Thank you so much for writing on gaming and in particular for writing on WoW. This allows me to write about what I know with “published scholarly references”. I hope to be your peer one day.

Sincerely,
A tired PhD Student

p.s. Currently writing a paper for cognitive psychology on gamer collaboration in regards to problem solving and decision making and how to apply what gamers already know to business and education!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold the fact you play the games against you – but please don’t be offended if I do not share in the excitement or even interest of your overzealous updates on your latest point-click-refresh time sink.

Now, I’m just as guilty as the next 4sq’r on your list. Yes, I’ll admit to that. But, you also have to admit you rarely see a 4sq update from me, and when you do it’s someplace really cool and usually with friends. Most of the check ins I never publish to my feeds and if it takes any longer than 30 seconds to check in, I get over it and move on.

That being said, does anyone else feel like the concept of gaming (for the record I don’t necessarily agree with calling these passive apps games), has been dumbed down? What ever happened to the days of gaming wizards, hackers fighting hackers, hacking war games, pissing off that hacker girl you like by beating her at her favorite game, or being picked to do real battle for your leet arcade skills?

That’s just it, the crux of this post, gaming used to be synonymous with having skills. Working for 3DFX, we even used games to compete with one another for special privileges like hosting the booth at Quakecon. I remember the days of Atari (yes I was young, but I played it!); when pizza joints had arcade tables where you could eat and at the same time play Pacman with a friend; the awesomeness of playing against someone in Street Fighter and Mortal Combat at the arcade; beating Super Mario and Paper Boy for the first time on the NES; and even playing games on the now defunct Dreamcast and Sega Saturn.

My first exposure to PC games was Doom, then on to Quake and Unreal Tournament, and I definitely remember enjoying Myst, 7th Guest, and Myth. From there I moved on to Diablo / Diablo II, & Warcraft I/II/III. (Gotta give Blizzard props for having games that came out on PC and Mac at the same time – this is what won me over to them early on.) Can’t forget the original Sims (though it’s been hard for me to get into the latest version and I’ll admit only played Spore a few hours). Hell, I remember playing the first Halo game when it came out and finding it funny that it took Microsoft buying Bungie, who was originally a Macintosh game developer (anyone remember Oni?), to put out a great game.

These days I’m all about Borderlands (via Steam and my ever expanding library of games there), WoW (/played since Nov 23, 2004), as well as games like Little Big Planet, any of the Lego games (Batman, Star Wars, and Harry Potter are my favs so far), and many many others on multiple computers, consoles, and hand held devices.

I don’t mean to spark a debate here over what should and should not be called a game, or even the quality of the games themselves – this is more about the gaming experience and what it means to self identify or earn the title of Gamer. This is by no means the type of academic post most are used to seeing here, it’s more of an opinion piece. My opinion is simple – games should take mental skills, actual effort, quick thinking, consequences of making critical choices, and even some practice.

If you’re playing a game that doesn’t require these things, especially the making you think part, well perhaps you should try them sometime. Then, maybe we can talk gamer to gamer. Until that time, I’ll continue to block your point-click-refresh posts off my Facebook feed and decline every single invitation you send my way. Look me up when you want to waste time with me playing a real game. I promise not to beat you too bad, – the first time.

Big news today:

Google says: Sorry China, we will not be kowtowing to you any more.

Good question posed by FastCompany:

And there’s also the issue that Google’s pull-out of China might make the overall human rights situation slightly worse. Because whether or not you approve of Google, while it was operating in China it was pushing for relaxations of censorship–using its size as a global giant to try to lever open some cracks in the censorship wall. And if it leaves the country, then what’s to stop the Chinese government running roughshod over any other players in the Internet tech game–likely far smaller ones than mighty Google–and forcing them to comply?

Rockstar San Diego Wive’s do as the EA Spouse did and post a letter to the Internet calling for better working conditions.

The WSJ reports that the US Court of Appeals reinstated an antitrust lawsuit against the major record labels over alleged price-fixing of Internet music downloads.

Ars Technica reports that Comcast wants clarity from the FCC even if it means Net Neutrality.

I suppose it’s not so much the act of debugging, but the success you have once you’ve figured it out. I call it a ding and refer to the way it works the Ding Effect. It’s the same reason why a gamer will sit for hours and hours performing the same action over and over again for what seems little gain. The ding is the reward in the end – be it a PHP form actually submitting (as was the case tonight), finishing a paper on time (which I hope will be the case tomorrow), getting an A (which is always my goal), leveling up a character (just one more bubble), or acquiring rewards in game (yay shiny!) – the sense of accomplishment is all the same.

