by Nick Yee
For others, it is power over other players that is truly satisfying. This might be driven by the desire to be on top or the desire to overpower and dominate weaker players. These players often seek out competitive, player-versus-player activities.
Being the best is most fun. I have always been extremely competitive, I grew up with a brother who is very competitive, so I have been used to competition since birth. . . . I have learned to find satisfaction in winning and love all games, board, sports and electronic games, because in all games u have winners and losers. [World of Warcraft, male, 18]
And finally, for some players, the joy in playing online games comes from dissecting and understanding all the numbers and rules in the game. This then allows them to plan out and optimize their character.
Just recently, I spent three days working out a jewelry/armor template that would allow me to max as many things as possible for my last set of armor when I hit max level. [Dark Age of Camelot, female, 23]
I had created 30+ templates and spent literally 40+ spare hours creating templates at catacombs and other sites to make sure I had the best build. Then when I finally got there and it all fit into place—that made it all worth it. [World of Warcraft, male, 25, describing his earlier experience in Dark Age of Camelot]
For players who enjoy social interaction, online games might be viewed as a large chat room in which there is always someone to chat with, always new people to meet.
I love to talk to people, all of the time. I generally am talking to several people at a time, and feel slightly uncomfortable in silent groups. My friends list grows often. When I played the original EverQuest, I maxed my friends list (100 players) at one point and had to delete a few alts of friends. [EverQuest II, male, 17]
On the other hand, some players who enjoy this social ambience aren’t necessarily interested in developing deep or meaningful relationships.
I like interacting with other people, chatting, etc., but . . . I have a pretty low desire to make what I consider “good friends” as that would involve a real-life component I’d rather keep separate from my game playing. [EverQuest II, male, 39]
Now contrast this with other players who are open to or specifically interested in becoming good friends with people they meet online.
It’s fun having friends all over the world, you can learn from the way they live and do things. That’s what I mostly enjoy about meeting others in game. To befriend people and get to know them, hopefully building a lasting friendship even when one of us does end up giving up on whatever game we’re playing. [EverQuest II, female, 19]
I’m currently sitting in Las Vegas typing this using the network of a friend I met via EverQuest. . . . We met IRL [in real life] last summer when she had reason to visit Boston (I live in Connecticut), and now I’m visiting her for several days. My dearest female friend I also met via EverQuest. . . . I not only spend every Xmas with her and her husband (4 times so far) but also visit her for a week every couple of months. They don’t even EQ any more but the friendship continues strong and growing. [EverQuest, female, 61]
The last motivation that falls into the social interaction cluster is teamwork. For these players, what is fun is working with other players and being part of a team.
A strong motivation for me is working with other people and existing within a perfect and efficient group. The aims of this group are not important, we could be grinding or camping a spawn to get an item for someone, when everything goes perfect, no communication is needed, and everyone just does what they should exactly as it should be done, I just feel great. . . . Interacting with people and being able to depend on them, and be depended on by them . . . that’s why I play. [World of Warcraft, male, 20]
For players interested in immersion, there are a variety of ways to become connected with the story of the online game. Some players create in-depth background stories for their characters that tether them in some way to other players or the story arcs in the game.
It’s important for me to have backstories for my characters before I really enjoy playing them. For example, I know that Trigger, my dwarven rogue, is the younger sister of my husband’s character’s (Hawthorne) best friend. Thus when Trigger plays, it’s with a great deal of enthusiasm and not necessarily a great deal of sense. When Trig and Hawthorne group together, there’s a great deal of friendly bickering and/bonk going on. I think it’s a replacement for the acting I did in school, which is so hard to fit into my life as an adult. [World of Warcraft, female, 36]
I’ve been playing as a Night Elf Druid who’s older than dirt, but has been hibernating for millennia. It’s been fun to play out her first encounters with humans, gnomes, and orcs, none of whom existed when she went to sleep. I’ve been playing her as the type that’s incredibly wise, formerly very powerful, but somewhat confused about the modern world. [World of Warcraft, male, 23]
These character stories often lead to improvised, in-character interactions with other characters, referred to as role-playing. Although nongamers might assume that all online gamers role-play, given that the game genre is described as role-playing games, this form of improvised storytelling is actually a niche activity. The label “role-playing” was devised to mark the shift from army squadrons to individual characters in miniature wargaming, not the importance of storytelling. “Role-playing” thus has two very different meanings in online games. In World of Warcraft, the niche status of role-playing is made clear by the fact that only a handful of the hundreds of available servers are explicitly labeled as role-playing servers.
Other players interested in stories may instead be fascinated by the stories of the game world—its characters, histories, leaders, and cities. These players are interested in exploring the world and learning as much as they can about the lore of the game.
