Communities in Online Games: Tools, Methods, Observations. Nathaniel Poor, Ph.D. Brooklyn, NY, USA

Transcription

1 Communities in Online Games: Tools, Methods, Observations Nathaniel Poor, Ph.D. Brooklyn, NY, USA

2 Overview Background Community MMOs Data Tools Analysis Theory Big Data Recent Ideas: Games Overview 1/1

3 Me Not Me PhD, Michigan, 2004 Where I met this guy -> Communication Studies Internet Sociology Communities First time in China Very excited to visit!

4 Communication Studies (USA)? Sociology Psychology Anthropology Political Science History Cultural Studies Urban Planning ischools Qualitative Quantitative Range: N = 1 Big data Everything between Journalism Comm Studies 1/1

5 Community? Many definitions across academia! Rituals, behavioral expectations, and the articulation of a common purpose. Duemer, Fontenot, Gumfory, & Kallus, Social interaction, a shared space or location, and common obligation and responsibility. Baker-Eveleth, Sarker, & Eveleth, Social networks. Hampton & Wellman, Community 1/5

6 Community! James Carey Communication as transmission Communication as ritual Maintain community Community 2/5

7 Community! Clifford Geertz Ritual and cohesion Community 3/5

8 Online Community Howard Rheingold Pre-Internet: 1993! All the same! Community 4/5

9 Community & Communication are old! Thomas Standage We are hyper-social. Community 5/5

10 MMOs Massively Multiplayer Online Games MMOG, MMORPG Earlier forms of course! MUDs, MOOs: text based. MMOs preconfigured by precedents, earlier games and genres. Have various communities since they are communication channels. MMO 1/7

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14 EQ2 Gameplay (Raid) MMO 5/7

15 League of Legends EVE Online Etc.! Many Other MMOs Other games which may or may not be MMOs but are like them Facebook games? Failed/closed MMOs New launches: Elder Scrolls (in beta test). MMO 6/7

16 Server Load An overlooked point. CPUs can only do so much. Millions of people play together. Well, no. Time zones. You might want to play with others. Some games do only have one server. Lag (EVE Online, required). MMO 7/7

17 Data Sources? Data/Theory/RQ s! In-game experiential (participant observer). In-game scrape. Ex: WoW Avatar History (Taiwanese). Game-based census. Sony s census. Out-game. Web boards, official forums, FTF (i.e., BlizzCon). Data 1/14

18 WoW Avatar History DB 1,107 days between Jan and Jan During the monitored period, 91,065 avatars, and 667,032 sessions associated with the avatars were observed. Yeng-Ting Lee, Kuan-Ta Chen, Yun-Maw Cheng, and Chin-Laung Lei, "World of Warcraft Avatar History Dataset," In Proceedings of ACM Multimedia Systems 2011, Feb Data 2/14

19 Data 3/14

20 Data 4/14

21 Data 5/14

22 Some WoWAH Data [59] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:29, 9,58,3, 60, Orc, Warrior, Arathi Basin, yes, 0, [60] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:29, 9,59,17, 60, Orc, Warrior, Arathi Basin, yes, 0, [61] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:29, 9,60,2, 60, Orc, Hunter, Arathi Basin, yes, 0, [62] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:29, 9,61,4, 60, Orc, Warrior, Blackrock Spire, yes, 0, [63] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:29, 9,62,5, 60, Orc, Warrior, Blackrock Mountain, yes, [64] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:29, 9,63,7, 60, Orc, Hunter, Blackrock Mountain, yes, 0, [65] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:29, 9,64,19, 60, Orc, Hunter, Blackrock Depths, yes, 0, [66] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:34, 10,65,7, 10, Tauren, Druid, Moonglade, no, 0, [67] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:34, 10,66,, 4, Tauren, Druid, Mulgore, no, 0, [68] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:34, 10,67,, 6, Tauren, Warrior, Mulgore, no, 0, [69] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:39, 11,68,9, 19, Tauren, Warrior, Wailing Caverns, yes, [70] = "0, 01/01/06 00:00:39, 11,69,20, 13, Tauren, Shaman, Orgrimmar, no, 0", Data 6/14

23 SOE Census Data 7/14

24 Welcome! SOE Data Services API Policy We encourage players to use the SOE Data Services API to increase their engagement with SOE's games and to create websites and mobile apps for other players to use and enjoy. Players are free to monetize their websites and apps by displaying banners and other forms of advertising. Players can also sell their apps and/or charge for premium functionality and content. Data 8/14

25 Data 9/14

26 Don t Discount Any Data! Data 10/14

27 Data in this picture Data 11/14

28 All The Data is not All The Data You don t have voice chat data, do you? They might not even use in-game chat! (E.g., Mumble server.) Why no chat bubble here? Data 12/14

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31 Tools Tools depend on your data and theory. Tools are always changing, new tools! Learn new tools. Learn the theories that drive the work. If everything is a hammer Tools 1/2

32 Tools Old, Closed SPSS SAS STATA New, Open R Python Gephi NodeXL APIs JSON Tools 2/2

33 Analysis Qualitative/Quantitative mashups Multimethod Ex: Text (forum, chat, whatever). Textual analysis (qual). Content analysis (quant). Sentiment analysis, NLP (big data maybe). You have to KNOW the data regardless. Analysis 1/1

34 Theory & Data Science Theory! Theory 1/6

35 Theory & Data Science + Evil ;-) Theory 2/6

36 Theory 3/6

37 20 Jelly Beans Total! 1/20 = 0.05 Theory 4/6

38 20 Jelly Beans Total! 1/20 = 0.05 Theory 5/6

39 Theory 6/6

40 Big Data: New Term, Old Ideas None of the concerns are new. Big Data 1/6

41 Big Data as Violence Advertising We want your money. Health Care Higher premiums for you. Maybe a US problem. Surveillance We are watching you. When I Dr. Skoric, both the US and Chinese intelligence organizations store and scan my . Big Data 2/6

42 Too Much Data? Signal vs. Noise Theory

43 Google Flu Big Data 4/6

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45 Big Errors Signal vs. Noise Theory!

46 Big Data Books? Since we are academics and we like books. Big Data Books 1/3

47 NO!!!!! Revolution should clue you in.

48 Much Better! Actual data scientists. Sample code!

49 A Bit On Games A Few Recent Observations. Games and Graphs 1/8

50 Games and Graphs 2/8

51 Force Atlas 2 Gephi Games and Graphs 3/8

52 Super Connector The reasons for this Theory! Interviews! Games and Graphs 4/8

53 Boring is Good But when I made it transparent it made it hard to see some of the lines. Games and Graphs 5/8

54 Games and Graphs 6/8

55 Games and Graphs 7/8

56 People move their characters around (WoW guilds, character movement) Games and Graphs 8/8

57 Game Communities Embodied across spaces In-game, out-game, across games! Are often in flux Are not all the same Small, large, old, new, guild level Data (big, small, qual, quant) Tools Analysis Theory CONCLUSION! 1/2

58 We [scholars] are obligated to make the world a better place. Some guy said that at a conference I was at last summer (a sociologist). CONCLUSION! 2/2