Digital Culture, Play, and Identity Corneliussen, Hilde G; Rettberg, Jill Walker; Rettberg, Scott ...
2008, 2011-09-30, 2011-09-23, 20080101
eBook
Exploring World of Warcraft as both cultural phenomenon and game, with contributions by writers and researchers who have immersed themselves in the WoW gameworld.
World of Warcraft (WoW) Classic (released August 2019) allows players to return to the original game experience. This study considers how WoW players experience game content through media nostalgia ...and sense of place and investigates how social presence impacts these components of experience. Survey questions addressed 306 participants’ experiences in WoW, feelings of nostalgia and sense of place in Azeroth, and experiences with social presence in WoW; open-ended questions were asked about their motivations to play WoW. Prior overall WoW experience and higher sense of social presence increase personal nostalgia scores (replicating previous research). Sense of place scores increased with higher sense of social presence but were overall lower for current WoW Classic players. Social presence proved an important component of both personal nostalgia and sense of place. These findings expand and extend researchers’ understanding of the relationships between nostalgia, sense of place, and social presence within this unique site of study.
Este ensayo estudia la narratividad y el mito en el videojuego. Para ello, se explora la relevancia de los elementos narrativos en este soporte, como los personajes y el espacio, con la inclusión de ...una característica única: la interacción. A partir de la conexión del videojuego con las historias espaciales, como la fantasía épica, se profundiza en la relevancia del mito en los videojuegos de mundo abierto para proponer una clasificación de mitos en este soporte: los mitos textuales, más cercanos a la tradición y que se expresan en código textual; los mitos ambientales, resultado de la condición hipermedial del videojuego y la conducta arqueológica del jugador; y los mitos performativos, creados por el jugador con sus decisiones y movimiento. Por último, se desarrolla esta propuesta mediante el breve análisis de dos videojuegos de mundo abierto: World of Warcraft y Dark Souls III.
The number of online game players continues to grow, as well as the number of hours spent in online world. World of Warcraft (WoW) is one of the most popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing ...Games (MMORPG). It is set in an elaborate fictional world, in which players achieve goals through interaction and mutual communication. The present study verified differences in experiencing loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale) and social anxiety (Social Phobia Inventory) in WoW players in online and real world (offline) since these two worlds and the functioning of the players in them differ. In the sample consisting of 161 players, it was found that players experience a significantly lower degree of loneliness and social anxiety in online than in real world. The lower degree of loneliness experienced was also associated with playing with friends and known people, with guild membership, as well as frequent communication with teammates through VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services. The results suggest that WoW is a highly social environment that encourages cooperation, communication and friendship.
•WoW players experience online less social anxiety than in real world.•WoW players experience online less loneliness than in real world.•Guild members experience less loneliness online than not members of a guild.•Players communicating with others more frequently experience less loneliness online.•Playing with a known people is associated with experience of less loneliness.
Research on games from a queer perspective presents a multidisciplinary field open to discussion with various dimensions. According to some studies, although virtual worlds are designed as ...heteronormative, they are inherently queer. This multi-method research evaluates the player experience of 15 LGBTIQ + players from Turkey within World of Warcraft (WoW). This study mainly explores participants’ behaviors, attitudes, and engagement in-game grounded on an analysis framework that consists of eight constructs in three consequent stages. Further, while investigating how game mechanics and narrative affect their player experience, we also question whether there is a possibility for a queer-play. Findings indicated that WoW is considered limiting regarding game mechanics with a gender binary restriction. Nevertheless, participants reported that there are always queergaming possibilities with the possible queer connections in-game.
A sociedade está se tornando cada vez mais virtual e centralizada. Um pequeno número de grandes corporações controla os mercados de bens e serviços: o Uber assume os táxis, o Airbnb e o Booking - o ...mercado de hotéis, e o Facebook é quase a única rede social de massa global, o mesmo está acontecendo com o mundo dos jogos online. No entanto, os usuários não estão prontos para serem influenciados pelos fabricantes de jogos. Abordar-se-á como funciona o mercado negro de ouro virtual, as formas como este mercado influência a vida real e se o mercado virtual pode mudar nossa situação econômica.
We document the norms and practices of a “casual raiding guild” pursuing a balanced approach to World of Warcraft gaming under the banner “offline life matters.” Confirming insights in the ...problematic online gaming literature, our ethnography reveals that some guild members experience gaming distress. However, this guild’s normative culture helps its members better self-regulate and thus protect themselves from, among other things, their own impulses to over-play and thus compromise their offline lives. We suggest that cognitive anthropological “culture as socially transmitted knowledge” theories—combined with ethnographic methods—illuminate how socially learned gaming patterns shape online experiences. Our approach helps us refine theories judging socially motivated Internet activity as harmful. We affirm the potential for distress in these social gaming contexts, but we also show how a specific guild culture can minimize or even reverse such distress, in this case promoting experiences that strike a nice balance between thrill and comradery.
This article analyzes the configuration of fear generated by the computational monster in computer games. We view the monster as a computational entity, which we approach through our theory of ...game-play coupled with the concepts of loss aversion and endowment effect. Of particular interest is player perception of the threat posed by monsters as they perturb the experience of progression and the sensation of control within the game. We scrutinize this aspect from a situational as well as an existential perspective. Furthermore, we advance an analytical scheme of the threat of the computational monster, which is radically different from the traditional academic approach with its emphasis on the representation of monsters. Overall, we argue that the threat players perceive when facing monsters in computer games springs more from the computational nature of monsters—how they upset progression and the feeling of control—and less from the representation of the monster(s).
► We investigated World of Warcraft players’ motivations and in-game actions. ► In-game behaviours were measured by longitudinal monitoring of avatars. ► The value of studying personal motives to ...play MMORPGs online is supported. ► Fast progression is not necessarily associated with negative impacts on daily life. ► Teamwork and competition motives predicted fast progression in the game.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are video games in which players create an avatar that evolves and interacts with other avatars in a persistent virtual world. Motivations to play MMORPGs are heterogeneous (e.g. achievement, socialisation, immersion in virtual worlds). This study investigates in detail the relationships between self-reported motives and actual in-game behaviours. We recruited a sample of 690 World of Warcraft players (the most popular MMORPG) who agreed to have their avatar monitored for 8months. Participants completed an initial online survey about their motives to play. Their actual in-game behaviours were measured through the game’s official database (the Armory website). Results showed specific associations between motives and in-game behaviours. Moreover, longitudinal analyses revealed that teamwork- and competition-oriented motives are the most accurate predictors of fast progression in the game. In addition, although specific associations exist between problematic use and certain motives (e.g. advancement, escapism), longitudinal analyses showed that high involvement in the game is not necessarily associated with a negative impact upon daily living.
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