I love the stories around the new Everquest. I went from zone to zone talking to people trying to figure out how we arrived where we are in the story—500 years later and the moon of Luclin now gone. Where are those frogloks? I am anxious about getting through certain zones because I want to see/do more. [EverQuest, female, 37]
I do enjoy exploring, but what I enjoy even more is the creation and participation in a story. Exploring the world is a large part of that. I’m a big reader . . . fantasy, sci-fi, and interesting biography. When I’m having my “best times” in game is when I’m pursuing a quest or participating in some grand adventure. [EverQuest II, male, 30]
Of course, for some players, the sense of being transported into a living, breathing fantasy world is in and of itself already incredibly appealing.
I don’t necessarily Role-Play a lot, but feeling like I’m “in” the game is really fun. For example, in EverQuest, I felt like I was just playing a random computer game. Whereas with World of Warcraft I really feel like I’m involved because there’s a rich history and I know a lot of the history about it. [World of Warcraft, male, 18]
Online games appeal to a broad demographic because they tap into a wide set of gameplay motivations. Even in a dungeon group of five players, there might be a player who just wants to slay the dragon, another player who wants to know how the story ends, two brothers in different countries playing together to spend time with each other, and a player who is injecting some much-needed humor through role-playing antics. These virtual worlds allow players to engage in very different kinds of gameplay side by side.
The Paradox of Escape
Online games are like school in many ways. Both provide predefined rewards for a set of highly constrained and objectively measured activities. If you write all your letters between the rows of gray lines, you get a silver star. If you get ten silver stars, you can trade up for a gold star. If you want to get into a good college, you need to get a certain score on the SAT. Wherever you are in the education tread-mill, you know exactly where you are, where you’ll be next, and how to get there. For about sixteen years of our lives, this is the model of progress we are all taught. And then we’re let loose into the real
world, where these rules go away. Goals are no longer defined for you. Performance in many jobs has no clear objective measure. Sometimes your boss takes the credit, someone else gets promoted instead, or you reach a dead-end within the company. The real world is tough, and it’s often unfair.
Not so in online games. Everyone who kills the evil bandit gets the same amount of experience points. Goals are clear, predefined, and fair. Your achievements are displayed in a multitude of easy-to-read progress bars.
In an MMORPG you can see a consistent progression of development in your skills. You are getting better at a steady rate. In RL you don’t level up when you get ahead, it isn’t as obvious. [World of Warcraft, male, 31]
While I personally own and run a successful small business, and have enjoyed reaching milestones and goals I’ve set for myself, they come fewer and farther between than I NEED, and so, playing online games allows me to find a positive outlet for that need to achieve on a regular basis. [World of Warcraft, female, 37]
We don’t play games just because they fit our gameplay motivations, we also play them for deeply human and cultural reasons. For many players, like the successful small business owner, this can be therapeutic. Online games can provide a cheap, convenient way of feeling progress. On the other hand, playing online games primarily to escape from real-life problems can easily lead to a vicious cycle.
I have been out of work now for over a month and now find myself in a stressful, depressed state that is only quelled when I am playing EverQuest, because it’s easy to forget about real world troubles and problems, but the problem is when you get back to the real world, problems and troubles have become bigger, and it’s a bad, bad cycle. [EverQuest, male, 26]
I was having financial troubles and marital problems as well. I could ignore my real life and escape into EverQuest. This wasn’t for the fun, it was a “need” that I felt to not deal with my life responsibly and EverQuest was my chosen method of “drugging” myself into blissful ignorance. [EverQuest, male, 33]
Studies have consistently shown that the gamers who are most at risk for problematic gaming—gaming that makes it difficult for someone to manage their life—are those who are suffering from depression and social anxiety. In this light, problematic gaming arises from failed attempts at self-treatment. Players who play to escape are precisely the ones who become increasingly saddled with reality. Crucially, once these psychological well-being variables are taken into account, the effect that game variables (such as gameplay motivations) have on problematic gaming is marginal. In fact, gaming can be beneficial when it’s part of a healthy palette of social interactions. Family members who play online games together report more family communication time and better communication quality. Dmitri Williams often uses a phrase that succinctly captures these differences in outcomes: “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” These findings underscore two related and important points: gaming can augment existing social networks, and well-adjusted gamers are largely not at risk of problematic gaming.11
As big as the stereotypical jock-versus-nerd divide is in high school, there are many similarities between football and online games. Both are social activities that take place in a cordoned-off portion of reality. In these virtual worlds, different rules and objectives come into play. Players take on fantasy roles that have functional meaning only in the fantasy world. They are awarded points for arbitrarily defined tasks. Teamwork and competition play a large role in both games.
On the other hand, there is a tremendous difference in how people interpret tragedies that occur in these two games. Between 1994 and 2009, an average of three football players died each year in the United States from overheating, usually during intensive training in summer. When such a death occurs, the media often approach the subject with a holistic perspective: they question whether the coach set an unreasonably exhausting regimen, whether the parents saw warning signs, and whether the school reviewed the coach’s history thoroughly; they wonder why the school mandates practice in the hot summer months and how the team physicians took into account the idiosyncratic health profiles of different players. And in no time during all this introspection does anyone suggest football is addictive and that a new pathological designation should be created for football. A leather ball is too low-tech and too mainstream to be useful for instilling paranoia.12
We cherry-pick addictions. Some people accumulate cats in their houses until their lives are overrun with toxic animal waste, but there are no dramatic news stories warning us that cats are addictive. Certainly, some gamers spend too much time playing online games and this leads to problems with their work, relationships, or health, but the label “online gaming addiction” is a rhetorical sleight of hand that distracts us from the actual psychological problems from which these gamers suffer. When we focus our attention on the technology, we take the person out of the equation. These labels are a disingenuous rebranding of common coping mechanisms stemming from depression and social anxiety; they sideline the fact that taking the technology away won’t resolve these underlying psychological problems.
