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Shocking study?

August 18th, 2006 (Visited 4516 times) Tags:

There’s been some derision at Joystiq and even a slight tone of “duh” from Nerfbat over the recently resleased results from a study showing that MMO games “promote sociability and new worldviews.”

For example, Joystiq’s Kyle Orland says,

You can always count on scientists to confirm through painstaking study what most people can figure out using common sense.

This is an entirely wrongheaded view.

As it happens, the researchers in question, Constance Steinkuehler and Dmitri Williams, are long-time friends of game studies. Constance possibly has more MMO experience as a player than most Joystiq writers do, given that she has run a Blood Pledge in Lineage for years.

More importantly, the common sense of game players has no validity in, say, a Congressional hearing. Common sense and anecdotal impressions aren’t worth much in science in general, and having concrete data to present to game detractors is an incredibly valuable thing. We shouldn’t be knocking it, or making fun of the researchers. Both of these researchers happen to work hard to be as unbiased as possible, but in this case, they’re in our corner.

As far as the actual conclusions of the study go:

MMOs act as “third places,” social hangouts.
The lack of real-world third places may be a driver in their popularity.
They seem to be better suited to “bringing mechanisms” than deep bonds — meaning, social relationships that expose you to different points of view, helping you meet people unlike yourself — though deep bonds do form. This has echoes of my oft-repeated rant about how MMOs are good for working against cliques.
It may not be the best idea to seek out an MMO because you are lacking deep bonds, since MMOs seem to be weaker in that area.
“Perhaps it is not that contemporary media use has led to a decline in civic and social engagement, as many have argued, but rather, that a decline in civic and social engagement has led to a ‘retribalization’ through contemporary media.” Hmmm. I am sure that it’s a more complex relationship than either of those two, of course.

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Faith wrote on August 18th, 2006 at 7:38 pm:

[...] Comments [...]

Water Cooler Games - videogames with an agenda wrote on August 19th, 2006 at 3:07 am:

Aug 19 - http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/08/18/shocking-study/” target=”_blank”>Raph Koster defends “common sensical” game research (RaphKoster.com)

Eliane - MyBlogLog Communities wrote on August 19th, 2006 at 5:06 pm:

[...] Raph Koster defends “common sensical” game research (RaphKoster.com) (raphkoster.com) [...]

Darniaq: Verbosity Unleashed wrote on August 19th, 2006 at 7:49 pm:

Elitism This one I can link to a specific post. I read about this study over at Raph’s site, and he too pointed to the derision cast upon it from the “knowledgeable” of the industry. The contention: You can always count on scientists to confirm through painstaking study what most people can figure out using common sense.

MMOs Provide Sociability - Vanguard Forums wrote on August 20th, 2006 at 2:43 pm:

[...] Re: MMOs Provide Sociability There’s been some other commentary floating around on this as well - Joystiq, Blackguard, and Raph all have their piece to say on it. The researchers in question are long time gamers and have invested a lot of time and passion into the MMO genre, so it isn’t as though this is something that a couple of egg heads simply stumbled upon. Personally I’m with Raph on this, while not a revolutionary statement by any means it now gives us a formalized scientific study to point to that extols the virtues of Virtual World/MMO spaces as places of social worth. __________________ Andrew Krausnick Associate Game Designer Sigil Games Online [...]

Silky Venom - Dev Tracker wrote on August 20th, 2006 at 4:58 pm:

[...] There’s been some other commentary floating around on this as well - Joystiq, Blackguard, and Raph all have their piece to say on it. The researchers in question are long time gamers and have invested a lot of time and passion into the MMO genre, so it isn’t as though this is something that a couple of egg heads simply stumbled upon. Personally I’m with Raph on this, while not a revolutionary statement by any means it now gives us a formalized scientific study to point to that extols the virtues of Virtual World/MMO spaces as places of social worth. Find all posts by mineforfish. Find all posts in “MMOs Provide Sociability”. [...]

Kill Ten Rats » Blog Archive » Study: Researchers State The Obvious wrote on August 22nd, 2006 at 6:18 am:

[...] http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/08/18/shocking-study/ [...]

