O' the Week Of Hell... and Rejoice!

Hey,
I had the week from hell. First, my grandfather went into the hospital, so I had to spend some time at home at the beginning of the week. Then, the power inverter for my laptop went out... I think. This led to some bad problems, like not having the internet ... having to use the school's computers, and not being able to play WoW. I also became busy and frustrated at my current computer situation and forgot to post. Anyway, I have been reading ALOT.

Here is what I read in the past week:

First, I want to explain where I am in my research. I found that the game of WoW is such a complex environment, that anyone can make their own form of competition. When different types of competition happen simultaneously, and with the user’s same avatar, then a complete immersion of who the player wants to be and what the player wants to be doing is fulfilled. The player now does not need an end point because of my so called ‘spiral affect’ where the player does not feel like he is going in a circle, but in a spiral progressing outwards with no end point. I guess what I found an end point to be is when one can not play WoW, like I have not been about to do in a long while. Just kidding.

Never the less, from what I have seen and from where I think my research is going, is there is not much difference between competition in the virtual environment of WoW, and outside in the real world. There are only subtle differences in the means through which we compete. Basically, World of Warcraft produces a tangible environment for all to create their “Other”, so to speak, which they were not able to create before in the real world. This means that research into how players use computer mediated communication and competition is parallel to real life, and playing these games is more than just a game, it is standing on the brink of becoming a society.

Second, I wanted to just put some notes for myself, and anyone else who is interested about Lacan from the book An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis by Dylan Evans.

The little other is the other who is not really other, but a reflection and projection of the Ego. He is both the counterpart or the other people in whom the subject perceives a visual likeness (semblable), and the specular image or the reflection of one's body in the mirror. In this way the little other is entirely inscribed in the Imaginary order. See Objet Petit a.

The big Other designates a radical alterity, an otherness transcending the illusory otherness of the Imaginary because it cannot be assimilated through identification. Lacan equates this radical alterity with language and the law: the big Other is inscribed in The Symbolic order, being in fact the Symbolic insofar as it is particularized for each subject. The Other is then another subject and also the Symbolic order which mediates the relationship with that other subject.

Yet, the meaning of "the Other as another subject" is secondary to the meaning of "the Other as Symbolic order". 'The Other must first of all be considered a locus, the locus in which speech is constituted' (Seminar III: The Psychoses). We can speak of the Other as a subject in a secondary sense, only when a subject may occupy this position and thereby embody the Other for another subject (Seminar VIII: Le transfert).

ALSO, I read:

• Yee's The Demographics, Motivations and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively-Multiuser Online Graphical Environments

This mostly scientific paper revealed, through massive surveys and interviews, a five factor model of user motivations:

1. Achievement: This factor measures the desire to become powerful in the context of the virtual environment through the achievement of goals and accumulation of items that confer power. There is also a sub motivation that goes along with achievement, which is the "Lead" factor. This factor is players drive and desire to become the leader of the pack, so to speak.
2. Relationship: This factor measures the desire of users to interact with other users, and their willingness to form meaningful relationships that are supportive in nature, and which include a certain degree of disclosure of real-life problems and issues.
3. Immersion: This factor is about existing in a fantasy world as well as being “someone else”. Those who fancy the immersion factor enjoy the story-telling aspect of these worlds and enjoy creating avatars with histories that extend and tie in with the stories and lore of the world
4. Escapism: The “Escapism” factor measures how much a user is using the virtual world to temporarily avoid, forget about and escape from real-life stress and problems.
5. Manipulation: This factor measures how inclined a user is to objectify other users and manipulate them for his personal gains and satisfaction. Users who score high on the “Manipulation” factor enjoy deceiving, scamming, taunting and dominating other users.

The paper also discusses how meaningful and emotional relationships are formed within WoW and how real life skills form in these virtual environments. I believe the interface of WoW is not just a glorified chat room, where people simply communicate and share meaning with numbers and aesthetics; but knowing that real world skills and strong character building is possible through interacting with, about and through the game, makes research into this game genre even more important.

• Yee's Motivations of Play in Online Games

This paper shows an empirical model of player motivations to provide an understanding of how players differ from one another and how motivations of play relate to age, gender, usage patterns and in-game behaviors. These components are kind of similar to his larger paper (the one I just talked about) but in a different set up and format (please note the chart of page 5 of Motivations of Play in Online Games). This paper showed me that every player has completely different emotional value within the game. They all have different levels of drives, want different things, desire different strengths and powers. Yet, they all exist in the same world, and can compete with each other or fight side by side, but with ultimately different drives.