Whether it’s the frivolous nature of video games, the people who play online games, or online gaming addiction, our cultural stereotypes often distract us from the reality of gaming. And by focusing our attention on these myths of bad inputs and outputs—delinquent male teenagers, antisocial behavior, and gaming addiction—these self-serving cultural stories have encouraged us to ignore what actually happens inside these online games. In the next part of the book, I’ll draw from different aspects of online games to explain why the promise of escape and freedom in virtual worlds is illusory. Our psychological baggage and social stereotypes follow us into these fantasy worlds.
CHAPTER 3 SUPERSTITIONS
In EverQuest there were several folks in my guild who believed if their characters got drunk enough they would actually be teleported to a special location. I think this rumor started because somebody got so drunk they couldn’t tell where they were walking (since being drunk warps the way the game draws the graphics) and got stuck in a weird place under Freeport or Qeynos. So these guys kept getting smashed on long camps to try and go to this “special” location, which really screwed us one time when the mob we wanted appeared but half of the group was too wasted to attack it. No matter how much others tried to convince them that there was no special place, they never stopped believing it was true.
[World of Warcraft, male, 36]
In the early parts of online games, and even after many hours of playing, players are often only tapping a few keys on their keyboard repeatedly. The game provides incentives for these repetitive gestures whether this is leveling up or finding a rare weapon on a slain monster. From the perspective of an outsider, who hasn’t been carefully trained by the game to desire these virtual incentives, many online games may appear tedious and boring. In fact, gamers themselves have a word for the repetitive monster killing that slowly levels them up: they call it grinding.
A well-studied psychological principle called operant conditioning helps us understand how a system of rewards can make an inherently uninteresting task appealing. In its simplest form, the principle seems obvious. If you reward a person for performing a certain behavior, he or she is more likely to repeat that behavior. The way you provide rewards matters a great deal. Imagine training your dog. After a dog has successfully learned the “sit” command, you might use a fixed schedule and provide a treat every two times the dog follows the command. Or you might provide a treat after a random number of successful “sits.” Studies have shown that the latter schedule is best for maintaining behavior. If a fixed schedule is ever broken, even accidentally, it is easily detected, and the behavior quickly ceases. A broken variable schedule isn’t immediately obvious, and the behavior continues.1
Another important lesson is that small, rapid rewards can be used to shape incremental progression toward a complex behavior. Your dog will never spontaneously perform complicated tricks such as jumping thro
ugh a hoop and then running up some stairs to fetch a colored balloon. How, then, to provide a reward to a behavior that doesn’t spontaneously manifest itself? To train the dog to perform this trick, the trainer first rewards the dog for moving toward the hoop, then another reward for jumping through the hoop, then another reward for moving toward the stairs, and so forth. Once the dog has learned all the steps, then the dog’s owner can maintain the complex trick with just one reward for each complete run.
Online games employ many operant conditioning principles, through both historical trial and error as well as deliberate design. In the early part of the game, many small rewards help players understand the basic paths of advancement. A lowly level 1 character can kill a rat in ten seconds, and after killing ten rats, the character has already become a level 2 character. This initial shaping helps new players learn about combat, monsters, leveling, and equipment. Gradually, the game offers rewards less frequently. Monsters take longer to kill, and it takes twenty-five monster kills to reach level 3, and then a hundred kills to reach level 4. Very soon, it takes hours of repetitive play to reach the next level, and only rarely is a useful piece of equipment found on a monster.
To facilitate the study of operant conditioning in pigeons and lab rats, B. F. Skinner, the father of radical behaviorism, developed a self-contained testing apparatus, an operant conditioning chamber, better known as a Skinner box. These boxes of wood and glass give the researcher a clear view of the interior. Inside the box are levers that a pigeon or a lab rat can press on, as well as a food-dispensing mechanism. The researcher can release a food pellet on a predetermined schedule after the animal presses a lever.
Although online games clearly rely on much more than operant conditioning, the overlapping elements are undeniable. Online games shape a new player’s behavior toward complex button presses using a schedule of rewards that is tightly coupled to specific actions. The game rewards correct behaviors rapidly until the behavior is learned, at which point the behavior can be sustained with less frequent rewards. Many rare items, whether magical equipment or quest items, are dropped by monsters using a variable schedule. You may know that killing the glowing monkey will make it drop a glowing shard, but you don’t know how many glowing monkeys you will have to kill before that shard appears.
