Abstract
Prior analyses of player interactions within massive multi-player online environments (MMOs) rely predominantly on understanding the environments as spheres of leisure—places to “escape” the stress of the “real world.” We find in our research on the World of Warcraft, a popular online role-playing game suggests that, in fact, social interaction within the game more closely resembles work. Successful play requires dedicated participants who choose to engage in a highly structured and time-consuming “process” of game progression. Simultaneously, players must also actively engage in the “emotional labor” of acceptably maintaining standards of sociability and guild membership constructed by their gaming peers. We posit that these expectations of both structured progression work and emotional maintenance work significantly blur the existing lines between categorizing work and leisure. While the assumption of leisure shrouds the general expectation of gaming interaction, we suggest a “play as work” paradigm more clearly captures the reality of the demands of The World of Warcraft.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Entertainment Software Association Information, http://www.theesa.com/newsroom/release_detail.asp?releaseID=44
Blizzard Entertainment Information, http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/081121.html
Dimitri, W., Yee, N., Caplan, S.: Who Plays, how much, and why? Debunking the Stereotypical Gamer Profile. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(4), 993–1018 (2008)
Boellstroff, T.: Coming of Age in Second Life. Princeton University Press, Princeton (2008)
Steinkuehler, C., Williams, D.: Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as “third places”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11(4), 885–909 (2006)
MacCallum-Stewart, E.: Never Such Innocence Again: War and Histories in World of Warcraft. In: Corneliussen, H., Rettberg, J.W. (eds.) Digital Culture, Play and Identity, pp. 39–62. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2008)
Griffiths, M., Davies, M.N.O.: Does Video Game Addiction Exists? In: Raessens, J., Goldstein, J. (eds.) Handbook of Computer Game Studies, pp. 359–372. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2005)
Bartle, R.: Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who Suit Muds (1996), http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
Taylor, T.L.: Play Between Worlds. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2006)
Kline, S., Dyer-Witheford, N., De Peuter, G.: Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal (2003)
Erikson, E.: Toys and Reasons. W.W. Norton, New York (1977)
Freud, S.: Beyond the Pleasure Principle. In: A General Selection from the Works of Sigmund Freud, pp. 141–168. Doubleday Anchor Books, Garden City (1957)
Piaget, J.: Play, Dreams, and Imitation of Childhood. Norton, New York (1962)
Csikszenmihalyi, M.: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper and Row, New York (1990)
Huzinga, Homo Ludens, J.: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Beacon, Boston (1955)
Henricks, T.: Play Reconsidered. University of Illinois, Urbana (2006)
Schor, J.: The Overworked American. Basic Books, New York (1992)
Hochschild, A.: The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work. Metropolitan Press, New York (1997)
Yee, N.: The Labor of Fun. Games and Culture 1(1), 68–71 (2006)
Rettberg, S.: Corporate Ideology and World of Warcraft. In: Corneliussen, H., Rettberg, J.W. (eds.) Digital Culture, Play and Identity, pp. 19–38. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2008)
Braverman, H.: Labor and Monopoly Capital. Monthly Review Press, New York (1974)
Storey, J.: Managerial Prerogative and the Question of Control. Routledge, London (1983)
Hochschild, A.: The Managed Heart. University of California Press, Berkeley (1983)
Marshall, C., Rossman, G.B.: Designing Qualitative Research. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks (1999)
Anderson, G.: Critical Ethnography in Education: Origins, Current Status, and New Directions. Review of Educational Research 59, 249–270 (1989)
Anderson, G., Herr, K.: The Micro-Politics of Student Voices: Moving from Diversity of Voices in Schools. In: Marshall, C. (ed.) The New Politics of Race and Gender, Falmer, Washington, DC, pp. 58–68 (1993)
Marshall, C.: Dismantling and Reconstructing Policy Analysis. In: Marshall, C. (ed.) Feminist Critical Policy Analysis: A Perspective from Primary and Secondary Schooling, Falmer, London, UK, pp. 1–34 (1997)
Fine, G.A.: Ten Lies of Ethnography: Moral Dilemmas of Field Research. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22, 267–294 (1993)
Vaughan, D.: Ethnographic Analytics. In: Hedstrom, P., Bearman, P. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, http://www.sociology.columbia.edu/pdf-files/dvEAmay2.pdf (forthcoming)
Glaser, B., Strauss, A.: The Discovery of Grounded Theory, Aldine, Chicago, IL (1967)
Yee, N.: Dragon Slaying 101: Understanding the Complexity of Raids. The Daedalus Project 2(4), http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000859.php
Taylor, T.L.: Does World of Warcraft Changes Everything? How a PvP Server, Multinational Playerbase, and Surveillance Mod Scene Caused Me Pause. In: Corneliussen, H., Rettberg, J.W. (eds.) Digital Culture, Play and Identity, pp. 187–202. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2008)
Castronova, E.: Exodus to the Virtual World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York (2007)
Brooks, D.: Bobos In Paradise. Simon & Schuster, New York (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
About this paper
Cite this paper
Lukacs, A., Embrick, D.G., Wright, T. (2010). The Managed Hearthstone: Labor and Emotional Work in the Online Community of World of Warcraft. In: Lehmann-Grube, F., Sablatnig, J. (eds) Facets of Virtual Environments. FaVE 2009. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 33. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11743-5_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11743-5_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-11742-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-11743-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)