Communities of Practice in MMORPGs:
an Entry Point into Addiction?
Karsten D. Wolf
Didactical Design of Interactive Learning Environments
Communities & Technologies 2007
Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Friday, 29.06.2007
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

What are MMORPG?
Massive Multiplayer
Online
Roleplaying Games
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What are MMORPG?
Massive Multiplayer
Online
Roleplaying Games
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Nintendo DS
Wi-Fi Connection
Xbox live
Second Life & Truly massive!
Sony Home cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

What are MMORPG?
Massive Multiplayer
Online
up to 20,000 users Games 8,000,000+
Roleplaying
in reach subscribers
~960,000 users online at the same time
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What are MMORPG?
Massive Multiplayer
Fantasy Character Quests
Online
Roleplaying Games
Levels
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Hours/week spent playing
0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40+ cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

on average more than 20 hours a week
=
enough for a CoP
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Average media usage in Germany
TV 225 minutes 26 h/week
Radio 225 minutes 26 h/week
Listen to music 45 minutes 5 h/week
Internet 44 minutes 5 h/week
Newspaper 28 minutes 3 h/week
Books 25 minutes 3 h/week
Magazines 12 minutes < 2 h/week
(9. Welle 'Massenkommunikation' 2005
ENIGMA GfK & MMA Media Markt) cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

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Virtual Worlds,
Real Leaders
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Why is this interesting for c&t research?
Do MMORPGs support the building of CoP?
If so: how? Can we learn from it for designing
(learning) community environments?
Are there negative side effects?
Are these side effects related to community
building, to other gameplay elements or to
gamer‘s traits?
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

Community
- Familiarity - Trust / Openness
- Sense of belonging - Management hierarchy
- Reputation - Informal leadership
- Rules - Leadership
- Possibility to communicate - Boundaries / Lurking
Practice
Domain
- Common interest - Communication
- Repository - Mutuality / Exchange
- Learning - Rituals
- Experts present - Sense of shared past
- Experts known - Participation
- Sub Groups - Rules enforced
Individual Roles and Goals of Members
- Aspiration for knowledge - Being Expert vs. Layman
- Aspiration for reputation - Being informal leader
- Aspiration for community - Being formal leader
- Aspiration for power - Individual interest
- Duration of membership
CoPI (Wolf/Rausch 2005-7)
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Individual roles & goals Mean Std.dev.
3.37
Aspiration for community 0.63
3.08
Duration of membership 0.89
Being expert (or layman) 2.64 0.77
Aspiration for Reputation 2.55 0.78
0.76
Aspiration for Knowledge 2.47
1-4 Likert scale, n=1102
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Community attributes Mean Std.dev.
3.28
Reputation mechanisms 0.61
3.13
Sense of belonging 0.75
3.06
Lurking accepted 0.70
3.03
Possibility communicate 0.75
Familiarity 2.76 0.76
1-4 Likert scale, n=1102
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

Practice attributes Mean Std.dev.
3.25
Mutuality / Exchange 0.60
2.94
Rituals (cronbach‘s alpha=0.589) 0.72
(casual) Communication 2.72 0.70
1-4 Likert scale, n=1102
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

aspiration for community
.575 .439
.463 .386
Sense of Mutuality /
belonging Exchange
Communication Familiarity
p < .0001 cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

< 7 <14 <20 <30 <40 40+ h/w
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< 7 <14 <20 <30 <40 40+ h/w
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Other findings related to playtime
Hardcore players (40+) have lower tolerance for
lurking
Sense of belonging is higher for 20+ players, as is
familiarity & communication for 40+ players
Players with a longer duration of membership play
longer (no ease out?)
Possibility to communicate even for casual players
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Playtime and being an expert
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WoW Addiction Inventory
• Loss of control
• Withdrawal
• Mental focus
• Tolerance
• Negative consequences for work performance
• Negative consequences for social life
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WoWAI scores
Being
at risk
4,5%
Addiction
1,9%
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Playtime and addiction risk
3,5% 10,5%
12,3% 30%
< 7 <14 <20 <30 <40 40+
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CoP and addiction
Aspiration for Knowledge (rp=.175) and
Reputation (rp=.176) goes together with
addiction
Aspiration for Community (rp=-.079) not!!!
Lurking is not tolerated by addicted players
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Wikipediholism
#1 159,825
#10 79,162
#30 53,500
# of edits
#50 46,529
#100 36,608
#500 17,305
#1,000 11,101
#2,500 5,300
authors ranked by # of edits cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

Tools for supporting CoP Ongoing integration
of work & learning
collaborative &
individualized
search
Documents & Collaboration &
Practice problem solving
Knowledge repositories
Project
N2N-Publishing & spaces
Content Sharing
Knowledge Social
filtering structures
Social bookmarking Online communities
Collaborative news- FOAF- and
filtering & aggregation networking platforms
Formal Learning Conversation
Email &
E-Learning
Discussion
spaces
groups
Fleeting interactions
Synchronous
interactions
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

Tools for supporting CoP Ongoing integration
of work & learning
in World of Warcraft
Documents & Collaboration &
Practice problem solving
Actual Gameplay
Guild websites
in WoW
Knowledge Social
filtering structures
Guild screen
Formal Learning Conversation
Ingame post offices
&
discussion boards
Fleeting interactions
In-game chat channels
& external chat tools
such as Teamspeak
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CoP support in WoW - how?
Small set of tightly integrated tools
Support of the collaborative work (specialized interface)
Setup of worthwhile challenges and rewards
Problems to be solved need to be tackled by groups
cc by Karsten D. Wolf 2007

Conclusions
WoW supports the building of CoP
Quests, collaborative action, rewards, integrated UI
Addiction exists for heavy users
Players with aspiration for knowledge and reputation
are more at risk as players with community seekers
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Faculty educational science
Didactical design of
interactive learning environments
http://www.karsten-d-wolf.de/
wolf@uni-bremen.de