For those us interested in the culture of play in MMOGs, ethnographic participant-observation is a mainstay method. We game, we think about games, we read and write on games, typically in that order. But it raises a lot of practical, ethical issues regarding how it should be done. What exactly is 'informed consent' and when is it necessary? What constitutes legitimate 'participation' in an multiplayer world? And how do folks negotiate in-game research vs. play? Thought it might be useful to start a public conversation on some of these issues, with an eye toward developing heuristics we (both gamers & researchers) might agree on...
What exactly is 'informed consent'? There has always been a rather wide range of views on what constitutes 'ethical' when it comes to collecting observation data on/about other people in the field, and I don't think we are going to suddenly resolve the debate (or ought to even try) through the issues raised specifically in relation to fieldwork in virtual worlds. There are two main poles in the conversation, which I will shamelessly parody as:
1) The 'Protect the People' Pole, arguing that every single person who is a potential participant in your research deserves full disclosure of what you are doing and how, and even after formal (e.g. signatures on human subjects forms) is given, such consent must be constantly negotiated and re-negotiated on an ongoing basis since any initial agreement cannot adequately insure that they truly understand the nature of what it is they are consenting to. Folks like Liz Reid (Thanks to Richard Bartle for this lead) would say that you can do real damage to a community and therefore you are morally bound to protect them in all ways, including getting informed consent from all people involved, even marginally, in your research work.
2) The 'Don't Butt In' Pole, arguing that soliciting formal informed consent from every possible participant in an ethnography is disruptive and largely unnecessary (within, of course, certain constraints). Giving a long description of your research to every person you cross virtual paths with, let alone contacting them outside the game in order to snailmail them human subjects forms, would be disruptive to actual participation in the space/culture/game (both your and theirs), which is unnecessary and unwanted. The idea here is that you do a disservice to other gamers and your own legitimate observations if you constantly make what you do an issue with everyone.
Most ethnographers fall somewhere in the middle and consider it part of their job to negotiate what constitutes 'ethical' in practice depending on the context of their work, the attitudes of those they research, and the cultural norms of the community under observation. But negotiating this out in actual practice is hard work, and there really aren't any clear, uncontested guidelines to build on. Ethical decision-making and Internet research: Recommendations from the aoir ethics working committee is one useful resource. Others?
What constitutes 'participation'? Is gaming alone in a MMOG participation? Is gaming only with other researchers actual 'participation'? What about setting up a clan for the sole purposes of researching them, unbeknownst to the members? What if they do know – is that viable research? Remaining anonymous to everyone in game? Titling your avatar 'academic_researcher' so anyone who talks to you knows what you do in RL? Most of us would agree that it's contingent on your research questions (for a start), but its a sticky issue because it also depends on your playstyle as well...
How should one negotiate research vs. play when in the field? Am I allowed to PK in a PvP game? Can I tell someone to STFU when I want and am 'in character'? Or am I expected to somehow serve as a 'non-partisan role-model' when out in the field? Would doing so compromise my own legitimate participation? Personally, I am a PvP player, which makes these issues even more complex.
Example from the field. I'll use my own work as an example, since I'm selfish and want to discuss these issues as a way to refine my own practice.
I play Lineage (first I, now II) and run my own clan, despite my research needs, not because of them. Both are labor-intensive activities that compete for my limited time, often with my research coming in second to my obligations to running the clan. But, then, I have strong affiliations with my clan members, I love running the group (webwork and all), and I consider my obligation to my clan to take precedence *gasp* over my need to do research. (NB: I'm very lucky here in that I work in an academic setting that considers gameplay an absolute prerequisite to theorizing games. I realize other institutions aren't the same.)
My general MO to date has been to keep the lines between my professional identity and my Lineage identity transparent to whoever is interested, treating in-game disclosure of information about my 'academic' life the same way I treat academic disclosure of details about my 'game' life, based on the notion that I am bound to both communities to be generally forthright about what I do. To date, people I interact with inside either magic circle respect the boundaries between my professional life and my game life. I have never, for example, had another researcher judge my in-game activities by academic professional standards or my gamer friends judge my academic activities by gamer standards (except to say that my writing is really flipping dull). However, I have occasionally had what I see as an uncomfortable bad boundary mix-up. For example, I've had academic colleagues I've never met before log onto the game and asking to join my clan for research purposes. I've also had (though far rarer) a gamer mistake my in-game role as clan leader for some sort of beyond-game role as counselor (I'm trained as a cognitive psychologist, not counseling psychologist) calling me at home at 2:00 am in the throes of a personal domestic crisis (my personal information is as easy to find on the web as anyone else's). Clearly the way I navigate the research vs. play issue is idiosyncratic, built to fit my own needs and what I'm ethically and personally comfortable with. And both instances had a happy enough ending. But surely there are alternative ways to negotiate the sticky issues involved with being both a gamer and a games researcher that might, in the long run, avoid the occasional SNAFU in the first place. If so, I'd love to hear them. Learning the hard way is er... the hard way.
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