in an MMORPG, both platonic and
romantic relationships seem to occur with significant frequency in MMORPG. This finding
resonates with Walther’s of the hyperpersonal effects of computer-mediated communication
(CMC). Indeed, the ingredients that Walther proposed for hyperpersonal interactions –
interactions that are more intimate, more intense, more salient because of the
communication channel – all exist in MMORPGs. First, the communication channel allows
the sender to optimize their self-presentation because interactants do not have to respond in
real-time. Second, the receiver forms an impression of the sender by inflating the few pieces
of information that the sender has optimized. Third, participants can reallocate cognitive
resources typically used to maintain socially acceptable non-verbal gestures in faceto- face
interactions and focus on the structure and content of the message itself, which comes
across as more personal and articulate. Finally, as interactants respond to personal
messages with equally personal and intimate messages, the idealized impressions and more
personal interactions intensify through reciprocity. The cumulative effect is that the
interaction becomes more intimate and positive.
32
It has also been suggested that there are factors unique to MMORPGs that facilitate
relationship formation The kind of high-stress crisis scenario outlined earlier in the chapter
occur with great frequency in these environments under different guises. When paired with
the degree of emotional investment users place in these environments, many relationships
are in fact triggered by these trustbuilding scenarios, analogous to boot camps and fraternity
initiations in the material world.
To succeed in EQ you need to form relationships with people you can trust. The game does a wonderful
job of forcing people in this situation. [male, 29]
Real life rarely offers this opportunity as technological advances mean we have little reliance
on others and individuals are rarely thrown into life-or-death situations. While it may appear
that meeting other users with compatible personalities and interests seems like finding a
needle in a haystack in these environments, users are in fact pre-selected for compatibility.
36% of employed respondents (n = 1099) work in the IT industry, and 68% of respondents (n
= 3415) have experience with table-top role-playing games. IT workers are typically
analytical and rational; RPG players are typically imaginative and idiosyncratic. Both tend to
be non-conformist. MMORPG environments are a very specific form of entertainment –
gradual advancement via avatars in a fantasy medieval or futuristic world with other users.
Thus, in fact, MMORPG users are probably similar in more ways than not.
And finally, the fantastical metaphors employed in these environments encourage
idealizations that parallel cultural myths of chivalric romance – knights in shining armor,
clerics with glowing auras. Thus, these metaphors also encourage idealization in addition to
the underlying inflated sense of compatibility due to hyperpersonal interactions. MMORPGs
are environments where users are in fact falling in love with knights in shining armor.
The MMORPG relationship is inexplicably more romantic, more epic, more dramatic ... [female,16]
MMORPG environments allow us to think about how the mechanics and functional
constraints of a constructed world could be used to engineer the relationships that form User
dependencies, the mechanics of death, and other structures all play a role in encouraging or
discouraging relationships to form in these environments. MMORPGs allow us to ask
questions about how the mechanics of a world influence the communities that form instead
of focusing on individual interactions.
• Romantic Partners and Family Members
There is a very different kind of relationship “formation” that can be explored in MMORPGs.
Many MMORPG users participate in the environment with a romantic partner or family
members. 15.8% of male respondents (n = 1589) and 59.8% of female respondents (n =
311) participate in the environment with a romantic partner, while 25.5% of male
respondents and 39.5% of female respondents participate in the environment with a family
member – a sibling, parent or child [28]. Open-ended responses from these users indicate
that their online relationships shape, influence and allow them to explore their material world
relationships.
Many romantic couples who participate in the environment together commented on how the
environment highlighted their individual differences. For these users, the MMORPG
environment reflected and accentuated differences in their personalities and worldviews.
Our styles are totally different. For instance, I will rather play in a group just for company, even if the exp
gain is minimal, whereas my partner tends to literally AVOID other players. I am often a pushy roleplayer, forcing others to RP or get out of my face. Thus I am unafraid of starting an argument, whether in
/say, /tell or even /shout. This seems to make my partner very uncomfortable. For these reasons, if we are
playing together we try very hard to compromise.
