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Study Shows that MMOGs Promote Sociability
chrisb33 writes "After studying several MMOs, University of Illinois researchers have concluded that the games 'promote sociability and new worldviews.' The study found that the games did not foster social isolation, but actually encouraged meetings between players of differing backgrounds, supplying the 'social horizon-broadening...sorely lacking in American society.' While they caution that, in extreme cases, fixation on internet gaming could diminish offline relationships, the tone of the press release with regard to gaming is remarkably upbeat compared to that of most recent news about gaming."
Saying that MMOGs Promote Sociability is like saying that playing Counter Strike all day long improves your skills of teamwork, makes you react better, and will let you easily survive if someone attacks you. Gah, we can prove anything, can't we?
Unless of course, "sociability" is meeting in strange places and buying strange items of a strange game from strange people.
...it looks like the study points out that you can gain good social skills and "social bridging" with online games. I play MMOGs and I can agree with this idea. However, I don't see this article comparing MMOG social interaction to 'normal' social interaction in developing teens. Are the social skills I learn playing WoW better or worse than the skills I could learn playing football, getting a group of guys together to play D&D, or hell, shopping at the local mall?
Couldn't this be said for any social networking tool, from Blogger to MySpace?
I mean, yes, MMO's encourage TEAMWORK among all those diverse peoples more often than not, but even so...
I must say my negotiating skills have improved vastly since I started playing Guild Wars. I just don't feel as shy to express my opinion of a fair deal. When I started playing the game I was too intraverted to assert myself to even sell any of my hard earned lewt, but as I learned the game and the economy I drew strength knowing I had some background on how things worked. It's really improved my life and I look forward to putting my new skills to the test when my salary is renegotiated at work in a couple of weeks!
and there are no posts. Apparently this article doesn't promote sociability..
"..But honey it isn't a raid.. its a multicultural exchange of ideas!"
Well, this is certainly a pleasant surprise. I know that personally this year I've had more social interaction with people I've met in games or on internet forums than ever before. I can't help but wonder though, when governments that want to more tightly control the contacts their citizens have are going to crack down on MMOGs in a big way. Granted, games are games, but in my experience, people chat about a lot more than the game online between raids and other events.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Sun promotes heat.
A-bomb promotes casualties.
Is there something that studies don't get about Mass Multiplayer Online RPGs?
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Seriously who has been on any MMORPG and can honestly said they were "socialable?" I'm not talking about talking to people, I'm talking about talking to people about stuff that doesn't directly relate to the game.
Every time I was in a guild in any game all I heard was guild issue, guild fights and random crap. There was no real socialization there was discussions on crap like "when are we taking on Moltan core" "are we going to power level me today?" "who can help me with this?" It's true there's some social events on the game, but for the most part, I don't count dancing in a line, talking about the dancing in a line, and then taking pictures of dancing in a line as "social events".
That's not to say it's bad. It does foster problem solving, and speaking up about problems, asking for help. All of these are good things. But at the same time it doesn't actually feel social. The only socializing I really got done on World of warcraft was Pms to my ACTUAL friends, who if I wasn't on an MMORPG I'd be talking to on IM.
P.S. Experiences include Everquest, SWG, Guild Wars, as well as others.
All I hear around my college is stuff about World of Warcraft as the students talk to each other.
Too bad people still can't understand half the words they are saying....
The only new worldview MMORPG'ing has provided me is looking up at the 3 level 60 Alliance gankers who just obliterated me for having the audacity to be Horde in a disputed zone.
"Sociability", indeed.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
MMORPG
Many Men Online RolePlaying Girls
What games were they playing? I mean, Second Life, or Warcraft? Having a lowly Mac, I have reguarly partaken in the latter, where I have been called a "fag", "n**ga" and other wonderful terms.
Is it because they pick their slurs at random that they cross boundaries, rather than singling out a particular minority?
The other day I saw a tractor trailer driving down the street.. Really slow, haha dumbass wasn't using instas. So I freakin' ganked him. Shoulda scanned though, Concord blew up my car and all I got was a few hundred thousand rolls of toilet paper.