I was hired for my first computer programming job because I was a gamer. My boss’s understanding was that if I could sit in front of a computer/console for hours figuring out a game, I’d do the same figuring out code – and you know what? He was right.

This is why I enjoy listening to my 6 year old gain that same sense of achievement experience when she finishes a book, or figures out a new recipe on Cooking Mama for the DS. If you can build your own sense of accomplishment into every day tasks, then that’s all the motivation required to get them done and actually enjoy doing them.

I was laid off.

Yep, it happens and has been happening all over the US for some time now. As a matter of fact it’s the third time I’ve been laid off during my career. My first layoff was during the dotcom collapse of 2001 where the company I worked for (3DFX – manufacturers of Voodoo gaming video cards) went out of business and sold their IP to NVidia (and I loved that job!). It took me 6 months to get a job after that and I am still paying off credit card debt accrued during that time.

My second was October of 2007 when I found out that the man who ran the company I worked for failed to pay taxes. He had previously worked for Enron – no joke. Luckily I found a job right away as I had already been scouting for one sensing the end was near.

Then this one was a simple business decision and I can respect that. Still, it hurts both in the pocketbook and to one’s sense of pride. I worked very hard at that job and felt I was doing a lot of good. Sadly, my type of position is usually one of the first to go when a restructuring happens so it’s to be expected. Being previously laid off doesn’t make this time better or worse – it just means I understand that it happens and past experience has told me it is something from which I can recover.

For those World of Warcraft gamers who have never been laid off, it’s much like having your raiding guild up and decide it’s no longer going to raid anymore so you are no longer needed. This actually happened to me over the summer, so yes I can tell you it feels pretty darn similar. These were people I had raided with for almost the entire time the game was out (over four years!), and poof it was gone. What seemed like it happened over night had actually been months in the making, but it still wasn’t any less shocking or hard to take.

What’s cool now is I have a few freelance gigs I’ve picked up on the side – much like PUGing a raid. In game, I did the same and about 3 months after my guild collapsed I found a new home. I’m hoping it doesn’t take me three months to find a new job! I’ll admit I am a little more dedicated to finding a job than I was to finding a new guild, but I’ve heard stories of people being out of work for close to a year. Those who know me know I can’t sit still for long, and the fact it’s been almost two weeks has me already climbing the walls (hence the freelance gigs).

By the way, if you are looking for a UI designer, usability engineer, information architect, web designer, graphic artist, design or cyber anthropologist, or ethnographic researcher I am your girl! You can find my user experience resume here, my research resume here, and my career portfolio here. If this were my armory, I’d say I’m a dual specced hybrid class so I can fit almost any roll. That and I have lots of raiding experience, a high hit rating, a great list of achievements, and a gear score to drool over!

Video games have become an important part of our culture. They were the first medium to transform the computer from a utilitarian device into a recreational one, thus being the instigators behind bringing computers into the home (Wolf, 2001). Can you imagine life today without home computers? Games are also considered by some to be the driving force behind improvements in computer technology (Wolf 2001). Take for example the game 7th Guest. It was the first game to be available only on CD-ROM as it was too large to fit on floppy disks because the videos that were a part of it could not be left out as it would be a detriment to the game play (Wikipedia).

Video games have evolved quite a bit over the last 30 years as have the cultures surrounding them. Not only are games entertaining, but they are also methods to ‘promote various types of information literacy, develop information seeking habits and product practices (like writing), and require good, old fashioned research skills, albeit using a wide spectrum of content.’ (Squire and Steinkuehler, 2005) All of which will be analyzed in the following pages of this gamer user group analysis.

Gamers and their Information Needs
Consider this, over 10 million people play the game World of Warcraft (Reeves et al., 2008) and I am one of them. While I am a student of information behavior, I am also an anthropologist who has done ethnographic research on a guild in World of Warcraft and I self identify as a gamer. In fact, I have played World of Warcraft since the date of its release. In this section, I will speak from personal experience of what my needs as a gamer are, as well as supplement my experiences with research I have collected for this user group analysis.