33
However, I insist on having 'solo' characters that I only play on my own. I tend to find his gaming style
restrictive. [female, 23, engaged]
I would say rather than having learned something new about him, it was more like it emphasized
differences between us that I already knew about. He is very patient, I am very impulsive, etc.
And these differences are a lot more apparent in a game situation. [female, 27, dating]
For other romantic partners, the MMORPG environment not only reveals individual
differences, but it also comes to shape the relationship itself.
Like children who play dolls to explore social situations and different perspectives, EQ enables us to
look at issues of dependence/independence, and gender perceptions. It's increased the equanimity
between us, and brought us closer through exercises in trust that transcend in game terms, class, level,
and gender. We will discuss game scenarios and learn from each other’s perception (i.e., when to run).
After 3 years of playing together we are a well-oiled machine, and can lead a group, follow or solo
together or apart. [female, 34, married]
Our relationship has definitely been enhanced. We're better now at working together towards goals. And
we both really enjoy growing, learning and adventuring together. It's exciting to be involved in each
other's triumphs. [female, 29, married]
Parents and their children who participate in these environments provide another
perspective on how the MMORPG environment interacts with existing relationships. Many
parents commented on how the environment allowed them to observe their children in social
interactions that they usually had no access
to in the material world. For them, the MMORPG environment became a window into parts of
their children’s identity that they hadn’t known about before.
I learned that my son is a very good strategist. I knew that to a degree before, but it has been eye
opening to watch him lead a group. I did not know he had these skills. [female, 49]
It added depth and clarity to many traits that I knew they had to see how they presented themselves in a
different environment. Since I am pretty much removed from their circle of friends and can't watch them
at school, EQ provides a window into their behavior outside of the house [female, 37]
I found that my son handles himself in a very mature manner. (He's 13 now). I have also been told by
many other players that know of our relationship how courteous and well-spoken he is. [male, 49]
Other parents commented that the MMORPG environment has allowed them to transcend
the strict roles of parent-child relationships in a rewarding way. The MMORPG environment
not only shapes these relationships, but in fact restructures them by allowing the participants
to redefine the boundaries of their material world roles.
I think it has enhanced our relationship, we both treat each other more like equals and partners in our
private life. It is much easier to talk to her now and I have found her talking to me about much more of
her life and ideas. [female, 40]
Yes, playing EQ with my daughter has been very enjoyable, and I have learned more about my daughter’s
personality as she treats me as a friend on EQ and not a parent. [female, 40]
Thus, MMORPG environments are not only places where new relationships are engineered,
but in fact are windows into existing relationships as well as catalysts for the restructuring of
roles in those relationships.
• Role Exploration and Skill Transfer
Turkle articulated how MUDs allow users to explore new roles and identities. MMORPG
environments are also used for these purposes.
34
In reality I'm an Army Officer, very assertive and aggressive. In MMORPGs I'm more like I wish I could be,
quiet, introspective and sensitive of other's feelings. Taking on different roles has also taught me to 'walk
a mile' in other shoes before judging - not useful as an army officer, perhaps, but very useful in
becoming a quality human being. [male, 42]
When I play my male characters, other male members of the party will listen to me better, take me more
seriously. In my male form I could give orders and have them listened to, where as a female, my
characters aren't always taken quite as seriously. Also, where my female characters were given many
gifts by random players when they were young, I didn't see it happening with my males, which I didn't
mind at all. I've enjoyed the higher level of "respect" for my abilities that seems to come with playing in a
male body. [female, 22]
But beyond exploring how MMORPGs can shape the identities of individuals, these highly
social and structured environments also allow us to explore whether certain valuable skills
learned in an MMORPG can transfer to the material world.
