Well, this morning I attended the
Couch-Stone Symposium 2006, organized by Dr. Patrick Williams and Michael Ramirez of the University of Georgia's Sociology Department. The session that I attended was entitled "Culture, Games and Leisure," which was presided over by Patrick Williams (
subzon@uga.edu).
Here are my notes from the session:
The Power Elite in Massive Multiplayer Online Games
Mark Silverman (
darkstar4.6@videotron.ca), Concordia University
- part of the Montreal GameCODE Project (Concordia University)
- Master's thesis research
- research that focuses upon power gamers (specifically the game Everquest)
- participant researcher (player for three years)
- difficult to get participants
- comfort of anonomity
- portrayals of gamers (addicted and socially inept)
- claims power gamers have
- positive self image
- sense of belonging
- sense of achievement
- characteristics
- spend much of their leisure time playing games
- want to be first to defeat the badest enemy
- want to have the best equipment
- want to have the highest level of skills
- most start as just players killing time for leisure
- symbols of status that they encounter become the reason for quest
- quest to be the elite player
- nature of their game playing changing
- they start to research
- they start to gain knowledge of the game world
- the spend more time accessing this information from many sources outside of the game itself (e.g., websites about the game)
- encounter other on this quest
- become competitive
- "keeping up with the Jones' to the extreme"
- the further they get the more they need to work together
- it is this need that forces the "classes" within the game to begin
- power gamers don't like to work with newbies because they slow down the attaining of goals
- guilds begin to work around these groups
- power gamer guilds take membership very serious
- end to be smaller, more elite and based upon ability of play
- described as being as rigid as the most difficult to attain job interview
- game knowledge and ability to perserve are seen as most important qualities
- once accepted, there is a probation period
- lets guild get a sense of the applicant
- allows applicant to get a sense of the social structure of the guild
- most play 30-40 hours during this period
- not expected to speak out
- after the initiation process, the applicant gets many of the full privileges of the guild
- but also allows applicant to have the status of the guild name within the game
- typically 2-5 power gaming guilds operating within each game server
- competitive between guilds - oneupmanship (inside and outside of the game)
- need to be the first to defeat the end warrior on individual servers and want to be first to defeat the end warrior on all of the servers
- there is a negative backlash from newvies towards these power gamers
- developers are starting to notice and the second generation of MMOGs are being developed to restrict the activities of these power gamers
Questions
- asked about the negative and individual portrayal of these power gamers
- the nature of these MMOGs is that gamers are typically individual in their orientation until they join these guilds, at which point their orientation becomes collective
- asked about gender
- 90% are male
- nature of the power gamer is a hypermasculine portrayal
- will to power
- power gamers exercise their will to power in the game world
- guilds are very structured
- are raid times and they are much the same as regularly scheduled meetings
- outside of these scheduled times, guild members are free to do whatever they please
http://www.gamecode.ca/
Male Miniature Gamers and Nerd Masculinity: The Construction of an Alternative Masculinity
Heather Bostwick (hlbostwi@sa.ncsu.edu), North Carolina State University
- no Powerpoint, simply read a paper (if you are interested, you should e-mail her)
- view of masculinity
- white, strong, successful, monied
- alternate view of masculinity
- nerd masculinity -> smart, dedicated, etc.