Raph’s Website » CNN.com - Some games may enhance sociability - Sep 6, 2006 wrote on September 6th, 2006 at 8:28 pm:

[...] Remember the “shocking study”? Well, it made CNN and Reuters today. And that right there is why it mattered. [...]

Wonderland wrote on September 8th, 2006 at 5:00 am:

5 biggest budget, best-marketed shows are making a splash - the rest, however, is not. Still - those 5 are seriously good.. World of Warcraft Hits 7 Million Subscribers With no sign of stopping, either. Wired News: The Ultimate Blog Post Bwahaha! Shocking study? Raph slaps down the bloggers being snarky about valuable research recently published by TerraNovans Constance & Dmitri.. Shockwave.com Goes Mobile Popular games from shockwave.com head to phones.

GamePad: The Best Video Gaming Blog Posts wrote on September 8th, 2006 at 5:00 am:

- the 5 biggest budget, best-marketed shows are making a splash - the rest, however, is not. Still - those 5 are seriously good..World of Warcraft Hits 7 Million Subscribers With no sign of stopping, either.Wired News: The Ultimate Blog Post Bwahaha!Shocking study? Raph slaps down the bloggers being snarky about valuable research recently published by TerraNovans Constance & Dmitri..Shockwave.com Goes Mobile Popular games from shockwave.com head to phones.

Amazing News On Video Games » Video Game News wrote on September 15th, 2006 at 1:15 pm:

the 5 biggest budget, best-marketed shows are making a splash - the rest, however, is not. Still - those 5 are seriously good.. World of Warcraft Hits 7 Million Subscribers With no sign of stopping, either. Wired News: The Ultimate Blog Post Bwahaha! Shocking study? Raph slaps down the bloggers being snarky about valuable research recently published by TerraNovans Constance & Dmitri.. Shockwave.com Goes Mobile Popular games from shockwave.com head to phones.

Water Cooler Games - Quick News Links wrote on October 18th, 2006 at 2:48 am:

[...] Read it here: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/08/18/shocking-study/ [...]

Paul Donnelly said on August 19th, 2006 at 12:15 am:

“More importantly, the common sense of game players has no validity in, say, a Congressional hearing. Common sense and anecdotal impressions aren’t worth much in science in general, and having concrete data to present to game detractors is an incredibly valuable thing.”

Bang on! It’s not even just that its hard to defend your opinions without data. After all, there are plenty of widely held but unfounded beliefs out there. The thing is that science is based completely on evidence and good testing. It’s not enough to know a thing; a scientific mind needs to know, for its own well-being as well as for everyone’s benefit, why the things that “everyone knows” are true. If they are indeed true.

Shan said on August 19th, 2006 at 6:51 am:

I think Orland’s comment was more of a quick guffaw than a well-reasoned argument — but that said I am fed up with the more general case.

How many times do we have to see the baseless media characterisation of “wacky scientists find out what we all knew already” as a story angle? I mean, come on! If you know a journalist, do public discourse a favour and speak to them about this.

Science is just as much about confirming “things we think we know” with hard evidence as it is about showing that common sense often isn’t.

Darniaq said on August 19th, 2006 at 11:29 am:

These are the sorts of studies that help everyone make their arguments more solidly. It’s fun for the anti-establishment sub-culture of video gaming to deride anything that they themselves didn’t prompt, and there’s no easier target than studies that prove things they already think they know.

However, they themselves benefit greatly from scientists and the like that approach hypothesis>theory>fact the right way. The Joystiq crowd is being a bit elitist in their attempt to own facts they themselves borrowed from conventional wisdom. But conventional wisdom is not fact, as has been rightly said here.

I’d rather cite this sort of study than a group of gamers who see game-wide trends because of the goings-on of their particular guild.

Morgan Ramsay said on August 19th, 2006 at 12:36 pm:

Darniaq wrote:

But conventional wisdom is not fact, as has been rightly said here.

“Human consensus does not generate reality. Were it able to do so, the Sun would have taken to orbiting the Earth some time ago,” wrote Dr. Ursula Goodenough of Washington University in the June 2001 issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science. This selected quote has been a personal favorite for awhile.

Ryan Shwayder said on August 19th, 2006 at 2:41 pm:

I’m firing an email off to the writer(s) to see if I can get a copy of the original. Basing an article on an article that was based on an article strikes me as silly, even though I did it when I wrote the article (and many others). Plus, it could be interesting to see how one goes about scientifically studying these things.

Michael Chui said on August 20th, 2006 at 1:16 am:

Ryan,

The article is here: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue4/steinkuehler.html

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol 11, Issue 4, Aug 06. Haven’t read it yet; just burned some net trails since I was surprised Raph hadn’t linked to it in the first place.

Makkaio said on August 20th, 2006 at 6:48 am:

The reviews of the findings were written by gamers. As an avid gamer, I’m inclinded to say ‘duh’ at the findings because I personally know those findings to be true to me. I’m not sticking up for the reviewers in any way, because the findings are important. But I can see where those articles are coming from.

Most gamers are put in a nutshell of being anti-social nerdbags. But I find most to be very intelligent and lead a variety of social lives.

I work for a city government and hold a political committee office. Before that, I covered, wrote and anchored the daily news for local sister radio stations. The last two years of my radio news career I directed and hosted a one-hour radio news magazine show.

In both jobs, MMOs have been that “third” way to get some private time in places where people did not know me in those capacities. I could hang out as one of the “guys’ and not have people scream at me about the pothold in front of their house, or ask how I feel about the latest escapades of G. W. Bush. And I don’t have to feel bad when I tell them, “Hey, just trying to drink a beer here.” I know a lot of people just like me. I think we are more the rule than the exception.

So, yeah, the conclusions of the study are a bit ‘duh’ to me personally. But I’m also glad they validate some of the real social reasons that most gamers hang out in MMOs.

Rik said on August 20th, 2006 at 1:53 pm:

Thank you for the link Michael Chui.

Rik said on August 20th, 2006 at 2:11 pm:

Ohh, check this out:

Third places are spaces in which an individual’s rank and status in the workplace or society at large are of no import.

That’s the topic of bringing money into the game all over again, in my mind. That the field is level, one person one avatar, no RL gender, race, age, or tax -bracket is know.

Allen Sligar said on August 20th, 2006 at 2:58 pm:

Before I post an extended rant/breakdown over at my own blog I’ll respond briefly here.

Comments on Data:

Raph-

Paul-

“It’s not even just that its hard to defend your opinions without data”

Look at who’s proposing regulation of game content, who they are, what are they after, and how are they compiling their “proof”. Is their data (compelling?) superior (how mature is the research, data and analysis in the field they’re drawing from). The video game industry perhaps should be trying to meet and exceed their opponents in this. Good policy is informed by good data; one cannot bemoan policy outcomes that harm ones industry if the industry fails in this simple task.

Darnaiq-

“These are the sorts of studies that help everyone make their arguments more solidly. It’s fun for the anti-establishment sub-culture of video gaming to deride anything that they themselves didn’t prompt, and there’s no easier target than studies that prove things they already think they know.

However, they themselves benefit greatly from scientists and the like that approach hypothesis>theory>fact the right way. The Joystiq crowd is being a bit elitist in their attempt to own facts they themselves borrowed from conventional wisdom. But conventional wisdom is not fact, as has been rightly said here.”

Yeah, besides casuals, the powergaming-uber-L33t-haxxor-I’m-to-cool-for-you crowd can continue to thumb their noses at contributing researchers. However the cost of this attitude is that their opinions and flaming marginalizes them. The industry will ignore their opinions as uninformed, and government will regulate their entertainment.
This is the end result of gamer hubris and this can be avoided by building gamer buy-in into industry and research that seeks to prevent game-sameness and over regulation. But gamers have to meet industry half way…if you make an industry guess what you want you’ll neither get what you want nor what you need.

Obviously from my end of things we’re working toward correcting these areas I mentioned above. Of course we don’t know if it’ll work, we hope it will though…

Michael-

Thanks for the link

Ok enough of my blathering, I have wire frames and a site architecture to fill my sunday with, I just got FrontPage two weeks ago…oh the horror!

