The Anatomy of a Gamer

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The Anatomy of a Gamer

• Kurt D. Squire
• Constance A. Steinkuehler
• University of WisconsinMadison

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1972
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Zork 1977
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Pac Man 1980
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Super Mario Bros. 1985
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Tetris 1985
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Mortal Kombat 1992
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1972
1977
1980
1985
1990
1993
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1994-2004
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Quake 2. c. 1997
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Ultima Online 1997
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Railroad Tycoon 1998
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Railroad Tycoon 1998
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Deus Ex 2000
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Frequency 2001
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Final Fantasy X 2001
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The Sims 2000
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Civilization III 2001
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Abstract Rhythm Games (Rez)
Rez 2001
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Adventure Games (Syberia)
Syberia 2002
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Full Spectrum Warrior 2004
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Lineage II 2004
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Star Wars Galaxies 2003
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Star Wars Galaxies 2003
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Videogames are a push technology
Dmitri Williams (2004)
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Which Videogames?
PuzzleGames
Real TimeStrategy
First Person Shooter
Arcade Games
SimulationGames
SportsGames
Massively Multiplayer Online Games
AdventureGames
Role Playing
God Games
Abstract / Rhythm Games
Survival Horror
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Outline

• MMOG Industry
• What are MMOGs?
• What activities constitute MMOGaming?
• Literacy practices
• Joint Problem Solving
• Learning
• Emergent Themes

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MMOG Industry

• 2003 U.S. Industry Profit Numbers ?
• Gaming Industry 10.0 billion
• Hollywood box office movies 9.5 billion
• Music industry 14.3 billion
• Home video rentals 19.0 billion

v
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MMOG Industry

• 2003 U.S. Industry Profit Numbers
• Gaming Industry 10.0 billion
• Online Games (2003) 1.9 billion
• Online Games (2009) 9.8 billion
• Hollywood box office movies 9.5 billion
• Music industry 14.3 billion
• Home video rentals 19.0 billion

• Virtual worlds are significant
• Larger populations than some major real cities ?
• Larger economies than some major real countries
• Substantial time investment
• Diversity of those who play ?

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What are MMOGs?

• Highly graphical 2- or 3-D videogames
• Online social interaction
• Persistent virtual worlds ?
• Real-time, perpetually accessible
• Loosely structured by open-ended (fantasy)
  narratives, but
• Players free to do as they please
• Escapist fantasy yet emergentsocial realism
  (Kolbert, 2001)?

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What activities constitute MMOGaming?

• Literacy Practices
• Joint Problem Solving
• Learning

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The Literacy Scare
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MMOGs Literacy Practices
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For the most part I enjoy finding my own
information, it feels somehow rewarding because
the majority of the informationI come by is from
interactive online communities, like fansites and
forumsLiadon, 22Oct04
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Official Fandom
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MMOG Fan Fiction
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MMOG Fan Websites
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MMOG Fan Websites
?
Unofficial Fandom
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LoA website - entry
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LoA website - ranks
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LoA website - members
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LoA website - ss
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LoA website - stories
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LoA website - email
?
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LoA website - forums
?
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MMOGs Literacy Practices
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Orally Delivered Narratives
Official Game Narrative
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Orally Delivered Narrative
Liadon you know hwo the fairies originally came
into Liadon Being, right? Adeleide nohow? Liadon
Oooh, story time! Liadon once, back when the
world was young and the Liadon gods roamed teh
world as mortals, einhasad Liadon was in the
foreset Liadon and decided to create the race of
elves Liadon none of the other creatures wanted
to help Liadon because they did not know it was
einhasad in Liadon her mortal form Adeleide oh! Li
adon But 4 exceptionally kind creatures did
give Liadon Their assistance Liadon that is
anothe rstory entirely, but one was Liadon The
humble butterfly Liadon She did not have much to
offer, but spared Liadon some dust from her wings
to allow einhasad Liadon to make the
elves Liadon as a reward, those butterflies who
assisted Liadon were given the gift of
immortality and made Liadon fairies Liadon The
fairy queen was the original butterfly Adeleide ho
w did u know all that? Liadon Im' smart
p Liadon Every elf knows that. Liadon Seriously,
though. the mother tree told me
Prefacing activity
Context
Goal Conflict
Resolution
Punchline
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MMOGs Literacy Practices
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MMOG Text Talk
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MMOGs Literacy Practices
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Joint Problem Solving

• Several different forms but share common
  features
• Students work in groups or teams
• Students are responsible not only for their own
  learning but for one anothers learning as well
• Group goals individual accountability are
  crucial!
• Gives students opportunity to practice skills
• Performance Results
• Compared to traditional instruction,
  collaborative learning wins out 61 of time
• Equal benefits to students of all ability levels
• Students express greater liking for their peers
  in general as a result
• Increases students self esteem self-concept
• S i e g e T i m e !

