Questions for Bonnie Nardi and Response Part Three

My questions for the author of "My Life as a Night Elf Priest":

1) You mention the benefits of doing an ethnographic study of a culture like World of Warcraft because you can become fully immersed in that culture.  What was the biggest challenge (if any) in reconciling your empirical researching perspective with your investment in the game/world?

2)  Why do you think an aesthetic activity such as WoW (or gaming generally) gets a negative stigma, while other aesthetic activities that bring about a similar level of fanaticism are viewed as the "norm"?

3)  Finally, another author we have read in this class- Sherry Turkle- goes to great lengths to describe the ways that our "online life" is changing the way we interact in offline life (or the way we look at or think about interpersonal interaction.)  Do you see any ways that a community or culture such as WoW is impacting this?



Part Three:  Cultural Logics of World of Warcraft

In the final part of her book, Nardi takes a look at various cultural elements of World of Warcraft from a few different angles:

Addiction:

Nardi spends a significant amount of space on the topic of "addiction" as it relates to WoW and gaming generally.  She refers back to Dewey's definitions of active aesthetic activity- and mentions the remaining piece; that for an activity to be aesthetic, it must be done in balance and proportion.  As Nardi says: "the passion that animates aesthetic activity contains within itself a dangerous seed; such passion can transmogrify to an extreme state in which it "overwhelms" us."  She is clear from the outset to assert the idea that the game itself is not the reason for any "addiction" - millions of people are able to play it without becoming addicted.  So, in spite of the mass media's portrayal of a game like World of Warcraft- the game itself is not addicting in essence.

Nardi eventually stops using the word addiction quite as much and begins to investigate the term "problematic use," which basically means that it interferes with one's everyday life in some way.  There are many kinds of problematic use- basically anything that could interfere with one's responsibilities and every day activities could be used problematically.  However, not all of those things (sports in particular) gets the negative stigma attached to them like WoW and gaming do.  A big part of this reason is that the media responds to things that are seen or defined as "a threat to societal values and interests."  College sports fit with American societal values, so no one calls it "problematic use" to spend thousands of dollars on a parking spot 7 days a year.  In reality though, with gaming and with just about anything, Nardi makes the point that problematic use usually comes into the equation with the user, not with the game/item.  "Problem players bring their problems to the game."  The issues that are displayed in problematic use of the game are simply symptoms of something bigger.

While Nardi does not offer a cure or answer for video game addiction, in this chapter she does call into question exactly what addiction looks like, and what role video games might truly play in society.

She then looks at gamer participation through two different angles:  theorycraft and mods.  Theorycraft is, in essence, gamer participation in researching game mechanics in order to figure out and determine the best way to do various things like distribute talent points or equip various types of armor.  Mods are actually software modules that players might add to the game- they essentially add new functionality; new options for gameplay.  The thing that stood out about theorycraft was the analytical effort and endeavors it would take to track all the different game mechanics and map them out.  Not dissimilar to Jenkins' knowledge cultures and collective intelligence, one who participates in theorycraft goes deeper into the game, likely with the help of others.  Mods, on the other hand, provides gamers an opportunity to mix things up in the game, but more importantly to also express a certain sense of individuality inside of the game.  These two ways of gamer involvement are actually done predominately outside of the actual game play, and the sheer amount of time and effort it would take to do either of these shows just how deep the World of Warcraft experience goes.

Finally, over the last couple of chapters Nardi talks about both gender and nationality as gaming factors.  From the sounds of it, she had a very positive experience as a female gamer; but she was definitely participating in a male's world.  She observed that some social boundaries that might not be crossed in normal speech were fair game in the midst of game play- this, mostly by males.  Males did not hold back just because a female was present in their ranks, on the other hand they might pay the female a special sort of attention.  While the gaming atmosphere was definitely controlled by male dominance, Nardi really sounded like she enjoyed the actual aesthetic value of the game as a female.  The graphics, in particular she found to be aesthetically balanced, and not male-dominated for a change.

Lastly, as Nardi conducted the Chinese portion of her research, she found many many similarities between American gamers and Chinese gamers.  The one major difference she observed was the environment in which Chinese gamers preferred to play.  Americans would typically choose to play from the comfort of their home, but Chinese actually seemed to desire the environment of playing in local Internet Cafes.  Nardi found that it was about the gaming atmosphere just as much as the logistics of having an available computer and internet service.