My Essay for New Com Tech

Kristian Rutlin S2647749

New Communcation Technologies

Tutor Adam Muir

Social and professional nerds? A revolution in game play

Guilds in World of Warcraft should take a lot of credibility for the attraction to the game because the complex setup of a social environment makes playing in a guild a daily challenge. Whether you are an officer or a casual player every day game play and fun is enhanced by the social environment of the guild. Without guilds and the social aspect they create, World of Warcraft wouldn’t be as popular as it has become. The high numbers of people who play the game has attracted sponsors to have a look at top guilds, and sponsorship agreements are given to those which stand out. Whether this sponsorship destroys the fun of the game or not is yet to be answered.

World of Warcraft (WoW) belongs to a fairly new type of games belonging to the genre called massive multiplayer online game (MMOG), which has grown immensely the last eight years (Flew 2005, p. 104). The game itself has gotten a lot of attention because of its awards and how it has managed to attract so many gamers during the 4 years since its creation. By the end of July 2007, WoW had attracted over 9 million subscribers, which made it the most popular game in its genre (Blizzard Entertainment, 2007). The subscribers are bound to join a guild at some stage of the game, be it a hardcore endgame raiding guild, or a casual family guild. Most players are in the game for the fun, even though fun varies from person to person. Richard Bartle argues that “there are a variety of types of activities people prefer in multiplayer games … His now oft-repeated categories – achievers, socialisers, explorers, killers – form a continual basis for discussions of players” (Taylor 2006, p. 69).These four different understandings of player roles roughly divide WoW players into the guilds they are likely to end up in: achievers and explorers go into endgame raiding guilds and the most dedicated join the hardcore guilds, playing in a professional environment; killers join guilds mainly dedicated to the player versus player aspect (PvP) of the game; socialisers may end up in any of the guilds, but usually choose the family guild where the objective is to help lower level characters. There is little focus on requirements to join the family guilds; the player just has to be a social player who is willing to help others, and have fun while doing it. However, a contradiction to this rough divide is explained in research by Ducheneaut, Yee, Nickell & Moore (2006, p. 308) where they say: “It is quite clear that at Level 60, WoW becomes a much more intensely social game” (Level 70 after the expansion). This shows that World of Warcraft is still a social game when it comes to endgame play, and this is also the part of the game where most social communication happens because the game play changes from levelling to group play and reputation goals.

There are many differences between hardcore and casual gaming, but one of the most obvious is the time each group spends online. Casual gamers view the game as being for relaxation and fun. Many of these players log on occasionally to gain a few levels or do some five man group instances, then log off and forget about the game for a while. On the contrary, there are players who log on every night to either join raids (10 – 40 man instances) or collect ingredients so they can make items which enhance their stats. This second group contains the players who end up in the endgame raiding guilds, because for such a complex society to work everyone has to participate and help out wherever they can. Being explicit, loyal and stubborn is the definition of a hardcore player (Fritsch, Voigt & Schiller, 2006, p.2), and the most dedicated of these are the ones that play at the highest level of the game. At this level, the game isn’t an extracurricular activity anymore, but has evolved to a standard most would relate to a working career. In an interview with Kungen, the guild leader of Nihilum, which is one of the leading guilds in the world, he says that: “Managing a guild like Nihilum is a full-time job—if not more.” (McDoug 2008) This guild was the first one in the world to get a sponsorship. In 2007 they got a sponsorship with SteelSeries which produces gaming equipment designed by and for gamers (McDaniel 2007).

However, even though hardcore guilds like Nihilum are being sponsored, players don’t think that WoW will be a hit when it comes to e-sports (electronic sports tournaments). Neg from Nihilum says that “as a real e-sport, nope; there are just too many problems (with the concept). The immense success WoW is having could also be one of the biggest problems. …Blizzard is making a lot of money on WoW … but that will also make Vivendi scared of losing this insane cash cow, so changes can't be implemented quickly anymore” (Robert 2008). Still, sponsorships are handed out to arena teams, which are PvP groups fighting in a gladiator style environment in battles with two versus two, three versus three or five versus five, and the sponsors are eager to both attract and sponsor other teams in this particular gaming style in WoW. Sponsor groups like CheckSix and Team Pandemic, which sponsor teams in other games like Call of Duty 4, Counter Strike Source and Guitar Hero 2, on the other hand, says that Blizzard does whatever they can to make the Arena system as good as possible, and it is going fast (Dormer, 2007).

