Title: The Anatomy of a Gamer
1The Anatomy of a Gamer
- Kurt D. Squire
- Constance A. Steinkuehler
- University of WisconsinMadison
21972
3Zork 1977
4Pac Man 1980
5Super Mario Bros. 1985
6Tetris 1985
7Mortal Kombat 1992
81972
1977
1980
1985
1990
1993
91994-2004
10Quake 2. c. 1997
11Ultima Online 1997
12Railroad Tycoon 1998
13Railroad Tycoon 1998
14Deus Ex 2000
15Frequency 2001
16Final Fantasy X 2001
17The Sims 2000
18Civilization III 2001
19Abstract Rhythm Games (Rez)
Rez 2001
20Adventure Games (Syberia)
Syberia 2002
21Full Spectrum Warrior 2004
22Lineage II 2004
23Star Wars Galaxies 2003
24Star Wars Galaxies 2003
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27Videogames are a push technology
Dmitri Williams (2004)
28Which Videogames?
PuzzleGames
Real TimeStrategy
First Person Shooter
Arcade Games
SimulationGames
SportsGames
Massively Multiplayer Online Games
AdventureGames
Role Playing
God Games
Abstract / Rhythm Games
Survival Horror
29Outline
- MMOG Industry
- What are MMOGs?
- What activities constitute MMOGaming?
- Literacy practices
- Joint Problem Solving
- Learning
- Emergent Themes
30MMOG Industry
- 2003 U.S. Industry Profit Numbers ?
- Gaming Industry 10.0 billion
- Hollywood box office movies 9.5 billion
- Music industry 14.3 billion
- Home video rentals 19.0 billion
v
31MMOG Industry
- 2003 U.S. Industry Profit Numbers
- Gaming Industry 10.0 billion
- Online Games (2003) 1.9 billion
- Online Games (2009) 9.8 billion
- Hollywood box office movies 9.5 billion
- Music industry 14.3 billion
- Home video rentals 19.0 billion
- Virtual worlds are significant
- Larger populations than some major real cities ?
- Larger economies than some major real countries
- Substantial time investment
- Diversity of those who play ?
32What are MMOGs?
- Highly graphical 2- or 3-D videogames
- Online social interaction
- Persistent virtual worlds ?
- Real-time, perpetually accessible
- Loosely structured by open-ended (fantasy)
narratives, but - Players free to do as they please
- Escapist fantasy yet emergentsocial realism
(Kolbert, 2001)?
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35What activities constitute MMOGaming?
- Literacy Practices
- Joint Problem Solving
- Learning
36The Literacy Scare
37MMOGs Literacy Practices
38For the most part I enjoy finding my own
information, it feels somehow rewarding because
the majority of the informationI come by is from
interactive online communities, like fansites and
forumsLiadon, 22Oct04
39Official Fandom
40MMOG Fan Fiction
41MMOG Fan Websites
42MMOG Fan Websites
?
Unofficial Fandom
43LoA website - entry
44LoA website - ranks
45LoA website - members
46LoA website - ss
47LoA website - stories
48LoA website - email
?
49LoA website - forums
?
50MMOGs Literacy Practices
51Orally Delivered Narratives
Official Game Narrative
52Orally Delivered Narrative
Liadon you know hwo the fairies originally came
into Liadon Being, right? Adeleide nohow? Liadon
Oooh, story time! Liadon once, back when the
world was young and the Liadon gods roamed teh
world as mortals, einhasad Liadon was in the
foreset Liadon and decided to create the race of
elves Liadon none of the other creatures wanted
to help Liadon because they did not know it was
einhasad in Liadon her mortal form Adeleide oh! Li
adon But 4 exceptionally kind creatures did
give Liadon Their assistance Liadon that is
anothe rstory entirely, but one was Liadon The
humble butterfly Liadon She did not have much to
offer, but spared Liadon some dust from her wings
to allow einhasad Liadon to make the
elves Liadon as a reward, those butterflies who
assisted Liadon were given the gift of
immortality and made Liadon fairies Liadon The
fairy queen was the original butterfly Adeleide ho
w did u know all that? Liadon Im' smart
p Liadon Every elf knows that. Liadon Seriously,
though. the mother tree told me
Prefacing activity
Context
Goal Conflict
Resolution
Punchline
53MMOGs Literacy Practices
54MMOG Text Talk
55MMOGs Literacy Practices
56Joint Problem Solving
- Several different forms but share common
features - Students work in groups or teams
- Students are responsible not only for their own
learning but for one anothers learning as well - Group goals individual accountability are
crucial! - Gives students opportunity to practice skills
- Performance Results
- Compared to traditional instruction,
collaborative learning wins out 61 of time - Equal benefits to students of all ability levels
- Students express greater liking for their peers
in general as a result - Increases students self esteem self-concept
- S i e g e T i m e !
57multiple multimedia, multimodality attentional
spaces (Lemke)
58Collaborative Problem Solving
Artifacting strategy.
59Within comm.of practice
Within / across emergent communities of practice
(Lave Wenger, 1991)
60Socially materially distributed cognition
Distributed social material cognition.
61Negotiation of Meaning
Negotiation of strategy roles.
62MMOGs Literacy Practices
63MMMOG Learning Apprenticeship
- All higher cognitive processes develop out of
social interaction (Vygotsky) - Through joint activities with more mature members
of society, learners come to master activities
think in ways that have meaning in their culture - EXAMPLE Apprenticeship of JellyBean
- Who Myrondonia level 25 / JellyBean level 10
- What Elven practice of hunting for mithril
- When JellyBean cries for help against orcs
- Where Elven Dungeon w/ orcs zombies
64Apprenticeship
65Joint Participation
.
.
.
.
66.
.
.
.
.
.
67Apprenticeship of JellyBean
- Enculturation into Practice
- Joint participation in meaningful activity
- Mutually understood valued goal
- Models successful performance
- Focus attention on key aspects
- Gradually hands control over to learner
- Opportunities for practice situated feedback
- Enculturation into Kind of Elf like Us
- Socializing learner into way of understanding
the world tied to particular values - Display oneself as people like us
X
68What does this mean?
We should design better ones!
Were all out of jobs!
Lets try to understandthis a little better first
Lets turn everythinginto games
Ban themwherever we can!
69Themes
- Distributed Intelligence
- Consumers ? producers
- Official texts appropriated into fandom
- Disruptions of power (access, control)
- Multiple multimedia, multimodality attentional
spaces (Lemke) - Fuzzy boundaries between RL VL
- Internet as both tool place
- Meaning tied to identities in communities
- Equity issues / digital divide
70Games as a social push
- Indigenous to digital age
- Quintessential example of new media
- Increasingly transmedia
- Enculturating force for youth
- Recruits, even requires literacies
- Kids grow up media makers
- Sites of social disruptions
- Legal (Who owns my character?)
- Economic (Is game income taxable?)
71The Digital Disconnect
- Kids online more than parents
- 78 of children 12 17 go online.
- Personally meaningful learning
- Virtual reference library.
- Virtual tutor and study shortcut.
- Virtual study group
- Virtual guidance counselor
- Key Finding
- We have not yet recognizedmuch less responded
tothe new ways use the Internet. Pew Internet
Project, 2003
72Emergent information spaces
Collectiveintelligence
Open Source Information
RedistributingPower
International
Access to social affiliations
73t y v m !
- http//website.education.wisc.edu/kdsquire
- kdsquire_at_education.wisc.edu
- http//www.sit.wisc.edu/steinkuehler
steinkuehler_at_wisc.edu
74presentationstops here
75- third space
- issue of addiction
763rd space
MMOGs are social spaces. Third spaces (Bruckman
Resnick, 1995). Neither work nor home.
77But more compelling
And they are quite compelling.
78Because MMOGs function as spaces of possibility
Liadon when it gets close to time i'll step down
as general and Liadon give you a few
recommendations... but I AM Liadon comgin back
when I can Liadon Probably won't still want to be
the general tho Adeleide yea ull be v
busy Liadon Tha'ts not it Liadon peopel make time
for what is important Liadon it would just be
kinda weird, since fantasy Liadon games are for
doing things we can't in real Liadon life... and
if I"m in the military irl, it would Liadon be
really odd ot come home and keep at it ingame
conversation, 28March04
79and retribalization in a winner take all
society
Sometimes I pause and think to myself why we do
what we do online. After all, sometimes this
starts to feel like another job even though it's
just a game. I think that it's because we are
making so much progress. And in the end, if we
can maybe leave some kind of legacy... that
perhaps years down the road there will be another
generation of gamers. And maybe they will say,
do you remember that pledge? Did you actually
meet Princess Adeleide, or General Liadon?
Maybe when you get down to it, this is just
another goal of life to achieve immortality by
being remembered in some way. In the end I think
everyone has to ask themselves that basic
question. Did I make an impact on someone's
life? Positive or negative? Will I be
remembered for it? IM conversation, 3
May 2002
80And maybe even as meritocracies at times.
LadySin Im nothing of a leader in
RL Adeleide bah LadySin well unless pple get to
know me LadySin then I take over LadySin but from
a distance I look like a simple silly
person LadySin Im short, small LadySin Im not
loud or talk much LadySin im shy Adeleide well,
what made u different here than in RL? LadySin I
think physical prescence LadySin I dont see
people, people dont see me LadySin I dont have to
worry about how I look or if myhair or clothes
are ok LadySin it sounds shallow but thats what
it is
81Critique of society
Perhaps these spaces are simply more compelling
than realspaces.
82Critique of school
Such as school.
83Rethink
And perhaps they ought to make us critique our
society.
Corporate U.S. Flag ? AdBusters
84Rethink
Instead of gamersthemselves.
85 86Overview of Research Project
- Theoretical perspective
- Cognition as (inter)action in the social
material world (cf. Hutchins, Lave, Vygotsky) - big D Discourse theory (Gee,1999) ?
- Goals
- To understand the culture/cognition of MMOGs
- To inform public parents, teachers, designers
- Site Lineage I ( now Lineage II)
- Ancillary work on other games (SWG, EverQuest)
- Method Virtual Cognitive Ethnography
87Virtual Cognitive Ethnography
- Primary Data Sources
- Participant Observations (video/audio data)
- Ethnographic Fieldnotes
- Individual Case Studies
- Interviews with Informants
- Collection of Community Documents
- Fieldwork To Date
- Princess Adeleide, LegendsOfAden Blood Pledge
- 25 months fieldwork, average 10-50 hrs/week
- 12 formal interviews
- 40 hrs informal interviews .
88 89Woodcock (2004)
90Woodcock (2004)
91?
Woodcock (2004)
92Diversity of MMOGamers
?
Dmitri Williams (2004)
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94?