2008 - Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC)

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S o c i o l o g y time, with thousands of other people, sometimes worldwide. This brings not only a fabulous marketing boon to the gaming industry by creating games that never stop producing revenue, it also provides the foundation for a growing job market whose wide array of positions include positions for technology graduates, game designers, 24/7 tech–support, in addition to in game moderating positions known as “gamemasters.” Yet more importantly than that, MMORPGs also connect people on a level they have never been able to connect on before--- virtually. Though at first glance, these unique games seem like simply the newest fad, or the next craze, they have actually had an unanticipated effect. They have become a part of the human experience known as society. Today, the average citizen can not only participate in the modern, civilized, and varied cultures that exist globally, but can also become a part of the landless, borderless, raceless, countries that exist in today’s Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. At least, this was the experience of one sociology student as he struggled to grasp the role that these virtual experiences played in relation to his studies. Through the analysis of their social, cultural, and economic structure, MMORPGs can provide useful functional examples of many of the core principles of sociology. Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games can be defined as microcosmic societies by virtue of the many characteristics they share with other more traditional cultures. The first and most important task that MMORPG’s accomplish is the connection of people. Just as in a real world society, people gather together in unique, specific settings to interact with one another in order to accomplish common goals and to build relationships. And wherever people gather together, there is economy. This is one of the first markers that suggests to the careful observer that World of Warcraft may be more than just a game. The trade and auction system, established by many MMORPGs, is a system by which players of the game can engage in market behavior with their fellow gamers. While many quests 2 are available from NPC’s 3 , which reward players with small items or modest sums of currency, the real economic structure unfurls itself in the player to player interaction. Just as 8 9 W r i t i n g A c r o s s t h e C u r r i c u l u m
V o l u m e I V : F a l l 2 0 0 8 R e s e a r c h P a p e r in the real world, players have occupations (such as mining ore, skinning beasts, making armor, or making potions), and when they have crafted their goods, the players may take them to a local Auction House and place them up for sale to other players, who bid on them competitively in an ever changing market system. In addition to a deep internal economic structure, MMORPG’s have their own forms of currency. Much of this currency, such as the gold system held by World of Warcraft (America’s largest MMORPG), is so complex and coveted as to actually affect real world economy, establishing not only an internal economic stability, but the equivalent of trade with other sovereign nations 4 . This development suggests not only the evolution of computer gaming, but perhaps the evolution of an emerging society unto itself. Closer examination reveals a few of the other major sociological benchmarks games like World of Warcraft have achieved. Another major landmark that MMORPGs have already achieved is the development of culture in the forms of governing bodies, established laws, detailed folkways, as well as common conventions for everyday life in a virtual world. The Gamemasters 5 make up the highest authority in any given MMORPG. Each player is subject to a ToS, or Terms of Service contract, which is an agreement between an individual player and the corporation producing the game, to follow a stringent set of rules such as anti-hacking laws, as well as politeness codes. There are less formal folkways, such as the common stigma against a practice known as “kill stealing” wherein one player will kill a mob 6 that another player has already entered into combat with, thus stealing a portion of the rewards from that combat for themselves. There are also commonly accepted conventions to assist players in finding shortcuts and loopholes in the system in order to make the game easier to play. Just as one can sometimes complete a single college course which may count for two degree credits in college, a single trip through the swamplands can yield items to complete three or four quests, if one knows how to exploit the system. Not all of these codes and conventions are contained in a ToS document though, and just like a newborn entering the real world, the task of socializing 9 0
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2008 - Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC)

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