A new insight of Seeking Civilization In World Of Warcraft
Sociologist Spends 2,300 Hours Seeking Civilization In World Of Warcraft Sociologist and director of Human-Centered Computing at the National Science Foundation.
William Sims Bainbridge an American sociologist who is most well known for his work on the sociology of religion; recently, he has published work studying the sociology of video gaming.spent 2300 hours entrenched in popular MMO World of Warcraft, looking for insights about Western civilization. What did he find there?
"It is possible that World of Warcraft is so complex, so culturally rich, and so expansive, that it will become a permanent part of our civilization," says William Sims Bainbridge at the climax of The Warcraft Civilization, his sprawling academic report into Blizzard's MMORPG.
Bainbridge has simultaneously run dozens of characters across a thorough cross-section of servers, races and classes, and he has played to the maximum skill-levels attainable; he also hosted Azeroth's first-ever scientific conference. And even if Warcraft does not become a permanent part of our culture, Bainbridge says, it's essential to study it now. If, decades hence, researchers want to examine World Of Warcraft, they can restart the servers and run the software, but they can't provide the hundreds of thousands of players distributed across the world that make the game what it is. This is a book that demands to be taken seriously.
Bainbridge begins each chapter of the book with a character commentary from one of the 22 roles he played during those 22 hours, using them as a diving board to launch into exploration of major social issues from the character's point-of-view. Through his experience in the game, he tackles issues of religion, learning, cooperation, economy, and more.
Bainbridge's ultimate thesis is that WOW is no more a game than life is – both are part game, part drama, part truth. His analysis of how players cooperate without cooperating – a hunter randomly hacking through wildlife might provide raw materials for someone with the skinning skill, and together they make the world a richer place by introducing more materiel into it – has much to say about how our society works. His chapter on how people assemble their identity examines behaviour that has always existed, but which was made obvious by the advent of virtual worlds. However, these jewels are saved up for the endgame, and there's much grinding to be done before we get there.
The World of Warcraft Civilization is a fitting monument to the magnificent world that Blizzard has created – Bainbridge is right to call WOW a 'gesamtkunstwerk', a total work of art, drawing on all artistic fields and directly involving life itself.
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