Self in Virtual and Real World: Exploration of Some Aspects of the Social Life of World of Warcaft Players. November 3, 2008
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There are many myths and misconceptions in the public mind concerning games and game players. Sometimes this stems from traditional beliefs about games or even from research based on a limited scope. Jenkins listed at least eight of these myths, (Jenkins, 2006) which include: games have led to an epidemic of youth violence; violent game play is linked with youth aggression; video game play is socially isolating. These myths also frequently connected to contemporary online games or usually called Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMO) or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games (MMORPGs).
Based on these misconceptions, this essay aims to explore the social life of the gamers, especially those who involved in MMO. To narrow the study, this essay focuses on one specific MMO, World of Warcraft. For this purpose, simple research is conducted by interviewing and giving series of written questions to 4 interview subjects who actively engaged in, World of Warcraft. This essay does not try to make generalisations from the results of the study, but to show that results are based on the existing experiences among the people who play WoW.
Participants were chosen randomly and are male – aged around 19-24 years old. To maintain participant anonymity, pen name or pseudonyms are used to address the participants. Participants’ names are John (19), Sam (22), Bill (24) and Peter (23). Three of the participants, John, Bill and Peter still have statuses as university students, while Sam has recently graduated and is in the early stages of his career. Participants’ involvement in the game range from 9 months until 5 years.
In the next part of the essay, several terms will be used continuously. Participant is the term that used refers to interview subject or interviewee. Actual world or real world is the term that refers to the physical environment where the participant lived. Virtual world is the term to address the game reality or the space where the participant exist while playing the game.
The exploration focus on four issues related to social life. The first part will talk about the relation of the character of the participant in game and character in real life. The second part will explore on the issue of the creativity of the participants in relation with WoW playing. The third part will focus on the condition of social relation and interaction of the participant as a result of playing WoW. The last part will explore time related experiences of the participant in playing WoW. These themes are discussed in the next part of the essay.
Character in the real world and character in the virtual world
Character is one of the aspects that frequently discussed when talking about games and gamers. In this essay, the term character refers to two aspects: personal trait of actual self in the real world and representation of self in the virtual world. There are several studies and research that try to explore character of the person who plays the game and the relation between character in real life and in virtual world.
Research conducted by Bessière, Seay, Kiesler tried to examine how the gamers explore the possibilities of the identity they want to present in online multi-player games (2006, p.1). They argue that online multi-player games nowadays offer appealing chances for the players to produce a representation of themselves through their character, and this enables the player to create a character that mirrors their idealised version. The research results show the relation of personality in the real world and character in virtual world are inexplicably linked. If players have low self-esteem and high Depressive Affect, they tend to create idealised character in the game virtual reality more than the players to have high self-esteem and low Depressive Affect (Bessière, 2006, p.6).
Research conducted by Blinka explored the relationship between the game and their avatar on different age groups, adolescent (12-19 years old) and adult (20-27 years old) (Blinka, 2008). He found that the younger player in the group strongly identified with their avatar, and did not differentiate themselves from the constructed character (avatar), as compared to the older players. He mentions there is “simple unity” between players and their avatars for adults – meaning that the player just sees the avatar is only part of the game mechanism or part of the entertainment, social efficacy, or social contact and nothing “more” than that (Blinka, 2008).
From the interview and from the data gathered on question list, there is a unique relation between the characters of participants in the real world with their gaming character. Bill said that he chose one specific character because it has a few resemblances with his actual character, but with no further connection. He chose the character as a “Elf Paladin” because he found that he likes to help other people. However, it does not make him fully attached to the character – he just sees the avatar as part of the game mechanism, not part of the actual life. There is also another reason for choosing the specific character, and that is for aesthetic reasons. Sam chose to create character to look aesthetic pleasing in the game and this is one of his priorities in the game. Peter even created several characters to enjoy more of the game. Since Bill, Sam and Peter are categorised adult according to Blinka’s research, this fact corresponds with the results of research. Adult people tend to have not so strong attachments with the characters in the game, compared with younger gamers.
The interview also attempts to see how close the relation and identification of the participant to their character in the virtual world. Participants were asked: which character they prefer between actual self of virtual self in term of personal trait, and which one they consider more accomplishes, in term of ability to achieve the objective. Three of the participants, John, Sam, Bill, said that they could still make distinctions about themselves in actual world and in the virtual world. They stated that self in real life is their preferences, although they also felt special connection with their character in virtual world. About the accomplishment, they see that the self in the real world is better than in virtual world. However, Peter sees that both of the character that he has in actual and virtual world is synchronous, and it overlay each other. He sees self in actual and virtual world work simultaneously.
