Breaking into the Academy: Gaming and the Couch-Stone Symposium

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