Personal advancement in MMORPGs typically involves collaboration among groups of users
in an attempt to achieve a challenging task. Thus, a prime candidate for acquired skills is
leadership skills. In emergent groups within the MMORPG environment, leaders deal with
both administrative as well as higher-level strategy issues, most of which arise and have to
be dealt with spontaneously. Administrative tasks include: role assignment, task delegation,
crisis management, logistical planning, and how rewards are to be shared among group
members. Higher-level strategy tasks include: motivating group members, dealing with
negative attitudes, dealing with group conflicts, as well as encouraging group loyalty and
cohesion. These issues are even more salient in long-term social groups, such as guilds,
which have formalized membership and rank assignments. In other words, MMORPGs
provide many opportunities for short-term and long-term leadership experiences. As one
user notes,
I've never been one who is particularly comfortable with a leadership role in real life. In the game, friends
and I left another guild that no longer suited us for various reasons and formed our own. I was
approached by several of these friends to assume leadership of the guild and agreed, even though I was
uncertain of my suitability. I've grown more accustomed now to directing various aspects of running the
guild and providing a vision and leadership to the members. Follow-up and assertiveness now feel more
natural to me even in real life. It has been an amazing opportunity to push myself beyond my boundaries
and a rewarding experience. [female, 46]
This sentiment is shared by many users. In the survey study [28], 10% of users felt they had
learned a lot about mediating group conflicts, motivating team members, persuading others,
and becoming a better leader in general, while 40% of users felt that they had learned a little
of the mentioned skills. This is striking given that these environments are not structured
pedagogically to teach leadership. Acquisition of leadership skills in these environments is in
fact an emergent phenomenon. But more importantly, these findings demonstrate that reallife skills can be acquired or improved upon in these environments.
Certainly, self-reported assessments are not robust assessments, but these findings lay the
foundation for more controlled studies of the acquisition of complex social skills in these
environments.
• Problematic Usage
As mentioned in the section on time investment, 8% of users spend 40 hours or more in
these environments, and 70% have spent at least 10 hours continuously in an MMORPG in
one sitting. Both quantitative and qualitative data suggest that a small, but significant, group
of users suffer from dependence and withdrawal symptoms [37].
I am addicted to EQ and I hate it and myself for it. When I play I sit down and play for a minimum of 12
hours at a time, and I inevitably feel guilty about it, thinking there a large number of things I should be
doing instead, like reading or furthering my education or pursuing my career. But I can't seem to help
myself, it draws me in every time. I have been out of work now for over a month and now find myself in a
35
stressful, depressed state that is only quelled when I am playing EQ, because it's easy to forget about
real world troubles and problems, but the problem is when you get back to the real world, problems and
troubles have become bigger, and it's a bad, bad cycle. I've tried quitting seriously on several occasions.
There are serious withdrawal pangs, anxiety, and a feeling of being lost and not quite knowing what next
to do with yourself. [male, 26]
On 5-point Likert scales, 15% of respondents (n = 3989) agreed or strongly agreed that they
become angry and irritable if they are unable to participate. 30% agreed or strongly agreed
that they continue to participate in the environment even when they are frustrated with it or
not enjoying the experience. And 18% of users agreed or strongly agreed that their usage
patterns had caused them academic, health, financial or relationship problems. Agreement
with the mentioned statements was significantly positively correlated with average weekly
use of the environment. Even more striking, 50% of respondents (n = 3166) considered
themselves addicted to an MMORPG in a direct “yes”/”no” question.
While it may be difficult to draw a line between healthy and unhealthy usage of these
environments, it is clear that certain users are engaged in problematic usage of these
environments.