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multiple multimedia, multimodality attentional
spaces (Lemke)
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Collaborative Problem Solving
Artifacting strategy.
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Within comm.of practice
Within / across emergent communities of practice
(Lave Wenger, 1991)
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Socially materially distributed cognition
Distributed social material cognition.
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Negotiation of Meaning
Negotiation of strategy roles.
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MMOGs Literacy Practices
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MMMOG Learning Apprenticeship

• All higher cognitive processes develop out of
  social interaction (Vygotsky)
• Through joint activities with more mature members
  of society, learners come to master activities
  think in ways that have meaning in their culture
• EXAMPLE Apprenticeship of JellyBean
• Who Myrondonia level 25 / JellyBean level 10
• What Elven practice of hunting for mithril
• When JellyBean cries for help against orcs
• Where Elven Dungeon w/ orcs zombies

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Apprenticeship
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Joint Participation
.
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.
.
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.
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.
.
.
.
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Apprenticeship of JellyBean

• Enculturation into Practice
• Joint participation in meaningful activity
• Mutually understood valued goal
• Models successful performance
• Focus attention on key aspects
• Gradually hands control over to learner
• Opportunities for practice situated feedback
• Enculturation into Kind of Elf like Us
• Socializing learner into way of understanding
  the world tied to particular values
• Display oneself as people like us

X
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What does this mean?
We should design better ones!
Were all out of jobs!
Lets try to understandthis a little better first
Lets turn everythinginto games
Ban themwherever we can!
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Themes

• Distributed Intelligence
• Consumers ? producers
• Official texts appropriated into fandom
• Disruptions of power (access, control)
• Multiple multimedia, multimodality attentional
  spaces (Lemke)
• Fuzzy boundaries between RL VL
• Internet as both tool place
• Meaning tied to identities in communities
• Equity issues / digital divide

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Games as a social push

• Indigenous to digital age
• Quintessential example of new media
• Increasingly transmedia
• Enculturating force for youth
• Recruits, even requires literacies
• Kids grow up media makers
• Sites of social disruptions
• Legal (Who owns my character?)
• Economic (Is game income taxable?)

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The Digital Disconnect

• Kids online more than parents
• 78 of children 12 17 go online.
• Personally meaningful learning
• Virtual reference library.
• Virtual tutor and study shortcut.
• Virtual study group
• Virtual guidance counselor
• Key Finding
• We have not yet recognizedmuch less responded
  tothe new ways use the Internet. Pew Internet
  Project, 2003

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Emergent information spaces
Collectiveintelligence
Open Source Information
RedistributingPower
International
Access to social affiliations
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t y v m !

• http//website.education.wisc.edu/kdsquire
• kdsquire_at_education.wisc.edu
• http//www.sit.wisc.edu/steinkuehler
  steinkuehler_at_wisc.edu

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presentationstops here
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• third space
• issue of addiction

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3rd space
MMOGs are social spaces. Third spaces (Bruckman
Resnick, 1995). Neither work nor home.
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But more compelling
And they are quite compelling.
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Because MMOGs function as spaces of possibility
Liadon when it gets close to time i'll step down
as general and Liadon give you a few
recommendations... but I AM Liadon comgin back
when I can Liadon Probably won't still want to be
the general tho Adeleide yea ull be v
busy Liadon Tha'ts not it Liadon peopel make time
for what is important Liadon it would just be
kinda weird, since fantasy Liadon games are for
doing things we can't in real Liadon life... and
if I"m in the military irl, it would Liadon be
really odd ot come home and keep at it ingame
conversation, 28March04
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and retribalization in a winner take all
society
Sometimes I pause and think to myself why we do
what we do online. After all, sometimes this
starts to feel like another job even though it's
just a game. I think that it's because we are
making so much progress. And in the end, if we
can maybe leave some kind of legacy... that
perhaps years down the road there will be another
generation of gamers. And maybe they will say,
do you remember that pledge? Did you actually
meet Princess Adeleide, or General Liadon?
Maybe when you get down to it, this is just
another goal of life to achieve immortality by
being remembered in some way. In the end I think
everyone has to ask themselves that basic
question. Did I make an impact on someone's
life? Positive or negative? Will I be
remembered for it? IM conversation, 3
May 2002
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And maybe even as meritocracies at times.
LadySin Im nothing of a leader in
RL Adeleide bah LadySin well unless pple get to
know me LadySin then I take over LadySin but from
a distance I look like a simple silly
person LadySin Im short, small LadySin Im not
loud or talk much LadySin im shy Adeleide well,
what made u different here than in RL? LadySin I
think physical prescence LadySin I dont see
people, people dont see me LadySin I dont have to
worry about how I look or if myhair or clothes
are ok LadySin it sounds shallow but thats what
it is
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Critique of society
Perhaps these spaces are simply more compelling
than realspaces.
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Critique of school
Such as school.
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Rethink
And perhaps they ought to make us critique our
society.
Corporate U.S. Flag ? AdBusters
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Rethink
Instead of gamersthemselves.
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• research project

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Overview of Research Project

• Theoretical perspective
• Cognition as (inter)action in the social
  material world (cf. Hutchins, Lave, Vygotsky)
• big D Discourse theory (Gee,1999) ?
• Goals
• To understand the culture/cognition of MMOGs
• To inform public parents, teachers, designers
• Site Lineage I ( now Lineage II)
• Ancillary work on other games (SWG, EverQuest)
• Method Virtual Cognitive Ethnography

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Virtual Cognitive Ethnography

• Primary Data Sources
• Participant Observations (video/audio data)
• Ethnographic Fieldnotes
• Individual Case Studies
• Interviews with Informants
• Collection of Community Documents
• Fieldwork To Date
• Princess Adeleide, LegendsOfAden Blood Pledge
• 25 months fieldwork, average 10-50 hrs/week
• 12 formal interviews
• 40 hrs informal interviews .

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• (hyperlinked slides)

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Woodcock (2004)
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Woodcock (2004)
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?
Woodcock (2004)
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Diversity of MMOGamers
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Dmitri Williams (2004)
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?