Running head: EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVES OF PLAYING MMOGS
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Title: Unifying Motives of Socializing and Achievement in MMOGs – the Case of Pro- and
Antisocial Behavior from an Evolutionary Perspective
Daniel Pietschmann, Georg Valtin, Benny Liebold, and Peter Ohler
Chemnitz University of Technology
Authors Note
Institute for Media Research, Chair of Media Psychology
Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany
Corresponding author contact information:
Daniel Pietschmann
Institute for Media Research, Chair of Media Psychology
Chemnitz University of Technology
Thueringer Weg 11, 09126 Chemnitz, Germany
daniel.pietschmann@phil.tu-chemnitz.de
EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVES OF PLAYING MMOGS
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Unifying Motives of Socializing and Achievement in MMOGs – the Case of Pro- and Antisocial
Behavior from an Evolutionary Perspective
With the growing importance of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) since
the release of World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment) in 2004, online gaming communities
have developed into a new cultural environment where some players literally spend most of their
lifetime. Cooperative gaming is a key feature of MMOGs, and this creates a fruitful
environmentwhereby social interactions happen not only to enact game-related communication
but also as a new space for socialising– meeting new players and fostering virtual relationships.
Therefore, the notion of ’third places‘ (Oldenburg, 1999) as informal, social spaces (besides
home and work) has often been transferred to MMOGs.
Past studies have examined social interaction in different virtual environments (e.g.
Biocca & Levy, 1995; Rheingold, 1993; Turkle, 1995; Walther, 1996) focusing on the
similarities and differences of real life and virtual life social behavior of users. Empirical
findings suggest that several theories concerning appearance and behavior from social
psychology can be applied to digital games (e.g. Merola, Peña, & Hancock, 2006; Nick Yee,
2006). Additionally, new social interaction effects could be observed in virtual worlds (e.g.
proteus effect???; N. Yee & Bailenson, 2007).
However, social interaction in MMOGs suffers from one major drawback, and that is
players can interact anonymously through their avatars. It is therefore questionable whether
social interaction processes reflect previously reported real life behavioral patterns or not (Wang
& Wang, 2008). This paper seeks to further explore and explain behavioural patterns of MMOGplayers from an evolutionary perspective by studying two important player motives: socialising
and achievement. And the interaction between these two?
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Social Interaction in MMOGs Reflects Evolutionary Stable Behavior
Players benefit from several motivational properties of MMOGs that enable them to
experience fun. Recent approaches demonstrated that socializing and achievement (i.e. success)
are two of various aspects that motivate players (e.g. Bartle, 2004; Wu, Wang, & Tsai, 2010;
Nick Yee, 2006). Despite the players’ anonymity in MMOGs, they are forced by the respective
game’s design to cooperate in the long run. Therefore, success-oriented players will need to
cooperate with other players. We argue that social interaction between players in terms of
evolutionary psychology is basically a matter of resource management to gain resources. We
further suggest that considerations of resources outweigh the mere need for socialization.
Players need to take certain actions that eventually result in an accumulation of resources,
i.e. success. There are three basic types of social behavior: antisocial behavior, prosocial
behavior, and behavioral patterns that evoke others’ prosocial behavior. Examples of antisocial
behavior include quitting cooperation, cheating, or social loafing. These behavioral patters can
be considered as either a mechanism preventing players from investing further resources into
uncertain encounters, or as behavior that increases one’s own resources by exploiting others. The
fact that players act anonymously through their avatars facilitates this behavioral pattern.
However, no cooperative culture can evolve in the latter kind of environment. Therefore, players
will have to some extent invest their resources into other players, i.e. showing prosocial
behavior. Even if this behavioral pattern results in a short time decrease of resources, players can
eventually profit from additional resources: Because each game server will have to establish its
own social interaction conventions over time, with players investing their resources into other
players the emergence of a culture of reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971) is facilitated. The
combined resources of players result in a better access to the more difficult but also highly
EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVES OF PLAYING MMOGS
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rewarding game content. Therefore, when players show prosocial behavior, they presume that
their investments pay off later.
Players have several possibilities to increase their chances of receiving prosocial
behavior. First, players can enhance their avatars’ physical appearance (clothes, physical
attractiveness). Research in social psychology found that physical attractive persons receive
more help than less attractive persons (e.g. Benson, Karabenick, & Lerner, 1976; Harrell, 1978;
West & Brown, 1975). In MMOGs the avatars’ sex significantly determined helping behavior
(e.g. Lehdonvirta, Lehdonvirta, & Baba, 2011). This is especially true for first encounters
(Fetchenhauer & Bierhoff, 2004), when our knowledge of another person is limited to their
physical appearance—however, during interaction it was found, that attitude similarity has a
greater effect on perceived attractiveness than physical attractiveness (e.g. Byrne, London, &
Reeves, 1968). Second, as the latter findings indicate, the effects of behavioral patterns during
interaction processes by increasing one’s own perceived likeability are more significant. In
MMOGs these behavioral patterns include friendly conversations, use of friendly smileys and
emotes, self-disclosure, and–more generally–spending time on socializing. If players succeed in
their course of seeking help, they can use the virtual cultures potential of being “payed back”
one’s investments.
