Yes, a respected academic journal with an issue devoted entirely to that one game. Who would possibly publish in such a rag? Err, a whole bunch of us, apparently. You will find articles on player stats, machinima and guild dynamics, to name a few.
Journal link here, and abstracts below the fold.
Building an MMO With Mass Appeal
A Look at Gameplay in World of Warcraft
Palo Alto Research Center
World of Warcraft (WoW) is one of the most popular massively multiplayer games (MMOs) to date, with more than 6 million subscribers worldwide. This article uses data collected over 8 months with automated "bots" to explore how WoW functions as a game. The focus is on metrics reflecting a player’s gaming experience: how long they play, the classes and races they prefer, and so on. The authors then discuss why and how players remain committed to this game, how WoW’s design partitions players into groups with varying backgrounds and aspirations, and finally how players "consume" the game’s content, with a particular focus on the endgame at Level 60 and the impact of player-versus-player-combat. The data illustrate how WoW refined a formula inherited from preceding MMOs. In several places, it also raises questions about WoW’s future growth and more generally about the ability of MMOs to evolve beyond their familiar template.
Does WoW Change Everything?
How a PvP Server, Multinational Player Base, and Surveillance Mod Scene Caused Me Pause
IT University of Copenhagen
Rather than simply identifying "emergence" as a prime property of massively multiplayer online game life, a better understanding of the complex nature of player-produced culture is needed. Life in game worlds is not exempt from forms of player-based regulation and control. Drawing on ethnographic and interview work within World of Warcraft, the author undertakes initial inquiries on this subject by looking at three areas: nationalism, age, and surveillance. This case study shows systems of stratification and control can arise from the bottom up and be implemented in not only everyday play culture but even player-produced modifications to the game system itself. Due to the ways these systems may simultaneously facilitate play, there is often an ambivalent dynamic at work. This piece also prompts some methodological considerations. By discussing field site choice, the author argues that context is of utmost importance and needs to be more thoughtfully foregrounded within game studies.
From Tree House to Barracks
The Social Life of Guilds in World of Warcraft
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Palo Alto Research Center
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Stanford University/Palo Alto Research Center
Palo Alto Research Center
A representative sample of players of a popular massively multiplayer online game (World of Warcraft) was interviewed to map out the social dynamics of guilds. An initial survey and network mapping of players and guilds helped form a baseline. Next, the resulting interview transcripts were reviewed to explore player behaviors, attitudes, and opinions; the meanings they make; the social capital they derive; and the networks they form and to develop a typology of players and guilds. In keeping with current Internet research findings, players were found to use the game to extend real-life relationships, meet new people, form relationships of varying strength, and also use others merely as a backdrop. The key moderator of these outcomes appears to be the game's mechanic, which encourages some kinds of interactions while discouraging others. The findings are discussed with respect to the growing role of code in shaping social interactions.
Storyline, Dance/Music, or PvP?
Game Movies and Community Players in World of Warcraft
Stanford University
Player-created game movies have been an outlet for creative expression by World of Warcraft (WoW) players since the beta version of the game. The proliferation of players, clans, Web sites, and community forums for creating, consuming, and commenting on WoW movies is remarkable. Linking multiplayer game communities and the making of animated movies is not unprecedented. It has been a characteristic of machinima for more than a decade. In this article however, the author hopes to show that the context, content, and consumption of game movies based on massively multiplayer games raises new questions about contributions game-based performances make to player communities. The author connects the brief history of WoW movies to the history of machinima and other game movies, illustrates the variety of impulses behind WoW movies through three quickly recounted examples, and gathers together salient themes around one movie in particular: Tristan Pope's Not Just Another Love Story.
Blood Scythes, Festivals, Quests, and Backstories
World Creation and Rhetorics of Myth in World of Warcraft
Brunel University
One of the pleasures of playing in the "World" of Warcraft is becoming part of its pervasive mythology. This article argues that to understand the game’s formal, aesthetic, and structural specificity, its pleasures and potential meanings, it is essential to investigate how the mythic functions. The author shows that the mythic plays a primary role in making a consistent fantasy world in terms of game play, morality, culture, time, and environment. It provides a rationale for players’ actions, as well as the logic that under- pins the stylistic profile of the game, its objects, tasks, and characters. In terms of the "cultural" environments of the game, the presence of a coherent and extensive myth scheme is core to the way differences and conflicts between races are organized. And, as a form of intertextual resonance, its mythology furnishes the game with a "thickness" of meaning that promotes, for players, a sense of mythological being as well as encouraging an in-depth textual engagement.
