Towards World of Warcraft as an Experiment Platform for Teams

We are interested in how virtual, synchronous teams organize to cope with tasks of different complexity. We follow an explorative approach to validate World of Warcraft as experiment platform for virtual teams. We explore which parts of the game are suitable for experiments, which phenomena can be studied in teams fighting in World of Warcraft and how data can be collected. We prototypically evaluate data from games to demonstrate the validity of our approach

The Labor of Play: the Political Economy of Computer Game Culture

This dissertation questions the relationship between computer game culture and ideologies of neoliberalism and financialization. It questions the role computer games play in cultivating neoliberal practices and how the industry develops games and systems making play and work indistinguishable activities. Chapter 1 examines how computer game inculcate players into neoliberal practice through play. In chapter 2, the project shows Blizzard Entertainment systematically redevelops their games to encourage perpetual play aimed at increasing the consumption of digital commodities and currencies. Chapter 3 considers the role of esports, or professional competitive computer game play, to disperse neoliberal ideologies amongst nonprofessional players. Chapter 4 examines the streaming platform Twitch and the transformation of computer gameplay into a consumable commodity. This chapter examines Twitch’s systems designed at making production and consumption inseparable practices. The dissertation concludes by examining the economic, conceptual, and theoretical collapses threatening game culture and the field of game studies

Mastery and the mobile future of massively multiplayer games

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-66).What game design opportunities do we create when we extend massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) to cell phones? MMOs allow us to create representations of our own increasing mastery, and mobile gives us better access to this mastery and allows us to integrate it more fully into the ways we see ourselves. MMOs motivate mastery by making that mastery personally and socially relevant, and visibly showing it increase. Virtual worlds that make players feel physically and socially present increase motivation to achieve mastery. MMOs that convince players their avatars represent some aspect of their personalities increase motivation to invest in and experiment with different constructions of self. I apply these principles to an analysis of two games: Labyrinth, a game I helped create, and World of Warcraft, the current leading MMO. With Labyrinth, I explain the design decisions we made and their impact. With World of Warcraft, I described how altering the design could accommodate mobile play and better motivate increasing mastery.by Daniel Roy.S.M

Why and how can co-creation lead to the exclusion of potential brand community members in the gaming sector? The case of league of legends

Co-creation has become a very important topic in Marketing both in theory and practice. This work project specifically investigates how co-creation can exclude potential brand community members in the gaming sector. This topic was explored through a longitudinal single case study on the online video game League of Legends. The insights suggest that, contrary to what the current literature states, co-creation does not necessarily beneficiate all participants, due to the creation of a complex community dynamic that tends to drive away new members, which does not beneficiate the company and reflects on the type of value generated for the members

Video games can develop graduate skills in higher education students: a randomised trial

This study measured the effects of playing commercial video games on the development of the desirable skills and competences sometimes referred to as ‘graduate attributes’. Undergraduate students in the Arts and Humanities were randomly assigned to either an intervention or a control group. Previously validated, self-report instruments to measure adaptability, resourcefulness and communication skill were administered to both groups. The intervention group played specified video games under controlled conditions over an eight week period. A large effect size was observed with mean score change 1.1, 1.15, and 0.9 standard deviations more positive in the intervention group than the control on the communication, adaptability, and resourcefulness scales respectively (p = 0.004, p = 0.002, and p = 0.013 for differences in groups by unpaired t-test). The large effect size and statistical significance of these results support the hypothesis that playing video games can improve self-reported graduate skills. The findings suggest that such game-based learning interventions have a role to play in higher education

Dynamics of Social Play

Digital games have become a social medium. Players are often socially motivated to play games and actively seek out games that offer social interactions. Early studies on games such as World of Warcraft demonstrate that players can form meaningful bonds within the game. Catering to this trend, most game titles now include multiplayer experiences in their gameplay. Despite the growing popularity of social elements within play, we still have little empirically-founded guidance on how to effectively design for social experiences. If we want to design for social play, we have to understand what makes games social. What are the properties of play that are responsible for facilitating social ties between players? We address this question by synthesizing the exiting literature on design recommendations for social play into identify overarching properties of play that we think are the most prolific in literature: cooperation and interdependence. We perform two experimental studies demonstrating how games facilitate trust between players and how cooperation and interdependence are crucial properties of social play. Furthermore, we validate our framework in a field study, investigating the experiences within games that predict in-game social capital. We demonstrate that interdependence and toxicity are strongly linked to the social capital our participants experience in their gaming communities. We also illustrate how in-game social capital is negatively associated with feelings of loneliness and positively associated with need satisfaction of relatedness outside of the context of play. Overall, our findings emphasize how strongly the experiences within the game affect the social ties that emerge from play, suggesting that informed design choices are crucial for the success of social games. This dissertation also contributes to the ongoing debate about the effects that in-game relationships have on the player’s mental health—we show a strong positive link between in-game social capital and markers for psychological well-being. It is easy to disregard in-game relationships, as they are fundamentally distinct from the in-person ones we think of as natural. Yet we cannot ignore the emergence of digital games as a social medium. The more we understand the underlying elements of social play, the better we can design games that bring people closer together

Where\u27s the Leader? Identifying Leadership Candidates Within Virtual Worlds

Player-founded organizations, or guilds, within massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are complex social entities with organizational forms that mirror real-world. These guilds require leaders who possess or can quickly develop a diverse array of skills. Examples of the skills required read like the introductory course of a business management degree - mediating conflict, planning, controlling, motivating. These skills are important - just as with real-world companies, failures on the part of leaders may explain the high degree of guild failures within virtual worlds. Interest into the transferability of leadership skills built in virtual worlds to real world situations has attracted both academic and practitioner interest. IBM, for example, has begun identifying IBM employees who lead in virtual worlds and exploring leadership characteristics and their applicability to management practice.While these initial efforts have been informative, the unit of analysis has invariably been a singular leader, or the guild leader. Within popular MMOGs (i.e., World of Warcraft or Everquest), the game mechanics allow the promotion of regular guild members to officer status. This begs the question, how may potential officers be identified? Drawing from the emergent leadership literature, we discuss a study-in-progress which attempts to identify potential leaders based upon a social network analysis (i.e., centrality measures) on a multi-year database which represents one guild\u27s activities within a MMOG. We propose that members who participate and contribute more to guild activities make more likely officer candidates