Play Arcs: Structuring Player Stories for CoDesign & Content Generation in Persistent Game Worlds

Players of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) consume content much faster than game designers can produce it. However, they also generate stories through their interaction, which can contribute to adding novel types of content in the game world. We introduce and demonstrate Play Arcs, a design strategy for structuring emergent stories that players can codesign and contribute as unique game content. We develop an MMO with tools for codesign and ‘history game mechanics’ and test as a technology probe with 49 players. We show that Play Arcs successfully structure coherent stories and support players in shaping new, unique content based on their own histories. We found that these stories can inform and guide players’ decisions, and also that, while players often share simpler stories directly, they keep more notable stories to themselves for retelling later. We conclude by discussing design challenges and directions for future work with Play Arcs.

Public History, Game Communities and Historical Knowledge

In considering history and video games, great emphasis is placed on the ways in which historical information can be encoded in game content as a route to fostering an engagement with the past, and with historical narratives. This paper proposes that more attention should be paid to the communities which form around games, and to the historical activity which arises organically within those communities, particularly those which form around persistent massively multiplayer online games. The ideas of public history can be drawn upon to understand how this historical activity functions, and how it might be valued as a form of engagement not only with the past of those playing, but with the practices of history more generally, and with historical concepts such as truth, bias and authenticity.

“You don’t ever stop playing EVE Online, you just take a break”: Rethinking what it means to quit a Massively Multiplayer Online Game

Digital Detritus: What Can We Learn From Abandoned Massively Multiplayer Online Game Avatars?

Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) player data has been used to investigate a variety of questions, ranging from the sociality of small groups, to patterns of economic decision making modeled across entire game servers. To date, MMOG player research has primarily drawn on data (e.g. server-side logs, observational data) collected while players (and their avatars) were actively participating in the gameworld under investigation. MMOGs are persistent worlds where avatars are held in stasis when the player logs out of the game, and this is a feature that allows players to return after an extended absence to “pick up where they left off”. In this paper we explore the sorts of information that can be gleaned by examining avatars after their creators have played them for the last time. Our preliminary findings are that “abandoned” avatars still contain a wealth of information about the people who created them, opening up new possibilities for the study of players and decision making in MMOGs.

Constructing the Ideal EVE Online Player

EVE Online, released in 2003 by CCP Games, is a space-themed Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). This sandbox style MMOG has a reputation for being a difficult game with a punishing learning curve that is fairly impenetrable to new players. This has led to the widely held belief among the larger MMOG community that “EVE players are different”, as only a very particular type of player would be dedicated to learning how to play a game this challenging. Taking a critical approach to the claim that “EVE players are different”, this paper complicates the idea that only a certain type of player capable of playing the most hardcore of games will be attracted to this particular MMOG. Instead, we argue that EVE’s “exceptionalism” is actually the result of conscious design decisions on the part of CCP games, which in turn compel particular behaviours that are continually reinforced as the norm by the game’s relatively homogenous player community.

Because Players Pay: The Business Model Influence on MMOG Design

The authors explore Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) business models in order to characterize two main problems: big initial investment and continuous expenditures. The four main actors of a MMOG environment . game producer, Game, Players and Business Model . are analysed resorting to Actor Network Theory in order to understand their alignment in Business Models and how they can influence game design. The conclusion ends in the fact that the Business Model, directly or indirectly, influences and constrains the game design in the following ways: the high economic risks inhibits game design innovation, the players have power to demand poor game design decisions while the virtual economy games simply embrace the business model into its design.

From Catch the Flag to Shock and Awe: how World of Warcraft Negotiates Battle

Within the MMORPG World of Warcraft, attitudes towards warfare are expressed in conflicting ways. This is partly a result of the difficult relationship modern Western society has with warfare, and the various political agendas that surround this. Within World of Warcraft, this is expressed specifically in the minigames known as ‘Battlegrounds’, which allow players to fight against each other in teams. The way in which these popular areas have been developed in the game is symptomatic of increasingly accepting attitudes towards warfare.