Should the consumers be believed, the game can continue to grow on the terms of the players, and Blizzards capabilities, and not on the needs of a game suited for international gaming competitions and multinational companies’ influence. World WoW and other games in the same genre are quickly growing because of these factors. Fallows’ (in Williams, Ducheneaut, Xiong, Zhang, Yee & Nickell 2006, p. 338) research on online activity in America shows an immense growth: “…more people play online games and a reason for this might be the social aspects it brings. In 1999, 8% of all Americans (not adolescents) said they played games online. By 2003 that number had risen to 37%, and it continues to climb”. The social aspect of MMOGs creates a new style of game play which is unpredictable and interesting, no matter if you are a hardcore raider or a casual Tuesday-night-with-nothing-to-do gamer. Social gaming is here to stay, and hopefully it will continue to be based on what the majority of gamers want, without any interference from sponsors and others who ruin the fun.

References

Flew, Terry 2005, New Media; an Introduction, Oxford University Press, Melbourne

Calif, Irvine 2007, World of Warcraft® surpasses 9 Million Subscribers Worldwide, Blizzard Entertainment,

http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/070724.html

Bartle, Richard in Taylor, T. L. 2006, Play Between Worlds, MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts

Ducheneaut, Nicolas, Yee, Nick, Nickell, Eric, Moore, Robert J. 2006, Building an MMO with Mass Appeal: A Look at Game play in World of Warcraft, Sage Publications http://gac.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/4/281

Fritsch, Tobias, Voigt, Benjamin & Schiller, Jochen 2006, Distribution of Online Hardcore Player Behavior (How Hardcore are You?) http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1230040.1230082&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE

McDoug, Joe 2008, Nihilum – Magtheridon – EU, http://wow.stratics.com/content/features/Interviews/Nihilum.php

McDaniel, JP 2007, SteelSeries sponsors WoW Guild Nihilum, http://www.gotfrag.com/wow/story/36879/

Robert, Allison 2008, Exclusive Interview: Nihilum, the Sunwell, and the future of high-end raiding, WOW Insider

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/03/26/so-whats-going-on-with-nihilum

Dormer, Dan 2007, How Pro Gaming Will Change World of Warcraft,

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3158429

Williams, Dimitri, Ducheneaut, Nicolas, Xiong, Li, Zhang, Yuanyuan, Yee, Nick & Nickell, Eric 2006, From Tree House to Barracks The Social Life of Guilds in World of Warcraft, Sage Publications http://gac.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/4/338

Tutorial 8 (part 2)

I checked out ActiveWorlds, and I would say I don’t understand why people use time in these worlds. I am a computer games enthusiast but this seems like a waste of time even for me. There aren’t many people around and I’m walking around aimlessly as this visitor avatar, always uploading graphics. Compared to MSN, which I usually use, I feel this is a bit much for just chatting with friends or other people. You are probably able to meet a lot more people, but then it is more close to a dating forum or myspace sort of thing. The thing that might seem useful is the avatar changes. You can look whatever way you want, and do whatever you want, but when you see people running around as dogs, it kind of takes the seriousness out of everything. There is probably someone that would like talking to dogs, but I don’t know. It’s all weird.

Having said that, a 3D chatroom and IM can’t be compared at all because I think that IM are used more for the contact with friends, and not meeting totally strangers like 3D worlds are mainly used for.

Answering the question that Adam asked about where this sort of application might lead us, I would say: into the future. If it’s good or bad I can’t say, but its definitely an invention that will develop further and change in the years to come. Maybe one day we will have holographic messaging shown on a wrist band or on our mobile phones?

We’ll see.