You No Take Candle!
June 20th, 2009
Yesterday at State of Play, Bart Simon made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion: that journals like Games and Culture adopt a five-year ban on articles that focus on Second Life and World of Warcraft.
He wasn't seriously arguing that this should happen but it is a pretty useful way to poke researchers about the degree to which these two places have become defaults for study as well as for play or social interaction in virtual worlds.
So as a reminder, if you're doing research, justify a focus on them. Here's a list of legitimate reasons that I thought of right away.
1.
Because
they constitute most other virtual worlds, maybe on a metropole-periphery model, even. E.g. that World of Warcraft now determines what most other game-like worlds will be, and Second Life will shape any primarily social world in the future, in all likelihood. (I can see the very strong influence of many Second Life institutions on Metaplace, for example.) So you study them because they're determinant, and because in many other worlds, you'll just studying them from a distance.
On the other hand, there are a whole host of casual games, kids' worlds and so on which aren't determined by these two poles.
2.
Because
any virtual world is just as good as any other for studying certain problems or questions. E.g., throw a dart at the dartboard, and if it lands on WoW, and what you're interested in happens there, why not?
3.
Because the researcher is attracted to/interested in a given world, or have an investment of time
that allows him/her a good qualitative understanding of a given world. We don't tend to admit in some cases that we pick our fieldsites because of a prior affinity for that place or culture, or at least that doesn't express itself as a justification for that work in formal publication. But it's still a good reason: if you know a place, and more people know Second Life and WoW than other games, why not make use of that experiential knowledge?
4.
Because
WoW or Second Life has a particular feature that is most distinctively realized
or expressed in them, or a sociology that is best vested there. If you're interested in the sociology of raiding, arguably WoW is now one of the best places to study that.
5.
Because
there’s a literature, a canon, and it lets the researcher not have to explain everything
that I would have to explain about a more obscure game; or because there is a
community of colleagues who provide scaffolding/support. Obviously that's a kind of closed feedback loop which if you take it too seriously means that there is never any reason to study something which is not already heavily studied.
6.
Because there are tools or affordances, some created by other researchers, which make the collection of data in these two worlds easier. I don't think that actually works as a justification for World of Warcraft, which is still a frustrating thing to study (or to demonstrate to classes).
Others? Still, the point is sound: there are other worlds that are studied, and some which should be studied vastly more than they are. (Yes, I know what you're all going to say next, EVE Online, and I agree. Maybe that's another post: why isn't EVE studied even more than it already is?)
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