MMMMMMMMMORPGs
This posting is going to delve into a world little known to me; the world of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer on-line role-playing games). These types of games have a huge fan base, which is expected to exceed 15 million in 2009.
Two websites, PlayOn and The Daedalus Project host two extensive MMORPG research initiatives. PlayOn states that a majority of the MMORPG community is male. There is a range of 65 – 78 % majority on each server.
They also show that there is a distinct difference in the type of character that males and females use to play as well. Only 10% of the dwarf population is female, while 40% of night elves are female. There seems to be a direct association between the look of the user’s character and traits of the user.
The average amount of time spent playing for males and females when starting at level one is about 750 minutes and increases up to about 2500 minutes after reaching level 60. The amount of players leveling is consistently increasing as well. From July 2005 to January 2006, the ratio of level 60 characters went from 8% to 21%.
So why do people play this game? What causes people to pour hour after hour into a virtual world that is the subject of many controversial addiction cases? The Daedalus Project breaks the motivations down into three major catagories:
Achievement – leveling up, becoming powerful, making progress
Social – making friends, communicating with others
Immersion – role-playing, exploring, escaping real life problems
Is the research credible? Most likely. The web pages have been studying this MMORPG user interactions for the past few years, and trends are now even being predicted. They use large survey samples that minimize the standard deviation. What’s the point of studying these trends? There’s no argument that if you utilize the game effectively, you can market to a ton of people. As a matter of fact,
Stereotypes of the users
People that devote hours and hours to this virtual world have developed a certain image about themselves. People assume that MMORPGers are all male, are anti-social, and after a few extreme examples, that they are not able to perform daily tasks and care for responsibilites. The research supports the fact that there are a large amount of male players, but there are a significant number of women playing as well. And as for the fact that MMORPGs get in the way of other responsibilites, that may happen for some people, but most exercise enough self control.
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