The paper also talks about archetypes and stereotypes within the gamers’ society. This idea that the gamer generation is for late youth who did not get out much was taken out by the wide range of demographics surveyed for this paper. Many ages, from all economic and social background play together.

• Chen and Duh's Understanding Social Interaction in World of Warcraft

This article is a bit smaller and also used Yee for a few reference points, but generally what Chen and Duh talk about is how people interact within WoW. First, they are look at the game as socially engaging or as individually driven because of resent research that has shown that most people play WoW predominately alone. They also talk about how relationships built online were just as solid, if not more so than in real life. They ask these questions next:

What are the factors that affect social interaction in WoW? What are different forms of social interaction in WoW?

They discuss a symbolic interactionism theory. This looks into how individuals create symbolic meaning through their interactions with other people. “An individual’s self-conception is therefore reconstructed by each interaction with an Other. Individuals invest symbolic meanings into these interactions to make them socially real. Then they discuss Contextual factors (Historical Context, Interactional Arena, Level of Social Aggregation) and In-game Factors (Instrumental Joint Acts, Rules of Conduct) and how they influence social interaction in WoW.

The paper concludes with how the social interaction can be understood by self-other dynamic. In a RPG, everyone can experiment forms of self-representation. Staging oneself, the spatial gaze that exists in the environment of WoW, and superiority all play into how one views him-or herself within the game. For example, superiority can be used as a competitive factor with the drive to boost ones ego. There is also the view of the Other; which is the view of the Individual other and the view of the collective Other.

• Brignall and Valey's An Online Community as a New Tribalism: The World of Warcraft

I enjoyed this article because it showed me that there is a movement towards New Tribalism, and a part of playing the game is leading a more eventful ‘life’. The article starts out by defining how tribalism fits into WoW. Most guilds are formed with the sharing of a common interests or identity. Within Wow, players are able to substitute their real life need for a ‘brotherhood’ with the guild they play in. This is simply a shift in meaning for the player. Also, they point the important fact that 24 of 30 ‘hardcore’ players prefer to socialize online, than off. This means that the devotion some players will give to their guild will be higher than a social group IRL. This paper also discusses the tribalistic behavior found in WoW, including the negative aspects.

• Rehak's Playing at Being (Chapter 5 in Wolf & Perron's The Video Game Theory Reader)

This is the second time I have read this article, so I am just going to point out the important things I feel are valuable to my research.

Rehak notes on the image of self perspective in videogames: “… the crucial relationship in many games, both contemporary standards and their ancestors, is not about avatar and environment or even between protagonist and antagonist, but between the human player and the image of him- or herself encountered onscreen.” Rehak continues to explain Lacan’s theory of the Mirror Self. Babies, between 6 and 18 months begin to respond and treat their own reflections as a part of themselves and the baby responds to the “attraction of unity, wholeness, and power promised by the reflective form.”

Also, “The videogame avatar would seem to meet the criteria of Lacan’s Objet Petit a. Appearing on screen in place of the player, the avatar does double duty as self and other, symbol and index. … They are supernatural ambassadors of agency.” Ego-confirmation creates a vicious cycle here with no negative affects of death. But also, the long history of videogames has taught of that there is no perfectively reflective avatar. This allows “an alterity enabling players both to embrace the avatar as an ideal and to reject it as an inferior other.”

“The avatar is not simply a means of access to desired outcomes, but an end itself.”

I have also been looking at how competition works within the mindset of humans. This a very general assumption, but what I have determined is that there is Amoral and Moral behaviors that affect competition.

Amoral is the humans beings drive to survive. In WoW, most players, for the first time, are in constant danger of dying. Never before, does one have to fight for ones own survival. The is all granted with the idea that surviving in WoW is to level up, which is the ultimate drive for most users. In order to level up, one must risk his or her own neck to gain experience. The more dangerous a situation is, the more rewarding the booty. Amoral competition does not center around the forced downfall of someone (or something) else. Instead, the main drive is to maintain ones own existence. This can be seen in many regulated and non regulated forms of competition: such as being social and knowing a lot of people, needing items in order to survive in certain areas, being a good team member to allow your teams greatest chance at survival, etc. This type of competition can be brief, like getting away from an large group of aggro’ed monsters, or learning a new spell to help you kill or escape with ease from a dangerous situation.

The next form of competition is dealing with moral behavior. This type of competition encompasses This is where competition is a mutually voluntary activity in which success is based upon the forced failure of someone else. Life and death do not necessarily play into the desired outcome, but superiority does. This also encompasses the good versus evil scenario, where some people feel it is their moral duty for fight for their side, etc. And finally, this also seen in being a Good Samaritan, because one could be striving to be the most noble and kindest player.