What’s the deal with MMORPGs?
I’m considering writing a book dealing with massively-multi-user online role-playing games (MMORPGs), but I probably shouldn’t, because I’ve never played one. Talk about hubris–that practically makes me a 19th century anthropologist or a corporate journalist in Iraq’s “Green Zone.”
But still, I find the concept fascinating. After all, people immerse themselves in a text/graphic/auditory world with its own laws, property, ethics, aesthetics… this is the old fantasy concept of the reader falling inside of the novel.
I’ve read about women who are called “Warcraft Widows” who’ve all but lost their husbands not to online porn or to cyber-lovers, but to adventure games such as World of Warcraft. Their husbands may end up spending most of their waking days online inside these adventures, neglecting work, conversation, hobbies and sex. And then there are the people who fall inside The Sims. I can understand falling for a fantasy world, but for one just like ours, with rent and chores? This I just don’t grok.
So I’m hoping that you folks might be able to enlighten me a bit with your own experiences. Care to share, anyone?
September 10, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I’m sorry, but if it came down to losing my fiance or cutting down my Internet time, I’d cut the Internet time. You realize that those WoW obsessed folks eventually complain about not having girlfriends, right? But girls like it if you give them some attention, even just a little, and really, how can you pass up sex for a game? Even if sex isn’t that great for you, there’s a lot of things better about sex than a game…like, you know, cuddling afterwards or actually being with a real person and moving rather than talking to AIs or people’s characters and collecting gold…oi. Maybe I just don’t get the obsession…
September 10, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI’m considering writing a book dealing with massively-multi-user online role-playing games (MMORPGs), but I probably shouldn’t, because I’ve never played one. Talk about hubris–that practically makes me a 19th century anthropologist or a corporate journalist in Iraq’s “Green Zone.†But still, I find the concept fascinating. After all, people immerse themselves in a text/graphic/auditory world with its own laws, property, ethics, aesthetics… this is the old fantasy concept of the reader falli [...]
September 10, 2008 at 5:55 pm
As a lapsed player and sometimes designer of multiplayer games my take on this is pretty simple.
The details of the world don’t matter very much. People that have lots of friends in a game stay in a game, people that don’t leave. Sometimes they’re making up stories with their friends, but it’s the people-interactions that’re valuable.
The ‘stickiest’ games — IE, the ones that attract and keep the most players — seem to come in two flavors.
The World of Warcraft model is a little lamprey that attaches to hunter-gatherer instincts and provides a pleasurable feedback loop. It’s not particularly unique to games, and it’s not universally appealing. Some people like collecting them all more than others.
The other flavor is the purely social game, of which Second Life is the current(ish) standard bearer. It’s really just a gussied up chatroom, and while many have argued that games like WoW and Everquest are chat rooms, I think that’s missing the fact that a lot of people that play those games spend many hours hunting and gathering while they chat.
The phenomenon of the big multiplayer game is really just an inevitable consequence of humans liking to talk to other humans.
Which brings things around to The Sims, which is a pretty significantly different animal. Most of the people that stick to it seem to do so because it provides very neatly defined little abstractions of people and people-interactions that you can push around and direct. The result is that they’re so abstracted that it’s very easy to invent connecting narrative. Playing it becomes a story that the computer is moderating but you can direct. Or not, if you want. The multiplayer version of The Sims is not considered to be a wild success, and I’m guessing that’s a part of the reason why. The fact that other people are controlling those little cartoon folk makes them instantly less abstract and it inhibits the formation of those little story-feelers growing.
September 11, 2008 at 1:51 am
Oh, it’s very simple. A couple of months before we got together, my boyfriend (who had been playing WoW for about a year) bought me the game. I say he was just planning an ‘assault on all fronts’ on me, he says he wasn’t yet interested and just thought I’d like the game.
Ffwd one year and a half later, we play every night, we have friends in-game, we have one more common topic of conversation (or of annoyance) and we get to play together. No widow or widower.
I haven’t played anything else but WoW, so I can’t compare, but it’s really addictive once you get the hang of it (I hated it for the first couple of months because I didn’t have experience with RPGs – MMO or not). There’s the “OMG I want the best gear” and “OMG I want the most money” side, then there’s the “OMG I want to kill all the bosses”, and then there’s the social side. And the social ROCKS once you get to know some people. I am in a guild full of funny guys and girls from 10 countries or so, which is a small paradise for someone interested in different cultures (I’ve recently been taught to swear in Dutch! :D).