WoW is the New MUD
Social Gaming from Text to Video
Volda College, Norway
With the immense popularity of massively multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft (WoW), other media as well as game research have discovered gaming as a topic of discussion and study. These discussions, however, tend to ignore the history of both games and of game studies. This article addresses the connections between one of the old and, today, obscure forms of using computers for multiplayer gaming—the text-based Multi-User Dungeon (MUD)—and the current, highly visible and massively used graphic interface game World of Warcraft. These connections range from player style through game-play options to social interaction and player-controlled social modifiers within both types of games. The comparison is based on play, observation, and interviews with players in MUDs and in WoW.
In other news...WoW addicted college students attempt to con someone (who?) into thinking their actually doing research instead of wasting time playing a game.
My question is, in what way does "studying" WoW prepare a student for life after college?
Posted by: jon | Sep 27, 2006 at 16:42
$27 an issue seems kind of steep. I also can't figure out if they really sell individual articles electronically, or if they're just teasing me about the possibility.
Any chance of reading these papers through something a little more accessible like ACM's digital library?
Posted by: Ken Fox | Sep 27, 2006 at 22:20
Jon -- The answer to your question is in the sidebar. There are at least three articles on the connection between virtual worlds and education. If you quickly skim those, you should have a basic answer to your question. If you're still not convinced, bring your questions back to the group, and I'm sure you'll find plenty of opinions.
Ken -- The entire framework of academic publishing is in crisis right now. $27 an issue is more than steep. When you consider that most of the labor (i.e. the research and the peer review) is completely unpaid, it is highway robbery. GAMES AND CULTURE is not unique in this respect.
Unfortunately, for most scholars, promotion and tenure is based upon a certain number of publications in recognized journals. We need to place the articles in well regarded journals in order for the research to count. Those journals are typically affiliated with publishers that charge $27 an issue.
If we had our way, I'm sure that most of us would immediately post our data in PDF with some sort of open source license. In fact, many authors do include links to their publications in their CV, figuring that academic publishers don't have the resources to stop them. So, if you're trying to find an article, you might want to Google the author's name (in quotes) followed by the word CV. You can also send a short, explanatory message to the author and ask if they can send you a copy of their work. Most researchers would be flattered.
The good news is that you can get a free trial subscription at:
https://online.sagepub.com/cgi/register?registration=FTN00934
Really, this crisis in academic publishing is far more important than the topic of virtual worlds. If you're upset about being charged $27 an issue -- as you should be -- please talk to your librarians and other rabble rousers about how you can get involved with efforts (e.g. "Creative Commons") to make this type of information more accessible.
Posted by: Aaron Delwiche | Sep 28, 2006 at 02:32
Thanks for the pointers Aaron. I know I had the same reaction to seeing $27/issue as Ken did and had no idea what the real rationale behind that was.
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Sep 28, 2006 at 13:37
I've started reading the journal, and it's good reading. One thing that caught me up, however, was within the article by Ducheneaut, et al, I think that discussion of the time spikes on the 19, 29, 39 etc level is on the wrong track.
"These commitment spikes are probably due to the distribution of new skills and talents in the game at different levels. There are more new skills learned at every 10th level, and the talent tree is designed to allow access to a new tier of talents at every 10th level. The spike right before Level 40 is more dramatic probably because characters also get access to traveling mounts at Level 40 in addition to
the new set of skills and talents. In other words, players spend more time playing when they are just about to reach these high-reward levels."
IMO, these spikes are instead largely reflective of the impact of the PvP battlegronds on the levelling process. Blizzard's choice to allow the generation of XP to be optional within the BG directly allow pausing in the levelling process. Battlegrounds are organized by decades, and players intentionally choose to pause their levelling process in order to enjoy the benefits of being at the top of their decade. I think this is also borne out by the graph which seems to suggest the 19, 29 and 39 pauses are most significant, since this seems to be the most commonly chosen levels for the "twinking" subculture, where people work to create overpowered characters for the level decade they're playing in.
That said, this is a minor criticism - I'm impressed with the framework and the collection tools described in the paper, and it's definitely worth the read.
Posted by: Eric Ellis | Sep 29, 2006 at 13:06
Hi Eric - good point! I wish I had included this in the printed version of the paper, there was a similar discussion on our blog a while back. I think you're entirely right, BGs also contribute to the spikes. It's hard to say if they have more or less influence than the game's skill structure but they play a role for sure.
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Posted by: Memsaab - The Global Indian Women | Oct 26, 2006 at 08:03
I think this research has great value, especially to game developers. The more they know about how and why gamers act in a game the better they can create new games that will be even more appealing to players.
Posted by: WOW Gold | Nov 24, 2006 at 10:57