scholarly journals Why do you play World of Warcraft? An in-depth exploration of self-reported motivations to play online and in-game behaviours in the virtual world of Azeroth

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joël Billieux ◽  
Martial Van der Linden ◽  
Sophia Achab ◽  
Yasser Khazaal ◽  
Laura Paraskevopoulos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual World ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Play World

Network Autocorrelation of Task Performance via Informal Communication Within a Virtual World

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caleb T. Carr ◽  
Paul Zube
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Online Game ◽  
Informal Communication ◽  
Online Groups ◽  
Network Autocorrelation ◽  
Virtual Group ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Individual Achievement

Network autocorrelation occurs when individuals receive assistance from others which regulates their own behavior, and it can be used to explain how group members may improve their task performance. This study explored how network autocorrelation, via informal communication within a virtual group, affected an individual’s task achievement in the online game World of Warcraft. Informal interactions between guild members during a 4-year period were collected and analyzed to assess how informal interactions with other group members affected an individual’s in-game achievement. Findings indicate informal communication from other group members (specifically the experience and helpfulness of the other members) positively predict an individual’s task performance, while tenure with the group negatively predict individual achievement. Findings are discussed with respect to network analysis and influence in online groups.

scholarly journals Transformative (h)activism: Breast cancer awareness and the World of Warcraft Running of the Gnomes

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren B. Collister
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Cancer Awareness ◽  
Breast Cancer Awareness ◽  
Player Experience ◽  
Role Playing Game

Players of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) are accustomed to a transformative culture that appropriates off-line events and personas into virtual-world representations inside of the game. Following this culture, players have transformed an off-line event—the Race for the Cure, to benefit breast cancer charities—into an online event called the Running of the Gnomes with parameters and participation properties appropriate for the virtual world. This transformative event is a disruptive form of civil disobedience including elements of hacktivism. Though the event conforms to the game's culture and rules, the mass collective action of the Running of the Gnomes disrupts the player experience by flooding the game's chat boxes with messages about an off-line concern (breast cancer) and also disrupts the game itself by crashing the server through the sheer volume of player participation. This disruption is embraced as an integral part of the event and is one of the primary causes for the event's success as a fundraising activity.

scholarly journals Detection of Deception in a Virtual World

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren B. Collister
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Detection Of Deception

This work explores the role of multimodal cues in detection of deception in a virtual world, an online community of World of Warcraft players. Case studies from a five-year ethnography are presented in three categories: small-scale deception in text, deception by avoidance, and large-scale deception in game-external modes. Each case study is analyzed in terms of how the affordances of the medium enabled or hampered deception as well as how the members of the community ultimately detected the deception. The ramifications of deception on the community are discussed, as well as the need for researchers to have a deep community knowledge when attempting to understand the role of deception in a complex society. Finally, recommendations are given for assessment of behavior in virtual worlds and the unique considerations that investigators must give to the rules and procedures of online communities.

The Virtual Social Continuum Expressed

2010 ◽  
pp. 336-349
Author(s):  
Alan Rea
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Interaction Patterns ◽  
Role Specialization

From the interactive textual worlds of MUDs and MuSHes to the visually rich, textured three-dimensional realms of MMORPGs, participants move from loose to strong associations forming social networks via structured guidelines and interaction patterns. These virtual world inhabitants create communication conduits, collaborate to attain goals and solve problems, or entertain themselves. In this chapter, the author uses Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, one of the most successful MMORPGs to date, to chart the various associations ranging from casual conversations to groups and guilds in which role specialization is critical to close-knit community success. The author argues that using rewards for accepted behavior creates a socialization continuum that stimulates players to interact with one another.

Investigating Youth’s Life Online Phenomena

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azilawati Jamaludin ◽  
Yam San Chee
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Social Experiences ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Recurrent Theme

This paper examines the dialectics between living in offline and digitally-mediated worlds and how youth construct their identity and sense of self, negotiate meaning, and make sense of their social experiences. Situating the study within the context of the popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft (WoW), the authors investigate the interplay between the everyday, situated lives of five digital youth gamers, aged 18 to 25, and their activities and ‘lived practices’ in WoW. Findings suggest a recurrent theme that challenges ascribed dichotomies between youth’s presence in the offline and online world in terms of their identities in play, sense of embodiment, and orientation toward work, play, and the spirit of communitas within WoW. Exploration of such a phenomenon indicates a more intimately enmeshed and dialectically coupled experience of youths’ in their contextual traversals, providing a fundamental conceptual understanding of the impact of youths’ exodus to the virtual world and its implications for 21st century teaching and learning. The outcomes address theoretical challenges associated with the interpretation of 21st century literacy performances that may be characterized as a need to move away from static and linear narratives of development to a more divergent becoming of learners through the learning process.

Second Life and World of Warcraft

2011 ◽  
pp. 236-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaka Chaka
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Cognitive Presence ◽  
Future Trends ◽  
Role Playing Game

This chapter explores the potential both Second Life (SL) and World of Warcraft (WoW) as instances of a virtual world (VW) and a massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG), respectively, have for leveraging presence learning. The latter encapsulates, in this chapter, presence pedagogy, tele-presence, co-presence, social presence, and cognitive presence as mediated by both SL and WoW. In this context, this chapter contends that both SL and WoW help harness presence learning. Against this background, the chapter first provides a brief overview of SL, WoW, and presence learning. Second, it presents and discusses seven case studies demonstrating how both SL and WoW help harness presence learning. Third and last, the chapter outlines future trends for presence learning in respect of both SL and WoW.

scholarly journals The Aspatial Economics of Virtual Worlds

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Heath Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Economic Geography ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Physical World ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Great Effort ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
Insight Into

This article compares and contrasts the economic geography of the physical world with that of virtual worlds, with an analytical focus on the spatial (and aspatial) characteristics of Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo II (released in 2000) and its massively multiplayer online roleplaying game World of Warcraft (released in 2004). The purpose of this article is to show that although virtual worlds are not immune to aspatial economic laws, geographic constraints on economic interaction in virtual worlds are optional inclusions. Virtual world designers can manage the inclusion, disinclusion, and degree of emphasis on space and place in order to carefully craft a specific user experience. Hence, even though virtual worlds may provide the illusion of operating in a spatially bounded environment, the underlying mechanics of the world may not have spatial constraints.Nevertheless, the article concludes that there still remains a role for geographic analysis in virtual worlds, especially because, though space may be deemphasized, virtual world designers still may go to great effort to emphasize place to create the users’ experiences. Further, the study of the economics of virtual worlds may provide insight into possible future economic situations of the physical world as increasingly more physical goods become digital.

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