- previous research has shown that many who possess this nerd masculinity assume characteristics of the traditional view of masculinity in the fantasy activities
- MMOGs
- Dungeons and Dragons
- her research dealt with miniture gamers
- kind of like a board game with a role play aspect
- MecWarriors -> a game based around robots engaged in a global conflict
- half older males/half younger males -> some gamers are very young (one 8 year old and another 12 year old for example)
- none are physically fit or some even have health issues that would prevent physical activity
- characteristics of these gamers
- distancing themselves from women/feminity
- threatening physical violence against each other or utilize aggressive strategies
- bringing sports references/lingo into the game
- use of death/mortality references/language (i.e. war talk)
Questions
- interaction between computer gamers, card gamers, and miniture gamers
- little interaction between card gamers and miniture gamers (in fact miniture gamers looked down upon card gamers)
- miniture gamers did play computer games, but claimed that it took time away from their miniture game play
- do these people use the term nerds
- all of the time
- they seem to work to make the term acceptable
- one audience member differentitated between nerd and geek
- geek is good -> implies a choice to become more knowledgable about the game
- nerd is bad -> is someone who can't help it
- asked about gender
- she didn't see a single female
- the group used to talk about females who did attend in the past (including the wife of the game master)
- asked about the children
- two of them the game master's children (he had a third child, a daughter, who didn't want to play and this was usually commentted on in a negative way by the game master)
- three were just dropped off by their parents and just left there
Playing Life and Life Playing: The Impact of Character Talk and Interaction in Role-Playing Games
Matt Lust (lust_82@yahoo.com), Southern Utah University
- no Powerpoint, simply discussed his research (if you are interested, you should e-mail him for potential paper or proposal)
- research focuses on a game called Vampire of the Masscadre
- a high percentage of female users
- Whitewolf games (the company name) is much more narrative
- have strong storyline
- game masters are storytellers
- sagas are chapters
- longer games are tales
- many of his participants were drama majors
- research conducted in Utah
- focuses on character development and how that influences their game experiences
- for example interaction that is not in keeping with your character is seen as destroying the game narrative for many
- one participant in his research has a crush on one of the other gamers within the game and would play her characters as if they were in love with his characters
- these players want to play for the experience of the game, not necessarily for the successes of the game
- their play is focused upon the live of the game, which in turn affects the lives of their characters and others' characters
- character talk can either enhance or destroy the live of the game
*** from the way that he was talking about it (using the terms "their lives") it made it seem like there was a really blurred line between the game live and real live
- this is consistent with the literature on the two personalities of game playing
- one personality is that of the character
- second personality is that of the game player
- there were instances of when gamers would use the interactions of their characters to patch up real life difficulties between gamers
- the life of the game is real life for the time that the game is being played
Questions
- question about gender
- more males playing female characters
- fewer females playing male characters
- not as common in this game because of the character narrative and the ability of the gamer to speak like their character
- more common in role playing games
- question about punishment for breaking character
- more punishment within an online environment than in the narrative environment
- punishment is within the game for the narrative environment -> including expulsion from the game
- question about pretense acceptance
- his research dealt with a small community, so pretense acceptance was high
- usually based upon the gamers ability to assume and maintain that pretense
Playing Research: A Virtual Ethnography of the Game EverQuest
Tim Rowlands (timothy.rowlands@asu.edu), Arizona State University
- Master's thesis work
- not a power gamer
- used to play tabletop role playing and Whitewolf games
- provided an overview of EverQuest
- online multiplayer game that is a virtual world
- hybrid chat room and video game
- over 350 square miles of virtual world
- at peak, had over half a million subscribers
- fantasy-based and fairly closely based upon Dungeons and Dragons
- first generation of MMOGs
- started field work late
- Fall 2004 for sixteen months
- game was already in decline, facing stiff competition
- remaining players were "high end" players
- many of the non-high end characters were actually additional characters of "high end" gamers
- these characters advance quickly because of gamer knowledge and assistance from other gamers
- in his own gaming, his failures were seen as a being a bad player and not as being a real newbie
- normative strategy of game play
- reinforces specialization and player interdependence
- players fit themselves into five key roles
- playes are expected to know these roles in detail and play them accordingly
- failure to do so results in private and public censure and exclusion
- started dualboxing
- one gamer playing more than one character at the same time
- allows them to fulfill more roles in the normative strategy
- allows them not to have to share the spoils of victory
- elliminates some of the problems of bad gamers
- the nature of dualboxing and the normative strategy
- assumes that there is a "right" way to play the game
- helps the cycle of killing more monsters, gaining better gear and moving up more a level, enabling you to kill more monsters
- de-emphasises other ways of playing - with more than one character you have more than one role (i.e., others don't know that both characters have one gamer)
Questions
- gaming research has focused upon either narrative or structure/design
- dualboxing appears to focus upon both
- how does social control work
- software has some limitations built into it -> which is reinforced by the normative strategy
- in some instances it comes from public conversation
- in some instances it comes from private conversations
- these private and public interactions can act to exclude you from the limitations built into the game
- there are also comments made in public message boards outside of the games on websites
- in the first generation games, your reputations stayed with you
- in the second generation games, this is not as strict as they used to be
Tags: Couch-Stone Symposium, game, games, gaming, high school, higher education, education
