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1 – 10 of 464Nicolas Ducheneaut and Robert J. Moore
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have become complex social worlds. As such, playing these games requires more than accomplishing simple objectives: it is…
Abstract
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have become complex social worlds. As such, playing these games requires more than accomplishing simple objectives: 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.
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Yijing Xun, Xiabing Zheng, Matthew K.O. Lee and Feng Yang
The health and survival of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are of paramount concern to stakeholders. It is essential to understand the usage behaviors of exploitative…
Abstract
Purpose
The health and survival of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are of paramount concern to stakeholders. It is essential to understand the usage behaviors of exploitative and exploratory strategies. By combining the typical user experience with psychological mechanisms in MMOGs, this study is devoted to clarifying how technology affordance and digital perfectionistic intention influence reinforcement and variety-seeking orientations of MMOGs use.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a sequential triangulation mixed-methods design to explore how diverse usage behaviors of reinforced and varied use in MMOGs are formed. After proposing the theoretical framework from MMOGs affordance, perfectionistic intentions, and diverse use, empirical evidence was initially collected from representative samples through a survey. Qualitative interviews from players in MMOGs and game industry practitioners are conducted to confirm the results, supplement understanding, and gather insights from diverse backgrounds. The quantitative and qualitative inferences are discussed to validate the research focus.
Findings
Findings from various perspectives suggest that perfectionistic intentions are critical antecedents of different usage behaviors influenced by affordances provided in MMOGs. Goal-driven affordance with reward and competition, interaction affordance, and identity affordance are key MMOGs affordances and could affect perfectionistic intentions differently. People with different perfectionistic intentions, which are the psychological outcome of MMOGs affordances, possess diverse usage behaviors.
Originality/value
This study is the first to consider diverse usage behaviors in virtual worlds such as MMOGs by combining lenses of perfectionistic intentions and technology affordance. Findings from mixed-methods analysis significantly enrich the research on online game usage behavior, offering valuable theoretical and practical implications for studying usage behaviors within the virtual world.
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J. Patrick Williams, David Kirschner and Zahirah Suhaimi-Broder
Role is an under-studied topic in research on virtual game worlds, despite its centrality in the ubiquitous term “massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).” In this…
Abstract
Role is an under-studied topic in research on virtual game worlds, despite its centrality in the ubiquitous term “massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).” In this article, we report on a study of the role concept and its relevance to virtual worlds, with emphasis on the MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW). In particular, we focus on the concept of structural role, a term introduced to delineate a certain kind of social actor that carries greater-than-average responsibility for facilitating the diffusion of culture across interlocking groups. Beginning with a brief discussion of structural roles, this paper draws on ethnographic research in a raiding guild and interviews with hardcore WoW players to investigate the roles of guild and raid leaders in building and maintaining collaborative group play. Our study explores not only the expectations and obligations for players in key structural positions, but also specific processes through which they are embodied in everyday life online. Data show that an interest or willingness to learn the intricacies of gameplay, to take responsibility for players’ emotional well-being, and to manage a shared definition of the situation are all basic components of the guild and raid leaders’ roles, and guild or raid success is often reducible to the extent to which leaders master these components.
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Yi-Sheng Wang, Wei-Long Lee and Tsuen-Ho Hsu
The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth the special context and unique life experience of the online role-playing game and to provide insights regarding an interpretation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth the special context and unique life experience of the online role-playing game and to provide insights regarding an interpretation of the situational context model.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses netnography, online interviews, and the physical travel of researchers to the field for field participation and observations. The combination of netnography and online interviews combines online and offline studies to achieve more consistency in the data collection, analysis, and other processes. In-person participation in observations makes the research more realistic. The combination of these qualitative methods is helpful in achieving a more comprehensive and accurate research process.
Findings
The findings of the study can be classified into a three-stage situational context approach, which is presented in the form of propositions. Finally, the insight of the situational context model was developed.
Research limitations/implications
This study only focussed on office workers and students in online role-playing game. Therefore, the samples should be extended to other massively multiplayer online games, including different nationalities and professions for comparative analysis and related studies. Through the expansion of the sample size, a representative and stable cyber model can be established.
Originality/value
The theoretical contribution of this study is to establish an interpretation of the situational context model and eight related propositions. The study revealed the mystery of female online role-playing games.
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Beomjoon Choi and Hyun Sik Kim
This study aims to investigate the impact of three types of online customer-to-customer interaction qualities on customers' participation intention through customer–firm affection…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of three types of online customer-to-customer interaction qualities on customers' participation intention through customer–firm affection in online mass service contexts to address the influence of several types of intercustomer interactions.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were amassed using retrospective experience sampling. The hypothesized relationships were examined utilizing structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results demonstrate that the perceived quality of the friend-interaction (e.g. [non-]verbal online interaction with friends), neighboring customer-interaction (e.g. [non-]verbal online interaction with stranger users) and the audience-interaction (crowding) has a significant impact upon customer participation intention, mediated by customer–firm affection.
Research limitations/implications
This research was performed in the situation of online mass services (e.g. massively multiplayer online role-playing games). Future studies could extend the findings by conducting further studies across various types of services and by comparing results across different categories of mass services (e.g. hedonic vs utilitarian).
Practical implications
Online mass service marketers should focus on facilitating all three types of online customer-to-customer interactions (i.e. friend-, neighboring customer-, and audience-interaction). For example, online game developers may need to require users to communicate and collaborate with not only friends but also stranger users to progress and succeed in online multiplayer games.
Originality/value
The current study differs from prior research by addressing the influences of not only online intercustomer interaction qualities but also customer–firm affection on customer participation intention.