Other information gathered in the question list regarded the identification of the participant of their character or type of playing in the game based on the simple taxonomy of Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) from Bartle (1996). The reason for using this taxonomy is based on the argument from Mortensen that said there are connections of the old version of the old version text-based multiplayer game with the highly visibility of World of Warcraft (2006, p.397). As Mortensen stated, “These connections rage from player style through game-play option to social interaction and player-controlled social modifiers within both types of the game” (2006, p.37). There simple taxonomy is applicable to identify the type pf playing in WoW.
The taxonomy consists of four groups player type, which are Achiever, Explorer, Socialiser and Killer (Bartle, 1996). Achiever is the type of player who considers points gathering and increasing level, as a main goal. For this type of player exploring, socialising and killing is something worth doing in regard of collecting more point. Peter identifies one of his characters in WoW in this type. Finishing raids and upgrades level are part of the game that he found more interesting in his game play. He said that he has several characters in the game and he set different character with different type of play. Achiever is one of the types of his avatar (character). Explorer is the type of player who prefers to reveal and discover the “machination” of the game. They continuously explore and find interesting feature of the game. Sam, Bill and Peter identify themselves in this type. Sam argued it is because he found quest time is most interesting part in the game and he have more fun just moving around and trying new things in game realm.
Furthermore, Socialiser is the player type that is more interested in people and aims to establish inter-player relationship. They treat the game as a backdrop, as a common place where everyone plays together. Bill also chose this type because he considers that it is essential in achieving objective in the game. Lastly, Killers are the type of player who gets fun from the game by inflicting other player. Based on this simple taxonomy from Bartle, two of the participant, Bill and Peter chose more than one type of playing. They see that there is no one exclusively type if player in one character. Their character in the game is the integration of two or more type in playing the game. Just one participant, John, did not identify his character with any of these categories while just playing the game – in which he played games just to kill time: with no connection to character whatsoever.
Creativity and Learning Process
It has been a long time since scholars and academicians recognised the importance of the game. Contrary to the assumptions that games are unproductive and children’s activities, they see that games and gameplay are related to something more significant. Huizinga, for instance, stated that “play is older than culture, for the culture always presupposes human society” (1995; p.97). He also mention that there several attempts by scholars to show that play is a form of exercise and preparation of young creature for the serious work that will demanded from them in their adult life (Huizinga, 1995, p.97). There are also other arguments that show playing game is one effective method in student learning. Denzin stated that play is a tool for preparing children for their socialisation purpose and teach them to cooperate and interact with each other (Denzin, 1975, p.458). David Hutchison, is the academician who propose the idea that through playing video games that suit for the classroom use, student can learn many academics subject such as mathematic, sciences, history, geography, social sciences, language, art and many more (Jenkins, 2007).
To see how all assumptions applied to the participants’ game activity, several questions were asked in the interview to identify how game related to their skill and creativity. When participants asked whether their game activity accommodates learning processes and enabled them to gain some skills from the game that would be useful in their real life, all the participants say they are learning and acquired some specific skill. The specific skills that they mentioned can be grouped into: social skill, self-management, mental ability, physical skill, artistic ability, and even technological skill.
Among all the groups, social skill is the dominant answer that most all the participant mentioned. It range from ability communicate online effectively, ability tolerate people, ability navigate social network, leadership skill (for guild leader to manage all the members), social etiquette, and even diplomacy skill. All the participants stated that this social skill is one of the important aspect to be able immerse in the game and achieve the objective in the game play. Moreover, social skills in the virtual game reality may shape social skills in daily life. Two participants, John and Sam, mention self-management is the ability that they learn from the game. They see by playing the game, they learn how they can set good time management, life balance and sort the priorities in life, although they admitted is not always applied successfully in the real life. In the case of self-management, they admitted that this is not something that they learn from the game exclusively. It is something that they acquire from the interaction of the game itself with the game paly situation.
Furthermore, Sam, Bill and Peter mentioned some skills related with mental ability. They mention skills such as creative thinking, logical thinking, determination, resourcefulness, and research skill. Peter said that determination and resourcefulness needed particularly in regard of achieving certain grinding level. In terms of mental skill, their statements are equivalent to Thomas and Brown analysis of the learning process in World of Warcraft (2007, p.155). According to them quest in this game timed to be completed within a specific set of time, usually 45 minutes to one hour. This feature requires the player to focus of developing analytic and critical thinking to solve the puzzle and complete the mission. The fact that pressures come from time limitation, also give the chance for improving ability in management skill and expand the a player’s awareness to discern interconnections of many aspect within those time limitation (Thomas and Brown, 2007, p.155).
