Game Communities for Learning The Digest Version - Katrin Becker 06/06/2005 Final Fantasy 1 My Mission: Explain Online Games 2. Explain why they should not be ignored. 3. Look at some related communities. 4. Look at what happens in and around games. 1. 2 06/06/2005 NOT My Mission: „ „ „ 3 MMOGs are the (or even *an*) answer. We should expect to be able to incorporate and use these ideas tomorrow. Models of & technologies in game communities are directly transferable to formal educational settings. 06/06/2005 Your Mission: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 4 Put these ideas in the back of your head. Go about your professional life. Notice when these ideas come to the fore again. Re-examine them from time to time. Be open to discussions with those involved in these communities. 06/06/2005 What’s the diff.? 5 06/06/2005 It’s a matter of Scale A Game 6 06/06/2005 A Multiplayer Game: 7 06/06/2005 8 A Massively Multiplayer Game 06/06/2005 What is an MMOG? Massively Multiplayer Online Game MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game 9 06/06/2005 Games the tend to promote strong community structures: „ Traditional Games played online (Bridge, Go, Chess) „ Popular Single Player (often Strategy) Games (eg. CIV III) „ MMOGs (Lineage II, WoW, SWG, FF11…) „ ARGs (The Beast, I Love Bees) 10 06/06/2005 Yea, so? 11 06/06/2005 Who plays Online Games? „ 18-29 = 52% „ 30-49 = 34% „ 50-64 = 28% „ 65+ = 38% 12 06/06/2005 Fun facts to know and tell…. „ Average age of MMORPG players is around 26. „ 25% of MMORPG players are teenagers. „ About 50% of MMORPG players work fulltime. „ About 36% of players are married, and 22% have children. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_demographics.html 13 06/06/2005 More Fun Facts to Know and Tell…. „ On average, MMORPG players spend 22 hours a week in these environments and usage is not correlated with age. „ 20% of MMORPG players play the game with a romantic partner, and 28% play with a family member. 14 http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_demographics.html 06/06/2005 What Makes These Games Special? „ Highly graphical „ Social interaction is a key motivator „ Persistent virtual worlds „ Real-time, avail. 24/7 „ Loosely structured open-ended narratives „ Players do as they please (!!!) „ Escapist fantasy, yet emergent realism (Kolbert 2001) 15 06/06/2005 The Everquest Economy (in 2001) Thanks to out-of-game trading of in-game items, Norrath, the virtual setting of EverQuest, is the 77th largest economy in the real world, with a GNP per capita between that of Russia and Bulgaria. One platinum piece, the unit of currency in Norrath, trades on real world exchange markets higher than both the Yen and the Lira (Castronova, 2001). 16 06/06/2005 Everquest World of Warcraft „ Launched Dec. 10 2004 „ IRVINE, Calif. - January 10, 2005 –Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that World of Warcraft® has sold through more than 600,000* units to customers in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. „ The fastest-growing massively multiplayer online role- playing game (MMORPG) has also shattered all previous concurrency records in North America, achieving over 200,000 simultaneous players during the holiday period. 17 06/06/2005 Wik and the Fable of Souls „ One to watch „ New out 2004 „ Indie game award winner „ The game and community is just growing and forming. „ http://www.wikgame.com/index.html 18 06/06/2005 Why Should Educators Care? Game Communities are learning communities. 19 06/06/2005 Why Should Educators Care? Game Communities are an emergent social phenomenon – not a passing fad. 20 06/06/2005 Why Should Educators Care? Game Communities form a significant element of youth culture. http://www.lineage2.com 21 06/06/2005 What Can we Learn? „ Directly „ Indirectly 22 06/06/2005 Evolving Communities of Practice 23 06/06/2005 Civ III 24 06/06/2005 World of Warcraft „ http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ 25 06/06/2005 Maple Story 26 06/06/2005 More Information on MMOGs: „ The Dedalus Project (Psychology of MMORPGs) http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/ „ Constance A. Steinkuehler (U Wisconsin @ Madison MMOG researcher) https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/steinkuehler/web/ „ Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Article :FACT, 2001 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?010528fa_FA CT 27 06/06/2005 Civilization III - Links „ Homepage: http://www.civ3.com/ „ Fansites: http://www.civ3.com/fansites.cfm „ http://www.geocities.com/civgamers/ „ Features: http://www.civ3.com/features.cfm „ Teacher Features: http://www.firaxis.com/community/teacher.php 28 06/06/2005 World of Warcraft (mmog) - Links „ Home: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com „ Community Site: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/index.html;jsessio nid=B0027B5A64017FFA7B41320C6FE6FC8B.app01 „ Blizzard Eantertainment: http://www.blizzard.com/ 29 06/06/2005 WIK the Fable of Souls „ Home: „ Reflexive.net site: http://reflexive.net/index.php?PAGE=game_detail&AI D=135&CID=4653 30 06/06/2005 Maple Story - Links „ Home: http://www.mapleglobal.com/ „ Community: http://www.mapleglobal.com/community/mapl estory_forums.aspx?5152 31 06/06/2005 Augmented Reality Games „ An alternate reality game is a cross media game that deliberately blurs the line between the ingame and out-of-game experiences. While games may primarily be centered around online resources, often events that happen inside the game reality will "reach out" into the players' lives in order to bring them together. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_Reality_Game 32 06/06/2005 Augmented Reality Games: „ About ARGs: http://deaddrop.us/ „ Jane McGonigal (ARG research): http://www.avantgame.com/ „ I Love Bees: http://www.ilovebees.com/ and 33 http://ilovebees.blogspot.com/ „ Paper: Towards Augmented Reality Gaming (Thad Starner, Bastian Leibe, Brad Singletary, Kent Lyons, Maribeth Gandy, and Jarrell Pair) http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ccg/publications/imagina2000/ „ The Unreasonable Man: http://www.unreasonableman.net/2004/04/augmented_reali.html „ Parsec Project: http://parsecproject.com/archives/_augmentedreality-for-hal.html 06/06/2005 Thanks! Image & Background Credits & Sources: „ Game sites: WoW, MS, Lineage II, SWG, Wik, Civ III, NWN, FF, Matrix, Syberia (images include downloadable screenshots, player & publisher wallpapers) „ Downloadable images from: http://www.gamewallpapers.com/ „ Personal photos taken @ E3 34 06/06/2005