investiGaming is a publication of the Serious Game Design group in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University, 2007-2009
This gateway is partially supported by grant 0631771 from the National Science Foundation.
The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent Michigan State University or the National Science Foundation.
Genre MmoinvestiGaming › Tags › Genre Mmo
Selected Highlights from GENRE MMO tag (scroll down to see the full list of entries with this tag, including links to the entries)
Who Plays MMOs?
• More females MMO players played with a romantic partner (62%). (Williams, 2009; Yee 2008, Yee, 2006)
• MMO players playing with a romantic partner were more likely to be female, were older, made less money, played more hours per week, exercised more, had lower BMI, had more characters, reported higher relationship quality and enjoyed the game more. (Williams, 2009)
• 26.9% of female players (n= 420) were introduced to the game by their romantic partner (boy/girlfriend, fiance/e, or husband/wife). (Yee, 2006)
• 13% of female players were homemakers (13.3%, n = 438) (Yee, 2006)
• A majority of MMO players were not teenagers. (Yee, 2006)
Gender Swapping
• For Chinese culture, male players with female avatars and faking their gender were seen as problematic. This also put pressure on female players because anyone with a female avatar would be questioned for their true gender. (Wu, 2007)
• Female players playing as male avatars did not receive the same kind of hostility. (Wu, 2007)
• Within Chinese MMO, in-game marriages reinforced heteronormative traditions. (Wu, 2007)
• Results revealed that the majority of gamers (57%) had gender swapped their game character. This included over half of all males (54%) and more than two-thirds of females (68%). This finding was significant (X2[4] _ 18.16, p _ 0.001; odds ratio _ 2.1). (Hussain, 2008)
• Significantly more females than males had gender swapped their character. This can be explained by the reasons provided by Participant 39 (Extract 22), who gender swapped in order to prevent unsolicited male approaches on her female characters. (Hussain, 2008)
• Players in female avatars (whether male or female) frequently report sexual harassment. (Fullerton, 2008)
Gender and Motivations to Play MMOs
• Female players derived pleasure from the highly social environment within an MMO. The games provided a sense of community and social structure not see in other games. (Taylor, 2003)
• What makes MUDs and MMOGs compelling (character development, immersive worlds, strong community building tools, and functionality), could be fairly gender-neutral. (Taylor, 2003)
• Female players prefer to relate to other players, while male players prefer to work together to achieve goals. (Yee, 2006)
• Motivations for playing between males and females were extremely different. (Yee, 2006)
• Males were more motivated to play MMOs for Achievements than females, while female players are more motivated by Social Relationships and Immersion than males. (Yee, 2006)
• As T.L. Taylor’s research showed, many women who play the over-sexualized, underdressed avatars in MMOs would prefer to have a less excessively endowed character if given the choice (Fullerton, 2008)
• A key pleasure for women in MMOs is exploration (Fullerton, 2008)
• In spite of their apparent inclusiveness, there are other implicit and explicit demarcations that bar women from the videogame playground, and can sometimes take the form of blatant player discrimination. Another is mechanics, which disproportionately reward combat activities; another may be the linear achievement model of success. (Fullerton, 2008)
The Social Contexts of MMO Play
Social context constrains how game are played, what game is played and who it is played with. Most women are introduced to an MMO through a romantic partner or family member. (Yee, 2008)
• Men are allowed relatively free access to online games, but a woman’s presence in an online game was seen as legitimate only if it occurred via a relationship with a man. (Yee, 2008)
• Women were more likely to be playing with someone else in the same room than males. Men were more likely to be playing alone. (Yee, 2008)
• Almost two-thirds of gamers (63%) said online gaming did not satisfy their social needs. However, 28% said online gaming satisfied their social needs that were not satisfied in the real world. The reasons for this were varied based on situations like being mobile or far from home. (Hussain, 2008)
• The physical space where people play MMOs affects who can play and for how long. Games played on high-end PCs with internet access bars access for many demographics. (Lin, 2008)
• Public Cyber Cafes facilitated access for young males to play MMOs but are unwelcoming or even dangerous to females. (Lin, 2008)
• Parents and later, college roommates discouraged young women in Taiwan from “wasting” their time gaming and potentially being inconsiderate, noisy or visually distracting in a shared home or dorm. (Lin, 2008)
• Most Taiwanese women only have access to a high-end computer at home which they have to share with siblings and obey parental restrictions. (Lin, 2008)
Bedigian, Louis (2004)
Synopsis:
An Interview with Constance A. Steinkuehler where she shares some of what she has learned through cognitive theory studies of MMO players.
Keywords:
industry, media-press, interview, game design, MMO,
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes
Synopsis:
Proposes a “new poetics” of game space in which game design is more egalitarian and games themselves draw on a wider range of spatial and cognitive models.
Keywords:
academia, journal article, MMO, player types, motivations, pink games, what women want, game design, competition, storytelling, empowerment, femininity, the Sims
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
An online survey of 119 people (83 males and 32 females), ages 18-69, mostly American (73%) about their behavior playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMOs), especially regarding gender swapping.
Keywords:
survey, journal, MMO, psychology, sexuality, gender identity, avatars
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
A social study of female players in Taiwan incorporated field notes from observations at sixteen Internet cafes, ,interviews with 43 individual game players and nine focus groups, and the author’s personal observations from over 500 hours of online gaming.
Keywords:
book, chapter, case study, Taiwan, MMO, gaming social context, gaming culture, family dynamics
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
Examines gender differences in more than 2,400 EverQuest II players, using survey and in-game data from Sony Online Entertainment.
Keywords:
academia, industry, survey, play data, media-press, player demographics, genre MMO, gaming social context, motivations, sexuality
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
Transcript of email interview with Celia Pearce about her design process and research on MMO games.
Keywords:
interview, MMO, game design, motivations
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes
Synopsis:
Discussion of female players of MMORPGs based on interviews and ethnographic data.
Keywords:
journal, MMO, gaming social context, gaming culture, motivations, what women want, gender inclusive, aggression
Full Text: No | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
Short online video interview with Game Designer Michael Nitsche about layers of values and user generated values within game customization.
Keywords:
video, interview, values at play, Fable, game design, Sim City, Grand Theft Auto, Second Life, MMO
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes
Synopsis:
A short online video of an interview with Game Designer Celia Pearce specifically about values at play.
Keywords:
video, interview, values at play, MMO
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes
Synopsis:
A survey of 7,129 Everquest II players is combined with in-game observations to examine gender differences in play motivations and lifestyle.
Keywords:
academia, journal, survey, gender theories, gender identity, motivations, gaming social context, genre MMO, sexuality, aggression
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
A study based on observations and interviews with MMO-players in China. The study was to investigate the phenomenon of gender-swapping and in-game marriages as social commentary.
Keywords:
journal, case study, sexuality, avatars, MMO, gender theories, China
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
Online surveys about the mental processes of MMO players were conducted between the years 2000 and 2003 with 30,000 MMO players by linking from web portals that catered to MMO players from the more popular game series.
Keywords:
Book, chapter, psychology, motivations, MMO, addiction, avatars, survey, player demographics
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
Online surveys were conducted with30,000 online MMO players over a three year period to explore player demographics, motivations, and derived experiences.
Keywords:
journal, survey, MMO, player demographics, motivations,
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
Multiple Surveys with data from 2,000 to 4,000 MMO players are combined with in-game observation to study various hypotheses about the dynamics of gender, play, and relationships in MMOs.
Keywords:
book, chapter, survey, player demographics, MMO, player types, what women want, what men want, co play, gaming social context
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes