The Social Life of Virtual Worlds

1
The Social Life of Virtual Worlds

• Aleks Krotoski
• University of Surrey
• Department of Social Psychology

2
What they are Demographics The social life of
virtual worlds
3
What they are History

• From Multi-User Dungeons to Massively Multiplayer
  Online Role Playing Games

4
What they are Major Players

• Fantasy Fun EverQuest,
• Ultima Online
• Modern Times The Sims Online
• User Creation Second Life
• Just Being There.com

5
What they are History

• From Multi-User Dungeons to Massively Multiplayer
  Online Role Playing Games

6
What they are How Many?
7
Who Plays?

• Men
• Fantasy-based titles 80
• 20-30 years old (average 25)
• Students or tech-heads
• (Griffiths et al, 2003 Yee, 2002)

8
Who plays? The Women

• Fantasy-based games 12-20
• The Sims Online 60
• 30-35 years old
• Relationship
• 70 play with male partner
• New mums
• (Yee, 2002a, 2002b Lewis, 2004)

9
Interpersonal relationships

• Necessity! Its a massively multiplayer game,
  after all
• What we know about online relationships
• Proximity and frequency of contact
• Similarity
• Self-presentation
• Reciprocity self-disclosure
• Consistency
• The role of Anonymity in all of this the True
  Self
• Perpetuity dont mess with the troll if youve
  already irked the governor.
• Marriage (The Sims Online) and divorce courts
  (Ragnarok Online)

10
Self-governance

• The development of social norms the environment
  is already controlled, so work on the social
  begins.
• A Rape in Cyberspace (1993)
• GMs Game-imposed legal systems
• Mr. President
• Law, Games and Virtual Worlds (2003, 2004)

11
Trade Barter
12
Cold, hard cash
1. virtual property
2. sweatshops
3. "77th richest nation on earth"
13
9,201,071 since July 2004
2800 Jedi account
1 1,265.90 EQ Platinum Pieces
http//mypage.iu.edu/castro/home.html
14
The Law

• Li Hongchen (2003) and protection for game
  characters
• Government Intervention bigamy suits

• Black Market Economies and international trade
  implications
• Test-Beds (Bradley Froomkin, 2003)

15
Personal Development

• Learning about ourselves women
• The games women play
• Academic success, university and employment
  (ELSPA, 2003)
• Coming Out in the age of the internet (Bargh et
  al, 2002)
• Sherry Turkle (1995)
• Life on the Screen Identity in the Age of the
  Internet
• Online worlds as Identity Laboratories
• Possible Selves
• projection

16
Conclusion

• What they are
• Demographics
• Social life of virtual worlds