Peter mentioned he could also gain artistic skills because WoW enabled him to shape his appreciation of different cultural art style modelled after real life. Not only that, game also shaped the appreciation even perhaps it just pure fantasy world. In addition, Peter also said that physical skill is other ability that he can gain from the game. He said that he could train reflexes ability and hand-eye coordination by playing the game. Lastly, he also mentioned technological skills, when he engage to one experience where he can see someone is able eventually to learn new skill in assemble computer starting from the demand to get new graphics card for playing activity. Even though he did not experience this by himself, but based on experiences, he identifies this as a skill that someone can get from playing activity.
Despite all the statements regarding acquiring those skill form the games, Peter mention another aspect to be considered, which is predisposition. He stated that these skills and ability might be not attained from the game exclusively. It is possible that the players already have the specific skill inherently, but it does not mean that the game have no influence at all. Instead, the game becomes a medium where the players explore and sharpen their ability form the existing predisposition. In other words, learning experience from the game is not isolated event, but it was “part of a shared social experience that involves joint, coordinated action with others and the participation in a culture of learning and knowing that both defines and is defined by the game” (Thomas and Brown, 2007, p.155).
The connection of how experiences in virtual world trough playing game is the sources of learning in real world, and dispositions in the real world become a source of creativity in virtual world, is what Thomas and Brown indicate as “Convergence” and “Divergence”. As they stated,
“What transfers in MMOG learning are not just information or skills, but dispositions and the ability to translate those dispositions from inside the game to outside the game through an act of imagination. That moment of transfer is a point of convergence when experiences in virtual worlds are shared among or between players and produce a trigger that allows the player’s imagination to transcend the boundary of the game. These triggers are objects that are experienced and that are recognizable as having significance both within the virtual world and within the physical world” (Thomas and Brown, 2007, p.162).
Convergence is the condition when the social and cultural experiences brought together to the virtual world to create meaningful play and achieve the process of creation in game play realm. Divergence is the process of transforming the experience in the game reality into learning. It is the process of intellectual growth and the way by which acknowledge the experience and draw useful lessons from it. Imagination is the tool for translating experience into learning. (Thomas and Brown, 2007, p.164). These processes are what Tomas and Brown argue as the core of learning process through MMO that distinguish it form other training and learning processes that already exist.
Social Relations and Interactions
One of the appealing factors that attract may people to play WoW is that the game design is equipped by a set of features that enable player to engage with other player to built social interaction and virtual social reality. This set of communication features in the game enables players to contact and interact with other players in multiple ways. Players can contact each other through email in built-in instant message. There is also communication facility where player can “whisper” and “yell” to another players. Most players used all this communications feature throughout the gameplay to interact with another players, communicate certain strategy, bargain, buy and sell item or just merely to start of conversation or to chat with other player (Forghani, et.al, 2006, p.15).
The most important part in this game is that after playing for certain amount of time, players soon will realise that they cannot do the game by themselves. There are specific tasks designed to make players not be able finish by themselves unless they work together and coordinate the action with other players. For this purpose, the game facilitates the players with groups where they can work together on quests and build more stable relationship through “the guild”. This is the unique part of the game design, which enables the players to come together in a group for a short time to achieve one specific objective – whether to finish the quest or to kill the monster or other enemies. Therefore, virtual social interactions are one of the requirements in order to survive in the game and make it inevitable in the game.
When the participants were asked about their interaction the virtual world of the game, each of the participants gives various responses. When they are asked about their partners or playmates in the game time, John and Bill said that most of their friends or partners in the virtual game world are their friend in real life. Bill even stated that one of reasons he joined WoW is to continue the friendship that he had with all friends in his home country. Thus the game become one medium to maintain the real life relation and extended it in the virtual world. The fact that they already knew each other in the real world makes it easier for them to communicate and coordinate action in the game time. Peter stated that even though he have same playmate with friend in the real life, they also make new relations through the virtual world. For him this game is a way to start a meaningful friendship. Peter even mentioned that one his relationship with another player in the game ended up to being great friends for more than 10 years.
In terms of discussion with other players, all the participants stated that to some extent they prefer to discuss the topic that limited to the game theme. They tend to discuss topic such as raids and memorable time in the game, quest, new task, objective in WoW, and occasionally talking about other games. Only Bill stated that he also sometimes discusses some topics or issues in the real life with another players, although he still have to considers the closeness of the relationship with them. In other words, he actively chooses the people he wants to share conversations with.