To begin, as a gamer, my needs are not only for how to play the game i.e. the mechanics of it, but also for the best strategies to employ while trying to complete quests within the game. Additionally, I do not only need information on how to play the game myself, but also information on group dynamics, as well as how to strategize with others in completing difficult dungeons and defeating major bosses. Also just as important as the mechanics and the strategy behind the actual game play, is how to best outfit my character to perform at her best both by herself and within a group. So, to that end I look up information on gear, enchants, gems, tradeskills, and more that will help make my character both fun to play and a valuable part of any group. I also play more than one type of character so this information is multifold as it is different for each one of them.

As you can see, the amount of information required to play can be large and varied. What is interesting though is that I as well as millions of others will gladly go out of our way to seek out this information in order to ‘play’ a game. One difference to consider between gamers or the digital generation and traditional information seekers is that we approach the need for information collaboratively, we actively and almost immediately use it (either in game play or through sharing), and it is just as important to us to find and use good information as to be producers of it ourselves.

Gamers as Collaborative Information Seekers, Consumers, and Producers
Considering all of the knowledge required to play World of Warcraft, the first question that may come to mind is where does one start? The first stop for many, especially within collaborative online games (but certainly not to the exclusion of other gaming genres), is to consult other gamers. Within World of Warcraft, groups of gamers come together in the form of guilds. These guilds consist of a variety of people each with their own needs, knowledge, approach, and skills. In my guild, age ranges from 18 to 52, it is made up of about 20% women and 80% men, we have everyone from housewives to marines, from college graduates to high school students, and we hail from several different countries including Canada, US, Mexico, and England. About 75% of us participate regularly on our message boards where we socialize, ask questions, as well as consume and produce information.
Squire and Steinkuehler in the article Meet the Gamers state:

‘Game cultures feature participation in a collective intelligence, blur the distinction between the production and consumption of information, emphasize expertise rather than status, and promote international and cross-cultural media and communities.’ (Squire and Steinkuehler, 2005)

When one of us needs help, it is common practice to consult the guild first. In fact, I would suggest it would be considered an insult if one did not do this. This means the 18 year old from Indiana can answer just as well as the 42 year old from England and usually both do where one agrees or disagrees with the other then provides examples to backup their statement. If it is a question that no one outright has the answer to, it is understood that several will go out to find the answer and then come back with examples in the form of posted tried and true strategies, popular blogs, or even YouTube video examples to share. Some have even made YouTube movies of their own, and others have created maps made out of screenshots and uploaded them to the forums as a way to produce and share information. Sometimes this information is taken at face value, other times it is tested and argued about. ‘Groups of people from around the world solve problems with an array of information, digital tools, resources, screen shots and arguments.’ (Squire and Steinkuehler, 2005) In short, as has been my experience and as has been studied by other researchers, gamers ‘play, think, and learn together’. (Squire and Steinkuehler, 2005)

As was demonstrated by the above example, the production and consumption of information takes place not only within the game, but also in various forms outside of the game. These forms can include things such as guild forums, official and unofficial game forums, blogs, voice over IP systems, and within information repositories such as WoWWiki, a Wikipedia type compendium put together by gamers for gamers about the game. These resources span the range of official to unofficial and it is up to the gamer to seek out what is usable, what is current, and what is not. In any case, seeking outside information is as much vital to successful game play as it is to being a successful contributing member of a guild.

In Play Between Worlds, T.L.Taylor states the following:
‘The collective production of game experience and knowledge does not simply constitute a helpful “addon” to the game, but is a fundamental factor in both its pleasure and sustainability. Most radically put, the very product of the game is not constructed simply by the designers or publisher, nor contained within the boxed product, but produced only in conjunction with the players.’ (Taylor, 2006)

Knowing what the best sources are, staying up with the latest information, and being quick to offer it to those who ask is a matter of pride for many gamers. As Squire and Steinkuehler point out ‘Knowing where and how to find the right information isn’t just entertainment, it’s also a source of prestige’. (Squire and Steinkuehler, 2005)

Gamers as Leaders and Information Users
Another source of prestige as a gamer is the ability to use the information you have gathered in order to lead a group of fellow gamers to complete a goal successfully. People who emerge as leaders within games such as World of Warcraft are called on to use the information they have gathered in order to recruit other players, assess the skills of these players, motivate them, reward them, retain them for the next encounter, identify and capitalize on the groups competitive advantage, and analyze ‘multiple streams of constantly changing and often incomplete data in order to make quick decisions that have wide-ranging and sometimes long lasting effects.’ (Reeves et al., 2008)