Man, anyone know where I can sell this stuff? The toilet paper market in Jita is crap.
It's true there's some social events on the game, but for the most part, I don't count dancing in a line, talking about the dancing in a line, and then taking pictures of dancing in a line as "social events".
It's true there's some social events in my dorm, but for the most part, I don't count dancing in a line, talking about the dancing in a line, and then taking pictures of dancing in a line as "social events".
The basic disconnect here is the event that happen outside of a game or any sort of constructed reality are given more weight as they obviously "really" happened. The disconnect simply happens because this is how we were taught to interact with and understand the world. Those who grow up in a world where virtual worlds are much more ingrained would view the above dancing in a line as a social event, because, well, it "really" happened. Most of the so-called real social world is just as tedious, constructed and flimsy as anything that happens in a virtual reality.
--- I do not moderate.
World of Warcraft Soulbound Trinket Equip: Increases sociability by 4%.
You stole my fucking cloudsong!!!! *whineexclamationoneoneoneonetilde*
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Every time I was in a guild in any game all I heard was guild issue, guild fights and random crap. There was no real socialization there was discussions on crap like "when are we taking on Moltan core" "are we going to power level me today?" "who can help me with this?" It's true there's some social events on the game, but for the most part, I don't count dancing in a line, talking about the dancing in a line, and then taking pictures of dancing in a line as "social events".
If you're in a guild full of PL and loot whores.. then yeah, there's going to be no social atmosphere. I still play with people I met in DAOC 4 years ago (we all bounced around for a bit before settling in World Of Warcraft), because we found common ground outside of the desire to get phatter lewts.
My point is there's a difference between giving us something to talk about or actually creating a social environment.
Let's take this in a different situation. If there was no game play would the same socializing be found? The answer is no because most of the socializing on the game is about the game play. In this case the MMOG is the subject of socialization, and it gives a good medium for it.
Let's go one step further. Imagine that there's a really amazing advance in science and we suddenly have VR. Now when you enter VR you'll go to a room, you'll have the ability to create what ever you want in the room, and do what ever you want. After the first three years after we all have spent the required amount of secretions we actually start exploring the physics and find it to be interesting and anyone can use it and play it and explore it. However the game is not social. At the same time the game itself creates millions of chat rooms, and discussion groups. Are we to call it social because of that?
And if you don't see the difference, let's look at something that promotes socialization. Assume the same VR system is around, except there's a second room you can go in, it's a room where you can sit around a table and talk to people from all over the world. To help socialize it allows you to show websites, pictures, videos, music, and so on.(assume not copying of files is allowed) In this situation the system is promoting socialization as you can now effectively talk and share stuff you're seeing.
The point I'm trying to make is that MMOG arn't "social" in that you talk about what ever happens. MMOGs are subjects of socialization, and provide a easy to utilize system to talk about that subject in themselves? They don't "create" socialization, they don't promote it, they just give a sufficiently large, and varied topic for people to talk about.
I'd like to say one thing though. My point is to say that MMOGs arn't promoting socialization, I've clearly said they could be used for socialization but at the core of them they are just giving us the topic to socialize about, and a simple way to socialize. That's not to say no one socializes on it, but for the most part the socializing isn't the same value nor is it quite the same as offline conversations.
The story seems to say this like it's a good thing.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I introduced one of my fairly anti-social friends to WOW. He actually stopped hanging out after about a month, because he had scheduled raids. He missed quite a bit of sleep, and even played the game at work. So, in real life, it was a social drain for him.
In game, he made tons of new friends that he loves hanging out with. There, it was a positive social experience.
No real point, just throwing out an example. For myself, I played in my spare time but never developed the addiction. Now that he's starting to get bored, and raiding less, he's back to hanging out. I think, overall, it was a good experience for him. For me? It sucked, he missed some good parties.
PS: That is what part of the alphabet would look like if the letters "Q" and "R" were removed.
I think you are giving too much credence to real socialization.
