A person dressed as a character from the game World of Warcraft gets fitted at Comic Con in New York last Friday.
Posted on 02/11/2009 7:21:43 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Can massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) like World of Warcraft produce better citizens?
That's the provocative conclusion drawn by University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor Constance Steinkuehler, who has been intensely studying MMOGs and those who play them -- including herself -- for several years.
On Tuesday night, she laid out the evidence in a presentation called "Learning and Virtual Worlds: The Education Benefits of Digital Technologies" at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art Lecture Hall. The free event was part of the series of monthly Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters Evenings.
With about 12 million people playing World of Warcraft alone, MMOGs have become a new "third place" like "Cheers," where everyone knows your name and all that, Steinkuehler said.
Players "hang out and engage with one another in informal social ways," she said. "Most people go for the game and stay for the people."
Interacting with people from all over and of all backgrounds exposes players to far more diversity than they get from their immediate social circle of friends and family, she said.
"I grew up in a small town in Missouri," Steinkuehler said. "Kids today are growing up in thoroughly networked global spaces."
Learning how to navigate that diversity is "in the big scheme of life" about citizenship, she said.
Video games are a "push" technology that pushes things like powerful computers and video game systems into our homes. But they also push social norms and practices because those things are necessary to succeed at highly complex MMOGs like World of Warcraft, Steinkuehler said.
Steinkuehler quoted Will Wright, who said in a Wired magazine story that gamers' mind-set means they "treat the world as a place for creation, not consumption."
Steinkuehler began her presentation with a tutorial on MMOGs, which also include Madden Sports, Guitar Hero, role-playing games, investigation games and others.
World of Warcraft, which debuted in 2004, is the most successful game -- she called it "the new golf" for "techie hanging."
For the uninitiated, she showed some of the "chaotic and complicated" World of Warcraft, which even has its own virtual economy dealing with the things necessary to succeed in the game.
She explained how game players she studied collaboratively use scientific problem-solving techniques to succeed in World of Warcraft.
Of course, "When I told them this was science, they said, 'No, we're just trying to cheat the game,' " she said to laughter from the crowd.
Her work included analysis of message boards where World of Warcraft players get together. She found 86 percent of the talk was "productive," featuring very detailed questions and serious discussion, with players exchanging ideas and making counter-arguments using data and reasoning and building on each others' ideas.
There was not a lot of "hey dude, what's up," she quipped.
She found that 65 percent of the discussion was "evaluative" vs. 30 percent "absolutist" -- "My idea is right and not open to discussion" -- and 5 percent "relative" -- it's just opinion and no one is right.
In contrast, she said studies have found that the U.S. population is only 15 percent evaluative, 50 percent absolutist and 35 percent relativist.
The World of Warcraft communities "are doing academic work of the sort we want to see in learning environments," Steinkuehler said. "Games require an immense amount of literacy work to succeed."
Noting that only about 20 percent of Americans are scientifically literate, she said that's what science labs in schools produce. Kids' attitudes are to find the right answer -- "the one the teacher has" -- when science is more about inquiry work of the sort being done by the gamers.
Steinkuehler likened the efforts of gamers to President Obama's neighbor-to-neighbor tool where, for example, volunteers surveyed their neighborhoods and updated the campaign's database.
"These (gaming) Web sites are doing essentially the same thing," she said.
For more on Steinkuehler, go to http://website.education.wisc.edu/steinkuehler/blog/.
Steinkuehler's Academy Evenings presentation was sponsored by the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, the Madison Community Foundation, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the UW-Madison, The Evjue Foundation, M&I Bank, the John and Sally Mielke Family Fund, and a number of individual donors.
A person dressed as a character from the game World of Warcraft gets fitted at Comic Con in New York last Friday.
A bunch of teenagers group their orcs around where my avatar appears and beats my brand new character to death with battle hammers as soon as I appear.
That's great citizenship alright.
Jerks.
Sorry for shouting, this just upsets me. More erosion of our democracy.
Never become emotionally attached to your Avatar....
Does that count for my wii ‘Mii?’ She’s so darn CUTE! :)
Well, I disagree. My conservative/Libertarian son didn’t really develop an interest in reading until he had to read Mario Bros. to win the game. Since then, over the years, much of what he has read has been related in some way to video games, whether it’s technology, story line, or whatever. They’ve already shown that both surgeons and pilots benefit from video game technology, and when I was at Camp Lejeune three years ago, the Marines who gave me the tour had multiple video game/sim centers that they said had greatly improved their Command and Control of their officers.
/whistles
nice outfit. Wow... I need to make one that nice.
Hmm. Chinese people working for little money produce something which I trade real US dollars to get to keep me from having to work at it. Yep, that's really different from the real world.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=chinese+gold+farming&btnG=Search
absolutely. these MMORPGs are just the evolution of D&D. except now instead of having guys get together in front of a board like in the ancient days, or having LAN parties like we did in the old days, these kids can sit alone, in thier parent’s basements and game.
yeah. that really builds social skills.
IRL charisma= -4
She explained how game players she studied collaboratively use scientific problem-solving techniques to succeed in World of Warcraft.”
That's what I keep telling my wife...to no avail, however....
Ilthbran
80 Night Elf Assassination Rogue
Duskwood
1800 dps
Sorry to hear this, but I am not surprised. WoW is a Player vs. Player (PvP) environment in which this kind of thing happens with annoying frequency. Payer vs. Evnironment games (PvE) have a much different feel and play.
I find it curious that professor Steinkuehler cherry picks her data, much to the demise of the scientific methods she claims to find at the game boards. She, unfortunately, fails to include in-game chat, which when it comes to WoW I understand to be vulgar and combative or both at once.
As to her assertion that the world of WoW is creative rather than consumptive, I say “posh”. Apparently she have never played the end game where “phat lewt rulz”. Just how creative can you get in an environment tightly controlled by game code?
The NappyOne
The game is a lot of fun, but this lady is smoking something. Other than the initial people who face new content there’s very little science in the game. They have also dummed it down with questhelper and other addons that reduce the amount of thought required for the game. Spreadsheets and min/max’ers have taken most of the math out now as well.
I actually don’t find that many “kids” playing. The most common people I run with are suppposedly in their 20’s or early 30’s. I tend to believe them on their ages when we have to stop a dungeon so they can grab a brewski.
She also left out a lot of the negatives of the game environment. I’m guessing she never ran into “nerd rage” or “loot thieves”. Not to mention “guild drama” and “ganking”.
“She also left out a lot of the negatives of the game environment. I’m guessing she never ran into “nerd rage” or “loot thieves”. Not to mention “guild drama” and “ganking”.”
Yeah, funny you should mention that. Some jerk on my server (Duskwood) promised me an enchant which I gave him materials for (like 2000 gold worth), then he logged off, and refused the enchant and to give me the mats back. Blizzard eventually restored the mats to my account - like 4 weeks later. That dude is still playing. But it was a valuable lesson - in theft, I guess. Buyer beware....
Sure, Proffessor, but what about spelling? Can the games create better spellers?
The bottom line is that WoW needs more spelling-based side quests.
Yeah, if anything I would question whether the game rewards bad behaviour. I don’t raid but have heard too many stories about loot going to officers and friends ahead of people more deserving.
Between lag, a slightly underpowered video card, getting the nerf-buff yo-yo, and real-life beckoning I’m probably going to hang up my bow. I’ve leveled to 78 and while I would like to see more content I’m not interested in the hardcore 4-5 hrs per night or else raiding guilds.
I can’t do the 4-5 hrs either...1 1/2 hrs is my max these days....which is doable for Heroics with a good group.
Such a fun game. And I love the expansion....
ping
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