Digital Culture, Play, and Identity

by Corneliussen, Hilde G.

• ISBN13: 9780262033701
• ISBN10: 0262033704
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-31
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

World of Warcraftis the world's most popular massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), with (as of March 2007) more than eight million active subscribers across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia, who play the game an astonishing average of twenty hours a week. This book examines the complexity of World of Warcraftfrom a variety of perspectives, exploring the cultural and social implications of the proliferation of ever more complex digital gameworlds. The contributors have immersed themselves in the World of Warcraftuniverse, spending hundreds of hours as players (leading guilds and raids, exploring moneymaking possibilities in the in-game auction house, playing different factions, races, and classes), conducting interviews, and studying the game design--as created by Blizzard Entertainment, the game's developer, and as modified by player-created user interfaces. The analyses they offer are based on both the firsthand experience of being a resident of Azeroth and the data they have gathered and interpreted. The contributors examine the ways that gameworlds reflect the real world--exploring such topics as World of Warcraftas a "capitalist fairytale" and the game's construction of gender; the cohesiveness of the gameworld in terms of geography, mythology, narrative, and the treatment of death as a temporary state; aspects of play, including "deviant strategies" perhaps not in line with the intentions of the designers; and character--both players' identification with their characters and the game's culture of naming characters. The varied perspectives of the contributors--who come from such fields as game studies, textual analysis, gender studies, and postcolonial studies--reflect the breadth and vitality of current interest in MMOGs. Contributors: Espen Aarseth, Hilde G. Corneliussen, Charlotte Hagström, Lisbeth Klastrup, Tanya Krzywinska, Jessica Langer, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Torill Elvira Mortensen, Jill Walker Rettberg, Scott Rettberg, T. L. Taylor, Ragnhild Tronstad.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: "Orc Professor LFG," or Researching in Azeroth	p. 1
Culture	p. 17
Corporate Ideology in World of Warcraft	p. 19
"Never Such Innocence Again"	p. 39
War and Histories in World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft as a Playground for Feminism	p. 63
The Familiar and the Foreign	p. 87
Playing (Post)Colonialism in World of Warcraft
World	p. 109
A Hollow World	p. 111
World of Warcraft as Spatial Practice
World Creation and Lore	p. 123
World of Warcraft as Rich Text
What Makes World of Warcraft a World?	p. 143
A Note on Death and Dying
Quests in World of Warcraft	p. 167
Deferral and Repetition
Play	p. 185
Does World of Warcraft Change Everything?	p. 187
How a PvP Server, Multinational Playerbase, and Surveillance Mod Scene Caused Me Pause
Humans Playing World of Warcraft: or Deviant Strategies?	p. 203
Role-play vs. Gameplay	p. 225
The Difficulties of Playing a Role in World of Warcraft
Identity	p. 247
Character Identification in World of Warcraft	p. 249
The Relationship between Capacity and Appearance
Playing with Names	p. 265
Gaming and Naming in World of Warcraft
Contributors	p. 287
Glossary	p. 291
Index	p. 295
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