The bulk of office socialization is about the "work" or a sports event or last night's tv show. In fact it is in most office guideline books you are asked to steer away from subjects that could be deemed controversial. What happens at the bulk of parties? Gossip spreading? Talking about the guy so high he is licking the floor in the kitchen? Or the girl so drunk she is rapidly shedding her clothing? Most all social interactions in life are in fact meta.
What makes those situations any more valid than the meta-talk about a game, that happens within the game?
--- I do not moderate.
http://mordots.com/ Yes, it's old, but still brings a smile to my face. Need sound, and not quite safe for work. :D
I would say discussion of the game was the least frequent topic amongst people I play with. The guilds and player associations I form with people tend to be oriented around being social while playing the game, rather than teaming up to play the game better. Oh, sure, we'd occasionally discuss something game related - it was, obviously, a mutually interesting hobby - but for the most part we would have discussions about real-world issues.
It's kind of funny in that, in the real world, many of the people I knew would restrict themselves to conversation solely about the environment in which we'd met - work, LUG/MUG, book group - and would shy away from any discussion of outside interests out of fear of conflict.
So, in my experience, yes - I tend to have more interesting interactions with a more diverse group of people in non-meatspace. Of course, I go out of my way to guild up with people who are chatty/outgoing like I am, and tend to just ignore people who're entirely focused on the game.
My games include SWG, City of Heroes/Villains, World of Warcraft, and more MUDs than you can shake a stick at.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Like the fact that innevitably SOMEONE will try take advantage of a situation. I hear countless stories from WoW players about how they were scammed by other players, I won't go into details, but often these scams involve a deal that appears to be to good to be true, although it is a random deal and often with someone they don't know who is often a level 1.
Now, in real life if someone randomly came up and offered you an unmarked, closed box and said there was a gold bar inside and all they wanted was $100, would you give him the money without being sure?
Also, certain behaviour towards other players is not tolerated, and can result in a temporary or permanent suspension, and even if it's not against the policies, it could result in you being kicked out your guild, or not being able to find any groups willing to have you along.
So there are real people controlling their virtual characters behaviour and there is an actual economy which is the result of real time spent doing things in the virtual world.
To get to my point, people can learn about consequences for their actions or about being naive enough to accept something that is probably too good to be true. The great thing though is that the 14 year old who learnt about scams, or that racist behaviour is not tolerated, found out in an environment where it won't have any serious consequences. In real life they may have lost their job due to their attitude or behaviour and if they were scammed they could have lost their lifetimes savings. Better to learn these lessons in such a way that minimal harm is done.
WWW.warninja.com
Let's see... I've played at least for some time FFXI, the Realm (beta), Earth and Beyond, EVE, Planetside, RO (early beta), City of Heroes, and probably at least one or two other, forgettable MMOs. The only one of these in which I really experienced any social interaction at all was Planetside, where you pretty much had to be in a squad to get anything done. That's not counting the one or two little MUDs I used to tool around in way back when.
The simple reason for this is probably that I don't play MMOs to PvP, or to party at all. Except for FFXI, I simply didn't like the other players and didn't feel any reason to group with them. I know that you're now wondering why a person would play these games without bothering to party. The reason, naturally, was that I thought there was some good _game_ to be had under all those mechanics. Some interesting play experience, I mean. Planetside managed to filled the bill (I loved the atmosphere, really), but then again you were playing with (really against) other players whether you wanted to do so or not. For the more traditional ones... well, I figured out pretty quickly (for each individual game, that is) that they were really not a lot more than exercises in stretching out the length of time between level-ups, and that there really WAS no point in playing if you weren't going to go out of your way to be sociable. Unless you're trying to be the solitary badass "one man clan" who works his way to the top of whatever respect system the players support, wearing your Purple Armor of Dragon Smacking around so that the n00bs wonder who was that tall, dark elf--you just have to accept that the games are there to provide a social medium.