Therefore, we argue, that considerations of resource investments are at the core of social
interaction. Despite the possibility of anonymously exploiting others, players implicitly consider
resource investments and pay-off in order to maximize their success through reciprocal altruism.
Additionally, we presume, that behavioral indicators weight more heavily than the mere motive
of socializing. In order gather evidence for this assumption, we conducted three experiments and
one online survey.
EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVES OF PLAYING MMOGS
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General Methodology
Prior quantitative research mainly relied on online surveys and laboratory experiments.
However, these design approaches suffer primarily from drawbacks in internal and external
validity. Therefore, experiments should be conducted within MMOGs as “virtual laboratories”
(Barnett & Coulson, 2010). They should measure the behavior of users in typical game situations
instead of artificially created setups. To emphasize the fact that our research is based on players'
behavior in natural situations, we call this type of field experiment in virtual environments “in
situ experiment” (authors, in press).
Study 1 – Effects of Approach Strategy and Reward Offers
To test, whether approach strategy and reward offers influence helping behavior, we sent
participants (N = 120) an in-game message containing gold without prior notification. After one
week they received another message that requested them to send the gold back. We varied the
content of this message in a 2×2 between-subjects design (pleading vs. direct; reward vs. no
reward). Results did not show any significant main effects. The interaction term also remained
non-significant at p = .09 presumably indicating a lack of power. However, data suggest that
neither approach strategy nor reward offer resulted in a higher degree of returned money.
Study 2 – Effects of Attractiveness and Anticipated Investment
To compare the effects of avatar attractiveness and anticipated resource investments we
asked players (N = 80) to show us the direction to a specific destination. In order to show helping
behavior players would have to invest a maximum of five minutes of their limited playtime,
which is often considered as their most important resource. We varied female avatars’
attractiveness (long vs. short hair; ordinary vs. appealing clothing) and participants’ anticipated
investment (high vs. low) in a 2×2×2 between-subjects design. We measured helping behavior as
EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVES OF PLAYING MMOGS
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an ordinal variable with different levels indicating the amount of resources players were willing
to invest. Both main and interaction effects did not significantly contribute to the overall model
fit, R² = .12 (Cox & Snell), .13 (Nagelkerke), Model χ²(9) = 10.28, n.s.. However, anticipating
low resource investment significantly predicted the probability of being helped, b = −1,20, Wald
χ2(3) = 4.06, p <. 05. Therefore, it could be argued that the anticipated investment outweighs the
effects of another player’s physical appearance.
Study 3 – Effects of Non-Confirmative Behavior on Antisocial Behavior
To test the hypothesis, whether players’ misbehavior is associated with other players’
antisocial behavior in order to minimize wasted resources we conducted an experiment with ten
dungeon runs per type of misbehavior (determined by pretest; mild, medium, strong) performing
the respective behavior. We used a maximum level warrior class avatar and the in-game dungeon
finder tool to be randomly associated to groups. We measured intensity of reactions and reaction
times via chat logs.
Results showed a significant linear relationship between type of misbehavior and
frequency of reactions by group members, M2(1) = 5.09, p < .05. We further found a significant
linear trend in the data: As more severe misbehavior was shown, the intensity of the reaction
increased, J = 208.50, p < .01, r = 0.45. The group’s reaction time was not significantly
influenced by the severity of misbehavior, H(2) = 4.94, n.s..
Study 4 – Comparing Real and Virtual Resource Investment
A major problem of analyzing resource investments in MMOGs is the lack of
comparability between results from real and virtual world experiments. Generally, prosocial
behavior in real life situations requires a rather high degree of resource investment (e.g. material
investments, taking personal risks) compared to situations in virtual worlds (investing time).
EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVES OF PLAYING MMOGS
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From this point of view, one could argue that small acts of prosocial behavior do not differ in
perceived investment and should therefore only be determined by players’ general disposition to
help. However, our results indicate a linear relationship between anticipated investment and the
willingness to help others. We therefore conducted an online survey (N=42), where we asked
participants to compare virtual (e.g. healing others) to real life helping acts (e.g. giving a beggar
money). Results indicate that helping behavior in MMOGs is perceived as a greater resource
investment than the mere investment of time would suggest.
words: 1499
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