If you've played a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game before you've no doubt noticed lots of interesting things about how people behave and interact in these worlds. First, there are the men who play as women - friends of yours, say, who otherwise appear normal. Some of them have characters get married, to male characters also played by men. Second, there are the in-game social mechanics that play out quite differently than those in the real world - I have yet to have anybody say 'STFU N00B' in real life and mean it.
The site Play On by Xerox PARC studies these things and more by taking demographic data, surveys, and conducting interviews. It's a fascinating site with some interesting looks into the MMO phenomena.
Posted by scottsh at Friday February 03, 2006 - 8:15 PM | TrackBack (0) | Category: MMO | © 2006 Gaming Signal