While the design of these environments, such as the sophisticated reward cycles based on
operant conditioning paradigms [38], certainly plays a role in engaging users in problematic
usage, it would be overly-simplistic to focus entirely on the architecture of the environment
itself. After all, that perspective fails to account for why only certain users engage in
problematic usage. It also fails to take into account that different users are motivated to
participate in the environment for different reasons. One proposed model of problematic
usage [37] approaches the environment as a place where many common anxieties can be
overcome. For example, users who have low self-esteem can become powerful and
competent in these environments and they are driven to achieve in these environments as a
way of overcoming anxieties they have in the material world. Or for example, users who feel
undervalued in the material world can become needed and valued members of groups or
guilds. Users with poor self-image can choose to be as attractive and physically fit as they
desire. Users with low internal locus-of-control gain a stronger sense of agency in these
environments. Users with stressful problems can use these environments as escape. In
short, these environments are seductive for some users because it empowers them in ways
specific to their anxieties.
• Online Environments as Potential Social Science Research
Platforms
The structure and design of these environments make them good candidates for a host of
alternative uses for social scientists. For example, traditional personality assessment
techniques are typically transparent and reactive. Because actions in massively multi-user
online environments can be tracked unobtrusively by the server, every users’ attitudes and
personalities may be tracked using behavioral measures. And because users are personally
invested in their avatars and the environment, every decision they make is personally
revealing. The length and frequency of utterances, as well as the breadth and depth of a
user’s social network can all be meticulously measured and tracked over long periods of
time. This database of measures provides rich longitudinal profiles of individual users as well
as how they rank amongst a large sample of other users. One could think of MMO
environments as a gold-mine of personality data as well as a platform to develop unobtrusive
personality assessment tools.
The arguments that Blascovich et al. make for the use of immersive virtual reality technology
as a methodological tool for social psychology can also be applied to MMORPG
36
environments. The movements, interactions and preferences of large numbers of users can
all be tracked unobtrusively and recorded. For example, one could implement a transformed
social interaction [40, see also Chapter X of this volume], such as non-zero-sum gaze, on
one MMORPG server and use another server for control, and track the aggregate changes
in mean length of utterances or topology of social networks. The
MMORPG environment allows us to answer social psychology questions on a social level
rather than an individual level. How does non-zero-sum gaze or other transformed social
interactions reshape social networks, alter the flow of information, or affect trust (Fukuyama,
1996) in a social organization? As social organizations proliferate in MMORPG
environments, research in transformed social interactions becomes even more important as
it will inform us of how designers could engineer these environments to encourage the
formation of strong and trusting social networks.
Conclusion
Our virtual identities and experiences are not separate from our identities and experiences in
the material world. They co-evolve as they shape each other. MMORPGs are not a new form
of play as much as a new communication medium that affords new forms of social identity
and social interaction.
While typical VR environments try to replicate human avatars in contemporary physical
locations, MMORPGs offer fantastical avatars and worlds. After all, if you could be anyone
anywhere, would you choose to be exactly who you were? This tension begs the broader
question – Given that we are not constrained to human forms or modes of movement and
interaction that are bound by laws of physics, why do we insist on replicating them? If the
body is merely the original prosthesis [41], can we not think “outside of the body”? Insisting
on visual veridicality also forces us to abandon interesting issues in selfrepresentations.
What might decisions in virtual self-representation tell us about users? The strong appeal of
these environments also has interesting implications. MMORPGs do not only appeal only to
teenagers. They are online environments where young professional adults, middle-aged
home-makers and retirees interact and collaborate on a daily basis. More importantly, the
average MMORPG user spends more than half a work week in these environments. As
more people engage in online environments instead of watching TV, it raises interesting
questions with regard to Gerbner’s cultivation theory [42]. Gerbner found that heavy TV
viewers have a worldview that overestimates violence and the percentage of legalenforcement workers in the general population due to their overrepresentation in TV content.
Might certain worldviews be cultivated by heavy exposure to online environments? For
example, users are given a high degree of control and agency in MMORPGs, and all events
are based on underlying numeric variables. So it might make sense to ask whether heavy
37
users have a stronger internal locus of control, or apply a more closed-system perspective
on thinking about events in the material world.
