It’s all about the fundamentals, maybe, not that I like to pull broader political talking points into a blog about virtual worlds and the big bold metaverse - but the theory goes that we can count on the ingenuity of workers, that pluck and drive and creative spring in the step - and now The National Science Foundation is plunking $100,000 on the table to find out why.
In particular, they’re going to find out why American World of Warcraft players are more, hmm, fundamental than their Asian counterparts.
Bonnie Nardi, who has previously watched game players in Intenet cafes in China (which strikes me as an interesting way to spend time, although she might want to talk to Tom Boelstorff and just get herself an avatar), wants to know why in spite having half the number of WoW players as the Chinese, “Americans produce far more modifications, or “mods,” to enrich the gaming experience.”
She points out culture as a factor in driving different ways to play the game:
“The vast majority of Chinese players are not ‘gold farmers’ (people who play to generate game gold, which is then sold for real money). They’re ordinary players like anyone. The media has blown that story out of all proportion. Many people think Chinese play for a job. They play for fun.
“Chinese people play the more challenging form of World of Warcraft almost exclusively. They find the less challenging form of the game ‘boring.’ Here, about 50 percent play the challenging form of the game and there, about 95 percent do.
“(The) Chinese have invented some interesting ways to play with the in-game economy (not the real world economy). Ways that I have not observed here in two years of studying ‘World of Warcraft.’
“Chinese players are more attuned to the aesthetics of the game. At least they mention them more in interviews. They talked more about color schemes, animations, architecture, and so on more than American players.
Having said all that, and not to be overly disparaging of this kind of cultural research, I’m kind of betting that $100k later and we’ll end up with the patently obvious, like her burning insight that “in China people don’t have brothers and sisters for the most part, so friend relationships are very important.”
Or maybe that, in fact, there are only 100 Chinese players, each with 100,000 alts.
Kind of like the study that found that babies are stupid:
“Babies, the study concluded, are also too stupid to do the following: avoid getting their heads trapped in automatic car windows; use ice to alleviate the pain of burn injuries resulting from touching an open flame; master the skills required for scuba diving; and use a safety ladder to reach a window to escape from a room filled with cyanide gas.”
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