Now, on another note, I could put up with FFXI--party or not--simply because I am a giant Squeenix loser and love everything that they do (hey, I survived the install process TWICE on two different but similarly crappy DSL lines--if that doesn't make me hardcore, nothing does). I got out of that one because I realized that I didn't have the time I needed to sink into the game to keep up with the meager sphere of friends I'd developed in-game--this coming from a guy whose major diversion in life is gaming. (I was also massively disappointed that the game was an MMO shell with a coat of FF-colored paint on it, when I'd more expected to play a Final Fantasy game with a bunch of other players... but that's really another post entirely.)
My overall experience has been that people can have different personas online vs offline. So while someone may be quite social in the game I haven't really seen that translate to outside of the game, barring perhaps meeting other people from the game and discussing it. And the flipside of the coin is that these games (thinking WoW since that is the one I have had experience with) demand a lot of time from the player which could be otherwise used for socialising with people in the real world, some people can balance this but I would imagine those people were already social before actually playing the game.
The reason the sale of Counter-Strike wasn't forbidden in Germany was, that a Sociologist and an Officer of the BKA (=FBI of Germany) convinced the rating-board that CS boosts teamwork and social-skills. So yes, you can assert that that playing Counter Strike all day long improves your skills of teamwork.
My friends and I are all shining examples of such an effect. After playing MMOs together for years, we finally decided that we'd much rather just hang out in person.. and in public, no less!
Blerg.
I thought that was because the BPjM got convinced that CS does not make killing humans your goal and that you can win a round without shooting anyone.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
That was part of the argument, yes. The decision said that CS IS a violent game which is harmful in some ways, but it could theoretically be played without violence and the use of communication outweights the harm.
Actually the guild I work with in WoW is extremely social. I would have to say that we spend 60-70% of our time talking about anything from personal issued to world events. We've also all gotten together for a large party, and about 25 people showed up! So yes I would say that in a number of situations these games do promote being social. I would also like to note the the previous guild I was in I had many conversations with other players that had nothing to do with the game. So I don't think that my experience is an isolated one. Anyone else have a similar experience?
~Permawired aka Greysig on Thunderlord server
I didn't say Office socialization is the model of effeciency. When I talk about socialization I normally am talking about two or more people eating a meal at a local area restaurant, price point between 10 and 20 dollars, the group having diverse intrests, and there being no game on anywhere in the place.
That is the base of my idea of "effective socialization" where any topic comes up and is discussed. Even at my office we talk about a variety of topics even though we're a game company. We have had long discussions on multiple topics, not just games (though we like games because we are gamers, though we talk about games outside our company).
At the same time another model of "socialization" I don't find to help conversation is the sports game. It's fine if you actually talk but I've seen stuff where guys will avoid talking and just watching. That's not to say every two people watching a sports game doesn't talk but it doesn't enhance the discussion, and in fact detracts. Not that it's a bad thing but it's not a well working model.
This may be horribly presumptuous of me, what with being a honkey, but it seems like n**ga has just lost it's edge.
It's what me and my brothers call each other at home. Even though we're all blindingly white.
I think it's all in the intent. I'm guessing from the context that those who said it to you meant to offend, of course. But it actually illustrates something that the article misses; there's a benefit of not only crossing cultural, geographic and ethnic lines, but lines of age and maturity as well. While not all of the players who bandy the word fag around are 12 year olds, I'm guessing a good percentage of them are. And when this causes them to be shunned by the more mature players, they are that much more likely to learn that it's socially unacceptable. That doesn't mean they'll stop, but it's a lot different to be uncool among your peers (i.e. your own guild or whatnot) than among others.
When your peers are not douchebags, there is pressure to avoid being a douchebag yourself.
All Hail the Maggott Show
This is completely true for my children (yes, I've had sex. no, you may not ask me about it)
They have grown up in the Gameboy/Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh era. We have been on vacation in other states, and they will just walk up to anyone holding a Gameboy (of whatever variety) or a deck of Yu-Gi-Oh cards and start talking to them about the game. I've seen it happen all the time. Kids today have a built-in icebreaker, due to the prevalence of these things which are small enough to carry with them anywhere they go. Seems like everyone has a Gameboy. Everyone plays Mario or Pokemon or whatever. Instant common ground.
I find it quite interesting, and kind of cool to boot.