Even though it’s indeed “just a game”, the people are real. As I’ve always had good friends online (sometimes for years without meeting face to face) I see this as an extension on that. IRC with virtual characters, as my boyfriend put it :P
September 11, 2008 at 8:14 am
One of the most fascinating things I’ve heard about on-line gaming is that people will spend real money for virtual gold coins, power levels, etc. There is actually a growing industry that sells virtual goods for real money. Here’s an NPR feature on it.
September 11, 2008 at 8:29 am
Thanks, everyone. And I’m listening to that NPR feature right now–thanks, Bill.
September 11, 2008 at 10:02 am
As someone who has been playing WoW for two years solid, and Final Fantasy XI off and on for a few months, I have a little experience in this department.
As Jen and Zak mentioned, there is an amazing social aspect to most MMORPGs. They’re kind of like chat rooms 2.0. The social aspect of MMOs is a major factor in drawing folks in. The claim that MOST of the people who play a lot of MMOs are socially inept in real life or will complaining about not having a significant other really doesn’t hold much water anymore, considering the wide variety of people who play these days. The MMO populace ranges from children in middle school all the way to foreign dignitaries and anything/everything in between.
Which leads me to another point. Some folks spend hours upon hours playing MMOs simple to get away. I know there are times when I have a stressful day at work, and come home to an hour of WoW and feel completely better after pulling a few guests or running an instance or two. MMOs are a great way to just take a break. Yes, there are some out there who take the playing to a whole new level, and in turn they let the game create loads upon loads of stress…As I’ve never gotten into that frame of mind, I can’t offer any insight into it.
Another reason some people tackle MMORPGs, myself included, is the storyline and lore. The two major MMOs that I’ve played (WoW, and FFXI) are overflowing with some very entertaining story arcs and rich history/lore. I would compare completing a long quest line in either game to reading a short story set in a fantasy universe that you enjoy. Maybe that’s just the reader/writer coming out in me, there.
I know I’m a day late to this topic, but Gustav has really messed up my time frames…I’m behind on a lot. :)
September 11, 2008 at 10:53 am
As a WoW Widow (though it’s really more like being a mother than a widow) I think Zak’s allusion to control is a huge factor for some people. You can control what you look like, who talks to you, what tasks are most important, and whether or not you leave the world completely. It’s a comforting thing for people who have social anxiety to be able to extert that kind of control and still have social interaction (and I say that not to disparage WoW players or imply that all players have social anxiety).
September 11, 2008 at 11:57 am
Fascinating responses. Thank you, all, and keep em coming. Bill’s NPR-linked story is fascinating, most of all perhaps because of the way that “left” NPR almost completely ignores the most morally significant element of the entire story: gold-farming. New forms of economic and social exploitation practiced upon people in poor countries gets one sentence summarising it: “The broker keeps the spread.” Galling. I’m hoping that someone can point me towards some journalism or academic or organising work which treats this exploitation as what it is, and points to some solutions.
September 11, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Gold farming is, indeed, one of the more fascinating things to spring up out of multiplayer games.
I dug up a handful of links for you:
First up is Cory Doctorow’s short story Anda’s Game. While it is science fiction, it’s a good (if fictional) look at the phenomenon at the player level.
Next is a NYT piece calledOgre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese about the industry in china.
And the last of the three is the website for a documentary called Gold Farmers. It’s gotten a good deal of coverage. The site also contains a lot of links to other stories on the subject and a video blog of the creation of the documentary.
There is some coverage of the labor side of it as an industry, but the majority of stories still have at their core ‘gee, people get paid to do this?’. Anda’s Game does a better job of getting at that part than a lot of the actual news coverage. The documentary provides better depth on the actual practice, though.
September 11, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Oops. I failed to close a tag, it seems. The three links are actually there, it’s just a bit mangled.
September 11, 2008 at 1:14 pm
The BBC reported on gold farming here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7575902.stm
And the NY Times did a feature on it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html?ei=5088&en=a6282d1ddf608fc1&ex=1339732800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
September 12, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Thanks, Zak and LRV. I’ll check these out ASAP. You guys roll (and, presumably, rock).
September 15, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I was a WOW widow for quite a long time, but I had my own hobbies too. Then I got into Everquest II and my husband became the widow. By far, the funniest thing to me is the rivalries between different game players. For example, I worked in a tech support call center for a few years. The rivalries sometimes got so strong, when they were handing out seat assignments, they only had one question. Everquest or WOW?
I write about MMOs occasionally too, good times, always a controversy.