However, Sam stated that physical interaction is one of the important factors that determined whether he wants to take the relations or friendships go beyond the playing situation. He stated that he found it is hard to find genuine friends in the game due to the lack of physical interaction. For him, the virtual world of WoW is not a place to establish meaningful friendships due to the lack physical interaction. This opinion is entirely different with Peter that stated it is possible to have a truly friend in the virtual world through WoW if someone can find person that have common interest and can discuss other issue beyond the game. True friendship in the real world can be started with a relationship in the virtual world, but it does not make friendship less meaningful. He saw that the line between the real world and virtual world is more and more vague nowadays.
The result of this interview corresponds to the research conducted by Forghani, Sosnovskaya, Chin and Boyns (2006). From extensive field and virtual ethnographic observations, content analyses and in-depth interviews, they found that there are four distinctive dimensions around World and Warcraft game-play that strongly interrelated to each other. Those four dimensions are virtual reality, virtual social reality, real life reality and real life social reality. The first two dimensions – virtual reality and virtual social reality – refer to the experiences and understanding of players within the virtual world of game created both by the game designers and by player’s own actions and interactions. The next two dimensions – real life reality and real life social reality – refer to social relationships players outside of game-play (Forghani, et.al, 2006, p7).
Time Related Experiences of the participant in playing WoW
Another issue regarding the playing activities is the ability of the player to manage the balance between time for playing the game and time for other responsibilities in the real world. Several issues related to this topic are mostly concerned with time loss experiences, displacement real world activities, addiction to the game, disengagement with real life communities (friends and family) and many others. Scientific researches are also conducted to reveal more information about this issue. Research conducted by Wood, Griffiths and Parke (2007), specifically try to reveal experiences of time loss among videogame players. Based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis to relatively large group of video gamers, the result shows that most of the people that play videogames felt time loss experiences regardless gender, age and frequency of play (Wood, et.al, 2007, p38). In 2004, a survey conducted by American College Health Association of over 54,000 American students found 11% of females and 20% of males said their leisure computer use had significantly weaken their performance at college and university (2005). Another research by Cole and Griffiths also shows that players in MMOPRGs faced potentially serious addition effect from playing (Cole and Griffiths, 2007, p.528).
As part of the exploration of social life of the gamers who play WoW, experiences related to the time are also considered. From the data gathered from the participants, all of them seemed to experience issues with time management at some point while playing the game. John and Sam said there were times when they spend too much time playing the game than they are supposed to. Sam sain the he felt that he could have been use the time to other more “meaningful” activities, instead of playing the game. Another two participants, Bill and Peter, said that even though they spent relatively much time in playing WoW, they did not feel spend too much time, since they can put their priorities in order. In spite of this, in terms of difficulties to accomplish real life responsibility, only Bill that stated he did not face difficulties. Peter, Sam and John stated they occasionally faced difficulties to finish the responsibility, either academic responsibilities or other social responsibilities. They admitted that they frequently suffer of delaying other activities because of the game playing. Most these activities are related to academic activities such as delaying assignment, homework and studying. Peter even stated that he frequently delayed his bedtime due to play the game. John added that consequence of these activities displacement is the experience of guilty feeling because he committed himself more into game than people.
The experience of participants related to the time is similar with the result of the survey conducted by Wood, Griffiths and Parke. People who participate in the research also stated that they have negative experiences relating to missing and scarifying other things, such as appointment or sleep-time. Other than feeling guilty, participant also sometimes experienced social conflict when partners, friends, or relative felt that they are being neglected because their game playing (Wood, et.al, 2007, p.40). This shows that although there are certain boundaries in the virtual and real worlds, the virtual space is increasingly becoming naturalized and invading real life activities.
Conclusion
This essay explored the social life the players who involved in the in MMO, War of Warcraft. It focuses on 4 main aspect of social life, which is relation of character in the real world and character in the virtual world, creativity and learning process that player acquired from the WoW, social relation and interaction the player, in the virtual world and real world, and time related experiences of the participant in playing WoW. The study conducted by interviewing 4 active players, who involved in the game from 9 months to 5 years. The study found that, participants are able to draw the line between the character in the real world and in the virtual world. Even though they personal trait in real world is part of consideration in choosing the avatar, but it did not make them fully attached to the avatar. In terms of skill and creativity acquired from WoW, all of the participants said that they learn and gain some skill form playing WoW. Social skill, physical skill, artistic skill, mental ability is some of the skills that mentioned by the participant. In terms of social relation and interaction of the participant, the result shows that there are diversity among the participant whether partner in virtual world have the same meaning with friendship in the virtual world. On one hand there is opinion that stated physical interaction is significant in building meaningful friendship. On the other hand there is opinion that meaningful friendships can be achieved through interaction in virtual world regardless physical interaction. In terms of time related experiences, all the participants stated that they ever experienced game playing activity affect other real life activities. This shows that virtual space is increasingly becoming naturalized and invading real life activities.
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