Monetising memory? MMOGs, anniversaries, and ownership of the past

Configuring the player: subversive behavior in Project Entropia

This paper presents the concept of a “black box” as a tool for analyzing virtual worlds. The concept comes from the field of Science & Technology Studies (STS) and we employ it here more specifically to study one such virtual world in particular, Project Entropia. The concept of a “black box” is used to describe the developers’ efforts to hide or to build certain assumptions into the very fabric of the virtual world in order to get the players to perform certain prescribed roles. The concept is also used to describe players’ efforts to open up this black box in order to get access to and play other roles – roles not prescribed by the game publisher and that in some cases function as a threat to the publisher’s business model. The focus of the analysis is on the imperative to “pay to play”. This imperative is essential to the developers of the game since Project Entropia does not employ the usual subscription-based revenue model that most other Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) use.

Power games just want to have fun?: instrumental play in a MMOG

In this paper I explore a particular slice of massive multiplayer participants known as power gamers. Through my ethnography of EverQuest, as well as interviews with players, I analyze the ways these participants, who operate with a highly instrumental game-orientation, actually facilitate their play style through a variety of distinctly social activities. Rather than seeing this segment of the gaming population as “lone ranger” figures or via various other “geek gamer” myths, this work explores the way high-end players are actually embedded in deeply social structures, rituals, and practices.

The unbound network of product and service interaction of the MMOG industry: with a case study of China

The paper explores the MMOG industry from a network perspective. The aim is to make a theoretical contribution of how this rapidly growing sector can be conceptualized by using a relational and spatial framework from economic geography and international business. Additionally, the paper uses the case of China to show how the theoretical model can be utilized in an empirical context.

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.

What Keeps Designers and Players Apart? Thinking How an Online Game World is Shared.

Considering both play and design as world building activities, this paper offers to think the question of the distribution of authority on online game worlds through a sociotechnical perspective, and investigate the paradoxical relationship between designers and players of an online roleplaying game universe. The analysis is grounded on longterm investigations led on the project of an online multiplayer role playing game universe. This material allows to describe and question the complex agencement of mediations which keep apart design and play activities in the building of the game world.

An Irrational Black Market? Boundary Work Perspective on the Stigma of in-game Asset Transactions

This article looks at the negative images on cash trades of in-game assets in Taiwan, through interview of participants in this activity, we believe the blurring of boundaries between work and play, adulthood and adolescence, real and virtual is what distinguishes this market from previous markets of virtual goods, resulting in its social stigma. We then discuss how the participants confront this stigma and the ambiguity in their social status, through performing various strategies of redefining marginality or constructing alternative boundaries, the participants raise their sense of selfhood and also reflect the inadequacy of the present social categories.

Spontaneous Communities of Learning: Learning Ecosystems in Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming Environments

This paper outlines the theoretical rationale behind a doctoral research project currently in progress. Through a multi-method approach, the project examines spontaneously-emerging communities of learning in and around massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) within the context of social learning theory, social networks, self-organisation, online communities and emergence.

Law, order and conflicts of interest in massively multiplayer online games

In huge online games where great numbers of players can be connected at the same time, social interaction is complex and conflicts become part of everyday life. There is a set of rules and norms in the game for what is allowed and what is prohibited and these are partly set up by the game publisher and partly evolve among the players themselves over time. This paper describes and exemplifies a number of often-contested behaviors around which most in-game conflicts in the massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) Everquest revolve. Using these examples as a starting point, the paper presents a conceptual framework for analyzing conflicts and allegiance in MMOGs.

Enhancing Player Experience in MMORPGs with Mobile Features

In this paper, we explore how current Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) can use mobile features for enhancing player experience and increasing pervasiveness of these games. We identify six different categories of how this can be done, and review our findings with MMORPG players and developers.