Psychochild said on August 20th, 2006 at 4:46 pm:

To the topic on hand, I agree completely: it’s nice to have a real study to point to that shows the benefit of these spaces. Kudos to Constance and Dmitri for their work.

Rik wrote:
That’s the topic of bringing money into the game all over again, in my mind.

Unfortunately, money is already in the equation. Time is money, and people able to spend more time in the game get better stuff, period. The lower-middle class father of two can’t spend as much time in the game as a college student can. Why? Because the father has to work harder (that is, make money) to support his family than the college student has to work.

I’d further recommend reading an interesting post about the topic from Matt Mihaly. It’s an interview where he talks to someone that just spend about $240 on an item that pretty much just gives a custom text message. Bought by a college student, mind you, so not likely just someone flaunting their wealth. Read the article and it might give you a slightly different view on the whole “pay for perks” business model.

Some thoughts.

Rik said on August 20th, 2006 at 6:52 pm:

I’m not complaining about the model (Real cash for virtual items). It supports a successful game (one where the servers work and the programmers get paid). It does not support a “third place” relaxed social structure, as defined by others. I as a player seek out the comfortable social group, and leave the raids to people who have the right to play the game the way they like. So as a player I reject it, and as a hypothetical game designer (yes, that’s right, I design games that don’t exist, but could) I’m looking for a game that I would enjoy as a player.

Yes, the world outside the virtual world effects the things that happen inside the virtual world. As designers we can do things to minimize that instead of allow it. Worlds of Warcraft’s rested bar, A Tale In The Desert’s Offline chores are examples of this. (I’m reminded of the things Dungeon Keeper II would say as the hours of the night got later. )

Quoting someone quoted in the paper: “It didn’t matter what you drove to the arcade. If you sucked at Asteroids, you just sucked” (Herz, 1997). Yes, more time spend playing Asteroids will make you better, but a contest between two players is not going to simply go to the person who has played more.

Further, more time available to spend in the third place seems likely to me to convert this person into a regular. Regulars are an important part of the third place, and being a vocal regular and helping others in the community can quickly eat into his time. That is to say he’s running newcomers thru the Old Lighthouse instead of teaming up with old friends to challenge the Dragon’s Hidden Castle.

David said on August 20th, 2006 at 7:38 pm:

Interesting the ‘third place’ aspect. It makes a lot of sense. I had a guy in my guild a year or two ago who was literally a wall street stockbroker. You’d never have known it in game, and in fact none of us did until he got excited one day talking about his vacation coming up, and how nice it would be to have two weeks with very little stress.

Rik’s got a good point about the link between the third place and the desire that many players have to keep real world resources from affecting virtual world ones, but at the same time I think there’s more to it as well. The entire third place aspect is more of a subconcious contributor, I think.

I have to disagree though about this:

I’ve met a lot of players who you could classify as regulars who weren’t necessarily running newcomers through the old lighthouse. After all, these games are crafted (well, the good ones) so that it should take you months to years to get through all the available content. There are just as many newbie-helper social type gamers out there as there are tightly bonded achievement oriented players. Players on both sides could be considered regulars and assets to the community in a game, just in different ways.

Rik said on August 20th, 2006 at 10:17 pm:

I was meaning “Regulars” as defined in the “Third Places” concept.

Third places include a cadre of regulars who attract newcomers and give the space its characteristic mood.

As far as Subconcious, it’s not for me anymore. When I’m a regular I’m intentionally creating a space where people can unwind and if not be themselves than at least not be the guy they are at work. Seems to me that bringing RL things into the game upsets the journey that Bartle talks about, about discovery and self discovery.

Michael Chui said on August 20th, 2006 at 10:24 pm:

Like I said, the way you make this “third place” is if all participants agree to the same rules. If all participants agree to hold to the sanctity of the place and its separation from “reality”, then it can certainly happen. No one brings a gun to a knife fight only because all the participants don’t want to; likewise, no one will bring real money into the virtual world if none of the players wish it.

Shocking study?

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