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One can read the history of MMOGs as a history of the development of the body (avatar) in the internet. To make the classical terms of sociology of the body fit the field of…
Abstract
One can read the history of MMOGs as a history of the development of the body (avatar) in the internet. To make the classical terms of sociology of the body fit the field of MMOGs, this chapter builds on the social world perspective to leave the dichotomy between real (offline) and virtual (online) behind. MMOGs are seen as one of numerous social worlds (rooted in the here and now) and not as distant planets. In the Here and Now the body is an everyday matter of course. According to Goffman’s interaction order Face-to-Face interaction is the prototype of interaction and the influence of technical artifacts (pen and paper, telephone, etc.) negates its constituting elements – immediacy and reciprocity. Immediacy and reciprocity are interrelated with the body. Although MMOGs are technical artifacts, MMOGs re-establish elements constituting the body. The avatar becomes a key artifact and an inescapable necessity in experiencing the world of MMOGs. Therefore compared to other online-places, MMOGs expand the accessibility that is typical for the internet with the possibility of “physical” presence. But this physical presence is rather a semiotic body (or body-social), than a body in physical terms. The avatar therefore seems to be an intersubjective accomplishment pointing to group affiliations. Applying to the body, it is therefore not just skin and bones it is also socially constructed. The avatar is expressed or embodied society.
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J. Tuomas Harviainen and Amon Rapp
The purpose of this paper is to expand the research of games as information systems. It illustrates how significant parts of massively multiplayer online role-playing function…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to expand the research of games as information systems. It illustrates how significant parts of massively multiplayer online role-playing function like information retrieval from a library database system.
Design/methodology/approach
By combining ideas from earlier contributions on the topics of game environments as information systems, the paper explores how gameplay connects to information retrieval, restricted content access, and information system structure. The paper then proceeds to examine this idea through an ethnographic study conducted in World of Warcraft during 2012-2016.
Findings
By discussing how multiplayer digital game play is a form of information retrieval, the paper shows that players enjoy the well-restricted access to information that is a constitutive element of gameplay. Examining controlled access, procedural literacies and emphatic keywords, the paper finds that content relevances and system use may be influenced by hedonic concerns rather than task efficiency.
Originality/value
The study of retrieval issues related to gaming enriches our knowledge on inferences in retrieval. It shows that people may prefer that their access to information be limited, in order to make system use more interesting.
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Tianyang Lou, Yuning Zu and Ling Zhu
The purpose of this paper is to investigate impact of playing motivation on team member selection (TMS) in online games specifically related to Massively Multiplayer Online…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate impact of playing motivation on team member selection (TMS) in online games specifically related to Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game environment.
Design/methodology/approach
A self-administered questionnaire was developed and administered to an online sample of 9,335 CR3 players.
Findings
The findings of this research indicated that social and immersion motivations have a significant effect on TMS. Additionally, it was discovered that achievement motivation has a positive relationship with dispositional TMS, a negative relationship to bond-based TMS. The moderation effect of frequency and gender is also demonstrated.
Research limitations/implications
The study verified the relationships of the theoretical model of the game motivation and TMS.
Originality/value
This study provides advice to operators of online games when motivating players to work in groups.
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Chwen-Yea Lin, Wei-Hsi Hung, Kwoting Fang and Chien-Chung Tu
Achievement is considered to be an important value for students. The purpose of this paper is to explore what achievement values were derived from playing massively multiplayer…
Abstract
Purpose
Achievement is considered to be an important value for students. The purpose of this paper is to explore what achievement values were derived from playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), especially for high-engaged MMORPGs players.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employed two approaches to collect data: focus group and a web survey of online game players were conducted. Moreover, an addiction-engagement scale was used to ensure all participants were genuinely highly engaged MMORPGs players in data collection process. There are 12 highly engaged players were recruited as focus group members in Phase 1. The online survey yielded 315 responses, of which 267 were considered valid, and 177 of those were considered to be genuine highly engaged players in Phase 2. In the study, exploratory factor analysis was performed to reveal underlying structure of achievement values.
Findings
The result focussing on popular MMORPGs reveal that highly engaged players derived six achievement values from playing MMORPGs, including fantasy satisfaction, adventure, victory, socialization ability, self-actualization, and advancement of wealth and status.
Originality/value
In view of the prevalence of MMORPGs, it is imperative to draw attention to understand students’ achievement values derived from playing MMORPGs. By doing that, educators know how to bridge students’ achievement values to their academic performance.
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Kimberly L. Kulovitz and Edward A. Mabry
This study presents findings leading to the conclusion that cyberbullying in massively multiplayer online (MMO) games can be conceptualized, measured and at least partially…
Abstract
This study presents findings leading to the conclusion that cyberbullying in massively multiplayer online (MMO) games can be conceptualized, measured and at least partially explained as a normative phenomenon, similar to Latane & Darley's (1970) bystander inaction hypothesis. An overall sample of N=372 respondents to an online survey provided information on their daily amount of Internet use and daily amount of time engaged in playing in MMO games. Scales for the assessment of both cyberbullying victimization and bullying itself were developed. Victims of cyberbullying appear more sensitive to bullying incidents albeit no more likely than game players who have engaged in bullying to intervene in preventing it. Perpetrators of cyberbullying, however, also appear to be heavily invested in both Internet use and MMO game play and that could amplify an individual's aggressiveness as a player in turn making it more likely they will engage in cyberbullying. The study concludes with a qualitative examination of MMO game player narrative self-explanations for nonintervention in cyberbullying that parallels Latane and Darley's explanation of bystander nonintervention in face-to-face threatening or emergency contexts.