While describing MMOGs, Pearce says that "they are public places that thousands of people enter simultaneously to share an entertainment experience". I think it's not just a space for sharing an entertainment medium but also a social forum to display one's accomplishments. I think some people see the Amusement Park as a forum to show off their lack of fear in dangerous situations(in this case, being the rides). In WoW, I've noticed people using the community as a forum to show off these same skills, but in terms of game play and tactics. Perhaps they are compensating for their lack of accomplishments in dangerous situations in the real world with their accomplishments in this game.
In the paper on Productive Play, Pearce mentions that play can be productive when it contains means of producing your own culture and expressing yourself. I feel this is especially crucial when considering how players develop their real-world personalities by playing the game. In Second Life, I realised I can develop my real-world personality because my behaviour can be easily translated into the virtual world. In WoW, due to the rule based nature of the game, I feel like I'm only trying to accomplish immediate tasks so I can move on the next task.
In "A Rape In Cyberspace", it is quite clear how much emotional investment people have put in their avatars. The effect of such an inappropriate interaction is more drastic for the player in Second Life than in WoW because the player has a stronger investment in their virtual identity. In WoW, I felt like my avatar was merely a tool for just completely the tasks at hand. I can see how difficult it would be to regulate a world where the results of such inappropriate actions have such far reaching consequences that bleed into the real world. Mnookin describes the complexities involved in clearing enunciating the differences between the laws in both worlds. After playing Second Life, I was confused as to whether I'd actually want somebody to give me a clear distinction between my real-world and the virtual world. It seems obvious that it would be helpful in many aspects but it seems like many people are so invested in this world that they'd rather not accept terms which state that there is a clear fundamental difference between the worlds.Building on individual development, I had mentioned in my previous blogpost that even single-player games can induce multi-player feel because of our social nature. Morningstar and Farmer state that "a definitive characteristic of a cyberspace system is that it represents a multi-user environment." They further go on to explain the difficulty in creating a process that would resemble a real human being's interaction. I do not think this is significant in WoW because we have a strong propensity to accept a social space within a rule defined world that doesn't resemble our real world. The moment I started interacting in Second Life, a world that is extremely familiar to my real-world, I was not as willing to accept any interaction that was not human-like. I expected familiar emotional responses to all sorts of interactions because of the familiarity of the environment.
In particular, as Curtis mentions in his paper on Mudding, "Some players apparently find it quite difficult to interact with those whose
true gender has been called into question". I realised the difference personally while playing Second Life as opposed to WoW. Because Second Life induces a sense of familiarity with my real world, I would not like to see such odd discrepancies in social interaction. In WoW, however, because of the exaggeration in costumes, avatar designs and other non-familiar elements involved in my interaction, I would not find it particularly disconcerting if somebody does not mention their real gender to me. I feel as if their personalities are important to me in the realms of the task that we have to complete together.
After having personally experienced these aspects during my game play, I wonder if these players, who have been immersed in these games for a long time, are able to notice their change in social behaviour. Would they be able to tell if they seamlessly changed their behavioural patterns from one world to fit another?
References:
Curtis, P. "Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities."
Pearce,
C. (2007). "Narrative Environments from Disneyland to World of
Warcraft." In Space, Time, Play: Computer Games, Architecture and
Urbanism: The Next Level. Friedrich von Borries, Steffan P. Walz, and
Matteas Bottger (eds). Basel: Birkhauser. http://lcc.gatech.edu/~cpearce3/PearcePubs/PearceSpaceTimePlay.pdf
Taylor, T.L. (2003). "Intentional Bodies: Virtual Environments and the Designers Who Shape Them." ion 19, no. 1.
Pearce, C. (2006). "Productive Play: Game Culture from the Bottom Up." Games & Culture. Volume 1, Issue 1, Winter 2006.http://lcc.gatech.edu/~cpearce3/PearcePubs/PearceGC-Jan06.pdf
Mnookin, J. (1996) Virtual(ly) "Law: The Emergence of Law in
LambdaMOO." Volume 2, Number 1: Part 1 of a Special Issue, June, 1996. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol2/issue1/lambda.html
Dibbell, Julian. (1993/1998). "A Rape in Cyberspace."http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html
Farmer, R. & Morningstar, C. (1990/1991) "The Lessons of LucasArts Habitat."
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