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First Wave of Project Massive Study Complete
Project Massive, a Carnegie Mellon University study into the habits and tendencies of Massively Multiplayer Gamers, has completed research into their first wave of questions. The results are available on their site, and include some interesting observations (nearly 30% of players spend time in a MMOG to interact with real-life friends). If you're interested in participating, their second wave of questions is available. Similar projects include Nick Yee's The Daedalus Project, the TerraNova Blog, and Constance Steinkuehler's Selected Papers. Thanks to clampe for the submission.
I wander about that poor guy that plays 156 hours per week. Poor guy. When does he have time to read slashdot?
that the majority of MMOG players play to socialize, not to mindlessly kill monsters. For that purpose there are macros. While in every game there are always a small 1% who simply sit alone and powerlevel, 99% join clans/guilds/corporations and/or socialiize.
Like, for example, last night, I spent hours chatting with guys on the OOC channel in Anarchy Online. It turned a boring night of leveling into a seriously awesome night. Few non-MMOG-gamers realize how much socializing matters in these types of games. They simply focus on the mindless powergamer who's the first to hit max level.
But then again, to be fair, plenty of the top level people socialize! I used to know the guy who held the record for a 3-day run to level 150 during the Earth and Beyond beta. He was an awesome guy, loved giving stuff to new players (his entire method of leveling involved this--get a massive amount of easy-to-mine gas from gas clouds, give it to a noob, get levels of trade experience, repeat 1000 times).
Based on the questionnaire results, it looks like the survey primarily attracted hardcore MMORPG fans, which may skew the results.
For example, Question 6 asks how long you have played your MMORPG game. The results show somewhere around 65% to 70% (the exact numbers are not given in the article) have been playing a single game for more than a year. It should be no surprise that question 7 shows that approximately 95% find enjoy MMORPG's - if you played a game for over a year without enjoying it, then you have some issues you need to work out!
I believe that questions like "are MMORPG's enjoyable?" would have different results if the survey attracted more casual gamers, or gamers who quit playing after a few months due to their bad experience. But, those types of individuals are less likely to fill out a questionnaire about MMORPG's.