“What a day! I’m headed down to the Man Cave to pwn some
newbs.” This is an all too common phrase
at our house. The “Man Cave” is our
lower-level recreation room and is announced by a sign at the bottom of the
stairs that reads: Hibernating in Man
Cave. Do Not Disturb. “Pwning newbs” is what I call geek-speak for
beating new players. My son is a
gamer. As are the vast majority of his
friends. And most of our adult friends. I seem to be the lone misfit because I myself
am not a gamer.
If
you are not a gamer, I can almost read your mind as an outsider looking into
the life of a player. As an outsider,
you might be hovering just outside the door with a preconceived notion of who
awaits you on the other side. You may
think it is probably some fat, slovenly, out of work middle-aged guy who hasn’t
bathed in days because he has been glued to the computer. Litter probably covers the floor except for a
swath that serves as an unobstructed path to the kitchen and bathroom. You might
expect this guy to look strung-out, hooked on the drug that is online
gaming. The keyboard will show excessive
wear on certain keys, the ones most used in the game, and the computer chair
will more than likely suffer from a permanent indentation that perfectly
matches the gamer’s hind-side. Such is
often the visual non-gamers have of gamers.
As a non-gamer watching my son grow up as an avid online
role-playing gamer, this was sadly the vision I once had of his future. My greatest fear was that he would lose
himself in the virtual world to the point that he would not be able to function
in the real world. Among people who do
not play, this is a common concern. And
in fairness, there are instances when such is the case. My husband at one time had so fully immersed
himself into the imaginary role-playing world of EverQuest that he would grab some snacks, take up residence in his
computer chair, and forget that any other world even existed. While I was out of town one weekend, my
husband came home from work with a pizza and case of Mt Dew, and settled in for
a gaming marathon that lasted right up to the minute I walked back in the door
– two days later. If memory serves, he
was still in his work clothes. This is
the same man who would not turn away from the game long enough to read a
bedtime story to his 5-year-old son and neglected his marital relationship to
the point of threats of divorce.
Thankfully, my husband did finally come to his senses and put away his
obsession with the fantasy role-playing game.
Though, most online role-playing gamers are not such
extremists. Yes, a typical gaming
session can last a few hours and even turn into an all-nighter. Yes, the visual of snack wrappers and soda
cans scattered at the feet of a gamer hunched in a computer chair is often
close to the truth. But it is not
usually obsession that draws most gamers to the digital world. It is something much more basic. It is a sense of belonging, a sense of
connection, a sense of having a common ground with others, a sense of
community.
Our oldest son, Ty, has always been a socially awkward
child with only a handful of real friends.
I was never a fan of videogames, and therefore kept a tight rein on how
much he was allowed to play. As he
watched his dad play EverQuest (EQ) and
World of Warcraft (WoW), his interest
shifted from first-person games to massively multiplayer online role-playing
games (MMORPG). Mother was not
pleased. I had already seen how these
games are capable of sucking a person in, and I was not ready to give up my
first-born. But Ty let me know that
online gaming was a social outlet, and that he was much more comfortable
socially in the virtual world than in the real (Boyer).
He seemed to have more friendships online than off. He would joke and laugh with his online
buddies, and he seemed genuinely happy with the arrangement. He had found the sense of belonging that
eluded him on this side of the keyboard.
“Ultima” creator Richard Garriot was first exposed to the
original pen-and-paper “Dungeons & Dragons” role-playing game in 1977 and experienced
a social connection that he strived to recreate in the digital world (King and Borland). Since their humble beginnings, role-playing
games have advanced by leaps and bounds into rich virtual communities. In his book “Synthetic Worlds”, Edward
Castronova describes how the real world is very accurately represented in the
digital realm, from choosing a trade to bartering for goods, from forming
friendships to developing leadership hierarchies within working alliances (Castronova). In MMORPGs like EQ and WoW, when a “newb”
creates a character, in addition to determining race and gender, the player
must also choose a trade, or career path, if you will. Players then utilize this trade to earn money
to buy needed gear and gain skill.
Eventually, they “level up”, get promoted, so to speak. As they take on bigger challenges, players
are often required to pull together to accomplish a common goal and mutually
benefit. This sounds akin to a power
hungry CEO climbing his way to the top of the corporate ladder.
Despite
being a fantasy world, the settings in MMORPGs also often parallel real world scenes. In EQ and WoW, the playing grounds alternate
between natural setting and towns or villages, much like I would imagine
medieval Europe. Traveling between
destinations, characters encounter one another, just as people’s paths cross as
we commute. The scenery flows and
changes as characters move about and change direction. Characters can even hitch rides, albeit on
mythical beings that look like ostriches or flying dragons, much as their real-life
player counterparts might ride a horse or fly in a plane. It seems ironic to me that what some people
use as a mindless diversion from their daily grind so closely resembles it.
However,
not all gamers play solely as a means of decompression or escape. A major draw to MMORPGs is the fact that
players from everywhere in the world are connected to one another via the
gaming platform. For Brian, playing Diablo is a mindless decompression, but
also a way to stay connected to friends as life moves them on (Reinicke). Annika was drawn to City of Heroes because of the comic book content, but then she “got
hooked because of the social interaction” (Gibson). In his study “The Gaming Culture Revolution”,
Lo Min Ming claims, “The heart of gaming is in the community that is formed
with gamers worldwide. We no longer just
play games for the fun and excitement, but also to satisfy our social needs” (Ming). I think Ty as a socially awkward kid and
Brian as a single guy living alone could testify to this statement. It is in within these massively multiplayer
games that they have found community.
Of
course, no community would be complete without its own lingo. Even an outsider will easily pick up “1337
speak” pretty quickly. “1337” is “leet”,
short for “elite”. It is all
“geek-speak” to me as a non-gamer. I did
have to ask for interpretation a time or two, but the explanations make sense
in the gaming realm. “Newb, noob, and
n00b” all refer to a new, inexperienced player, or someone who is playing like
one. “Lewt” is reward for victory, gear
or valuables taken from fallen opponents.
To “rez” or “respawn” is to have a character’s life restored. Killing the same monster repeatedly to
continually gain the same lewt is known as “farming”, and repeatedly killing
another character simply because you can is called “ganking”. A “guild” is a group of allied players who
regularly work together to complete a common goal. Guild members benefit from having a pool of
players to draw from when larger numbers are needed for a task, but also from a
sort of social ranking. I like to think
of guilds as high school cliques, a smaller grouping of similar people banned
together for the benefit of social status and survival in the larger
community. It all comes back to
community.
Community. Merriam-Webster defines community as “an
interacting population of various kinds of individuals … in a common location”
(Merriam-Webster). As unlikely as the
location may seem, millions of various individual gamers interact via the World
Wide Web. Ask the average person what
they first think of when they hear the word “community”, and they may say their
church or neighborhood, maybe a school yard, or even their office. Ask a gamer what first comes to mind when
hearing the word “community” and he would probably say his guild or his raiding
group. It is the same rule, simply on a
different playing field.
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