The data presented also explored how virtual environments impact relationship formation in
different ways. Not only can these environments facilitate formation of relationships, but they
are also windows into and catalysts in existing relationships. More importantly, relationships
can be thought of as being engineered by the architecture of the environment. For example,
what are the potential effects of transformed social interaction [40] on social interactions at a
community level? It also leads us to wonder how a community in the material world could be
shaped by allowing them to interact in an engineered virtual environment.
The excessive usage exhibited by certain MMORPG users might appear problematic at first,
but in fact forces us to ask whether the mechanisms of appeal in MMORPGs could be
harnessed for pedagogical purposes. Story-path curriculums, used in certain schools,
embed the syllabus of each term in an ongoing hypothetical setting, such as an iron-forging
village in 19th century England. Every student takes on the role of a member of the village,
such as blacksmith, pastor or farmer, and the syllabus material is woven into relevant tasks
that the villagers encounter. For example, basic algebra may be embedded into a task that
tried to optimize ratios of profitable crops, while social policy material may be embedded into
a town meeting over a local epidemic of scarlet fever. The goal is to increase interest in
learning by making the material personally relevant to students. The structure of MMORPGs
are well-suited for story-path curriculums, and in fact, would also allow classes from different
schools to inhabit different villages and create a larger social community that worked
together to resolve conflicts or achieve common goals.
Finally, MMORPGs also blur the distinction between work and play in intriguing ways. Case
studies of virtual real-estate brokers [43] are one of many compelling examples of how digital
media blur the distinction between work and play. These users sell virtual real-estate (as well
as virtual weaponry and currency) for real-life currency on auction sites such as eBay. More
compelling are the “sweatshops” in developing nations that hire youths to generate profit by
accumulating these virtual goods and currency and then selling them for real-life currency
[44]. In this case, work and play are indistinguishable. As
Andrejevic [45] has pointed out, interactive media creates digital enclosures that allow work
to be performed under the guise of entertainment. For example, in There.com, brand-name
fashion designers use the environment as a marketing test-bed for new clothing designs.
Sales of the test products and whether users who have large social networks buy them are
aggregated automatically. The irony is that not only do these users have to pay a monthly
fee to subscribe to the environment, but they are performing free labor for a third-party
corporation. As these environments become more sophisticated, we can imagine them
transforming into predominantly sites of economic activity under the guise of interactive
entertainment.
We have seen that MMORPG users become highly invested in these environments, and that
serious social phenomena occur in these environments that can create, shape and
restructure relationships in the material world. Everyday, millions of users log on to worlds
like Corbantis, performing highly-specialized and complex tasks, interacting and
collaborating with each other through avatars. Some of them are accumulating virtual real
estate to trade for US dollars. Some are married to people they have never met.
Some are collaborating with their children to produce advanced pharmaceuticals, while
others are planning a mayoral campaign. Indeed, if we are interested in the social lives of
avatars, the citizens of worlds like Corbantis have a great deal they can tell us.
38
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http://www.cpyu.org/Page.aspx?id=227456
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http://whatculture.com/gaming/5-reasons-not-to-play-mmorpgs.php/3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_massively_multiplayer_online_games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_video_game
http://www.devilsmmo.com/blog/history-mmo-games-part-i
Books
Luca Rossi (2011). MMORPG Guilds as online communities. Power, Space and Time: from fun to
engagement in virtual worlds. Carlo Bo: Advanced Commmunication Lab. - University of Urbino. 10.
Nicholas Yee (2006). The Psychology of Massively Multi-User Online Role-Playing Games:
Motivations, Emotional Investment, Relationships and Problematic Usage. London: Springer-Verlag.
31.
Nicolas Ducheneaut and Robert J. Moore (2005). More than just ‘XP’: learning social skills in
massively multiplayer online games. USA: Interactive Technology & Smart Education (2005) 2: 89–
100 © 2005 Troubador Publishing Ltd.. 92-97.
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