Communication, Coordination, and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft - Mark Chen

research overview
- concept: do game mechanics of WoW equal player behavior?
- analysis: coordination in high-end raids; camaraderie and trust; group norms vs. individual expectations
- implications: mechanics too narrow to understand behavior; trust based on experience; replication of social marginalization (social life in the game is beginning to mirror social life in real life, including the bad stuff)

Game Mechanics and Communities
- started with the assumption that one of the things he feels compelled to do and is the onus of every educator is to get people to develop a sense of their place within a community and how they fit within the social world
- if games can be used as training grounds, how do we get people to value community?
- previous research looked at game design and mechanics - change a mechanic, change player behavior

Ethnography of MMORPGs
did an ethnographic study of the same group of players
- personal experience didn't match up with models
- players' actual choices are complex and socially situated
- look at social practice (Taylor, Steinkuehler)

described playing WoW - "if we came across a new boss, for example...."

as they chat in the game about the game, the chat eventually goes off-topic and becomes catching up with old friends
they became friends through the game but then they just became friends hanging out together
level of joviality related to how much they trusted each other and how well they did that night

learning in the Molten Core raid in WoW
- individual learning (roles)
- group learning through failure: "Now I hope no one's getting frustrated. This is how raids go. It's normal: You fight and fight and fight until your gear is broken, repair and do it again... It can take a while to master these encounters but we're doing good work!" - this is an expert giving the inexperienced users advice; failure on routine stuff is not good, but is a learning experience on non-routine tasks

camaraderie (lack thereof)
- one night, the raid suffered a meltdown
- doubt, bickering in specialized chat channels; 8-minutes of silence in the chat rooms, which never happens
- camaraderie, level of communication in shared channels low

recovery
- bottom-up reflection on meltdown; figured out how to repair relationships because they valued them
- reaffirmed goals
trust built through valuing shared experience

drama: group vs. individual goals
the raid group did fall apart eventually months later
lots of bickering in the forums
1/3 of the raid group was supposedly women, but they didn't talk in the forums
- ways of talking/making arguments
- norms vs. cultural diversity

instance requirements: who gets to go on raids?
moving up in skill levels and working with groups to get good social connections in the game in order to get to go on raids

implications
- have to look at player social practice, so can't generalize as easily
- learning happens socially through lived experience and practice
- coordination needed to succeed in group work
- trust among team members is crucial
- what builds trust?
- specialized roles
- willingness to fail
- communication
- relationships/shared experience goal
- ability to reflect on goal
- sustainable = equitable

in terms of classrooms, can we set it up so each kid has a role and they all have to work together?
is making that shared space sustainable?
how gain access to that space?
--
Embedded Play: A Comparison of "Educational" and "Commercial" Games in Popular Children's Websites - Jennifer Stone

noticed that middle school students were often sneaking peeks at games and social sites
would switch back to "official" work when teachers walked by
became interested in what effect embedded games have on K-12 youth
will discuss 4 of these sites and the games popular in them for elementary school students

research questions:
1 - what community memberships and identities do these games support?
2 - how are such memberships and identities realized in representational practices?
social aspects of literacy, broader than just reading
how literacy practices take place in and beyond school, include multimedia and mobile communication

websites in official educational contexts:
- examines websites as tools for supporting existing literacy and other content area curricula
- how to evaluate information; ports text-based methods to websites; nothing beyond evaluating the truth of the sites
- support traditional notions of literacy and how literacy education is changing
- don't address popular websites

this isn't enough in today's world
growing body of work that looks at websites outside of school work
- explores popular, everyday, interactive sites (blogs, chat, fan fiction, etc.)
- examines websites as texts used for participating in affinity groups
- looks at how online texts are different from traditional texts valued in school

her project focuses on both of these contexts
raise unique challenges not being addressed in our educational system

embedded games for young children:
- relatively low investment and easy access (economy of time and access)
- connected representations, activities, and communities beyond just the game

data generation and analysis:
- collected websites recommended by young people that they frequently used outside of school
- selected 4 sites
- content primarily created and/or mediated by a single entity
- broader analyses focused on entire sties
- closer analyses focused on one game

1. PBS Kids (Zoboomafoo) Snack Machine
gives children 1 of 12 exotic animals
child needs to figure out which of 3 snacks the animal will eat based on what they know about it

2. Discovery Kids Chomp and the Temple of Puzzles
players progress through a series of puzzles (a shark-themed word search, a true/false quiz about sharks, etc.)