These skills are becoming highly prized skills of leaders in the business world as well. While there is not a one to one relationship between being a leader in game to be a leader in business, it has been surmised that ‘leadership in online games offers a sneak preview of tomorrow’s business world.’ (Reeves et al., 2008) At the beginning of the article Leadership’s Online Labs Reeves, Malone, and O’Driscoll paint this picture of the business landscape of the future:

‘At many companies, important decision making will be distributed throughout the organization to enable people to respond rapidly to change. A lot of work will be done by global teams – partly composed of people from outside the institution, over whom a leader has no formal authority – that are assembled for a single project and then disbanded. Collaboration within these geographically diverse groups will, by necessity, occur mainly through digital rather than face-to-face interaction.’ (Reeves et al., 2008)

Not only is it intriguing to look at those who emerge as leaders, but also it is important to consider the environment in which they become leaders. ‘Perhaps the right environment is what really matters, whoever the leader happens to be.’ (Reeves et al., 2008) Considering the fact that it is often an act of collaborative leadership, collaborative game play, and collaborative information seeking, consuming and producing that leads to the success of an in game endeavor, this is likely not far off the mark.

Conclusions
Taking into consideration the varied information needs of gamers, as well as the way they collaboratively seek, consume, and produce data not to mention the potential affects gaming will have on the business landscape in the future, it is apparent that gamers make up a specific user group that requires the attention of information professionals.

First, we should consider the fact that gamers have diverse information seeking needs and they are not afraid of utilizing multiple resources and tools. ‘One core competency in gaming communities is the ability to negotiate multiple, competing information spaces that span different media and officially/unofficial channels.’ (Squire and Steinkuehler, 2005) This means information professionals need to be inclusive of various spaces within which gamers are allowed to seek instead of trying to restrict gamers into one space over another.

Secondly, more attention needs to be paid to the collaborative collection, sharing, and producing of information. How do we make this easier to do? How do we encourage people to come back to and share valued resources? What kind of tools can we come up with to make their seeking and collaboration easier? In what ways can we promote collaborative production of information? How can we harness these skills in children (and adults for that matter) and refocus them toward even academic or industrial uses?

Lastly, how do we help game leaders utilize the skills they are building in their game time in the business world? How do we harness the gaming environment as a way to help make leaders out of whomever happens to come into that position?

If information professionals hope to harness the skills and fulfill the needs of gamers and the digital generation, it is obvious by these unanswered questions that more research needs to be performed on and even in conjunction with them. Yes, with them. Make a game of it. There is no use in letting their skills go to waste!

[Written for an Information Behavior Class - School of Library and Information Sciences - UNT.]

References

Reeves, Byron; Malone, Thomas W.; O’Driscoll, Tony. (2008). Leadership’s Online Labs. Journal Harvard Business Review. Vol 86, no. 5 (May): 58-67. Retrieved March, 21th, 2009, from EBSCO HOST – Business Source® Complete ™

Scordato, Julie. (2008). Gaming As A Library Service. Journal Public Libraries Vol 47, no. 1 (January/February): 67-73. Retrieved March, 21th, 2009, from EBSCO HOST – Education Research Complete

Smith, Brena. (2008). Twenty-first century game studies in the academy: Libraries and an emerging discipline. Reference Services Review Vol 36, no. 2 (February): 205-220. Retrieved March, 21th, 2009, from EBSCO HOST – LISA: Library and Information Science Abstracts

Squire, Kurt; Steinkuehler, Constance. (2005). Meet the Gamers. Library Journal Vol 130, no. 7 (April): 38-42. Retrieved March, 21th, 2009, from EBSCO HOST Academic Search Complete ™

Taylor, T. L., (2006) Play Between Worlds, Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Wolf, Mark J.P. (ed) (2001). The Medium of the Video Game. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.

Barack Obama has made history again, this time as the first presidential candidate ever to advertise in video games. If you are in one of the following swing states, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin, and you play games such as Madden NFL 09 or Burnout Paradise then you will have the opportunity to see this for yourself.

I’d be interested to see what the opinions of gamers who witnessed these in their games before all the media hoopla thought of them. Personally I think it’s rather ingenious, I only wonder if they are truly hitting the demographic they are after with them and if there is any way to see if they made an impact or not.

It sounds pretty interesting and reminds me, a bit on the surface at least, of Sim City. It even makes me think of Jane McGonigal’s a World With Out Oil, if only because of the subject matter.

I may suggest that if you are interested in taking up the challenge of Energyville you watch the Story of Stuff first. I think the two might go well hand in hand.