3. Barbie Fashion Fever: Styled by Me
players design the style, color, and shape of outfits for Barbie and can then print them out

4. Transformers Video Mash-up
lets kids create Transformers-themed videos

so selected two educational sites and two commercial sites (a continuum)
this allowed her points of comparison between the four sites

analysis:
- communities & identities
- valued representational practices of the site

each site was tied to a particular affinity group
globally distributed through internet technologies so a range of kids use these sites
create affiliations between people who might otherwise not have any
cut across different types of media

the two educational sites included school-like communities

Zoboomafoo targeted families, with content for kids and then adult-oriented portions with instructions, technical information, etc. - double audience

commercial sites also target parents, but in a different way
tend to focus on products & services related to the sites

each has a preferred set of representational practices associated with it
classic "Initiation Response Evaluation (IRE)" in educational sites (statement: true or false)

in contrast, the commercial sites engaged the players in remixing and sharing (mixing up styles of outfits)
can share your Transformers video online

surprisingly, the structures of the commercial sites are more in line with skills students will need in the future

this comparison raises concerns about:
- problem of "educational" games
- convergence of modes, media, and experiences to promote consumption
- critical use of sites & games (problematic representations and idiosyncrasies - how do we expose these to children and help them critique them without killing the fun of the game)
- "new" literacy gap and how educators can address it

at the moment we're seeing acceleration of play opportunities for young children online that schools are adopting increasingly narrow views of literacy and learning
it pushes these literacies to external spaces and away from educators
it means some kids get access to them and some don't
it's time for those of us involved with school-based literacy to start using new websites to address these problems
--
The Game-in-play: A look at children's roles in shaping the game - Laurie McCarthy

- focus on the object in use as opposed to the object being used
- games and game play as situated activity (Suchman, 1987) that emerges through interactions between game, players, and social/environmental influences
- view of player as actor rather than consumer, taking active roles shaping the game

need better understanding of how young people play and what games (and game play) means within the context of their lives

methodology:
- weekly home visits over 6 months
- capture action "in-game" and "inproom"
- 2-camera video capture for simultaneous viewing
- interviews

participant and data summary
- data collected July 2005-April 2006
- 8 participants, 4 boys & 4 girls aged 9-15
- two sets of siblings, one who played with a friend, three (girls) who generally played alone
- more than 40 games across multiple platforms (game systems and computers)

3 examples:
- Tyler, shared histories
age 10, played organized sports
whatever he played in real life, he played in video games
he played mostly with another 10-year old boy who didn't live nearby but who spent afternoons across the street
although Tyler is acknowledged as the more able game player, he touts his use of cheats
other players come to expect Tyler to use cheats during play, which he sometimes incorporated into his play strategy
Tyler's knowledge of cheats put him in a position of power, allocating what cheats to whom and when
even in single player play, both boys participated in playing the game
blending of in-game, in-room, in-world
comparative checks on in-game and in-world behavior and consequences
- Rachel, actively links out from the game
15-year old, least active in game player in study, animal lover, environmentalist, track team member
played primarily simulation games which she enjoyed
very organized person, scheduled her play time
when play decisions conflicted with her in-world values, Rachel sometimes felt compelled to explain her actions to others in-room
transformed in-game artifacts to connect in meaningful ways to others outside of the game (eg, compost facility in Zoo Tycoon)
she didn't use cheats
- Katarina, whose game?
12-year old with a 6-year old brother
her play reflects her sense of design and creativity
she kept bumping up against barriers in the game, running into problems with the system
plays games with her own expectations of what the game should look like and what it should be

summary and implications:
- much variation in how kids play online games an dthe meaning that game or gameplay holds for them
- while games tangled up in the spaces of kids lives, maintain sense of sanctioned behavior across spaces

- implications for education are that providing the game isn't enough
- need greater understanding of the context in which the practices form
- critical gap between the environment that fosters learning in games and learning in school; how to retain critical elements of what makes a game

gls2007