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Master Journal Analysis #1 Motivations of an MMORPG Player

Introduction

This paper will discuss the broad topic of Motivations of Play in MMORPGs, Yee (2009) and how it relates to the Design track from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) that this author chose for his Mastery Journal Paper Topic. This article can be found at the following link: http://nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

Design

Using a factor analytic approach, Yee Built off of previous literature such as Players Who Suit MUDs, Bartle (1996), as well as opened ended responses from surveys, to create a validated, expanded and refined player motivation model. Using this model, Yee came up with thirty-nine factors that motivate people to play Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games (MMORPGs). Of those thirty-nine factors, ten factors, which could be further factored into three overreaching factors accounted for 60% of the variances. These factors being Achievement (Advancement, Mechanics, Competition), Social (Socializing, Relationship, Teamwork) and Immersion ( Discovery, Role-Play, Customization, Escapism). With these factors, Yee created a new survey that over forty-thousand MMORPG players participated in called, The Daedalus Project.

Results

In Yee’s survey he was meet with interesting and varying results, namely the stark contrast in motivational factors for men and women. Yee found that men dominated in; Advancement (M:10.1% > F:2.6%), Mechanics (M:11.6% > F:1.9%), Competition

(M:11.4% > F:3.5%) and Teamwork (M:11.6% > F:8.4%). While women held dominance in Relationship (M:8.5% < F:27.0%), Discovery (M:9.4% < F:11.2%), Role-Play (M:10.7% < F:14.0%),and Customization

(M:7.7%< F:12.1%). Finally, the two were fairly equal in; Socializing (M:8.7% < F:9.5%) with women coming out ahead and Escapism (M:10.3% > F:10.0%) with men coming out ahead.

Strengths

Variety/Randomness

The first factor that this author believes strengthens Yee’s findings, is the variety or randomness of his project’s participants. The Daedalus Project didn’t just encompass more than forty-thousand MMORPG players, but more than forty-thousand MMORPG players from across numerous MMORPG games; games such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest 2, Dark Age of Camelot and City of Heroes.

Subject Matter Experience

The second strength that I have to mention is Nick Yee himself. It cannot be stressed enough about the importance of his familiarity of the MMORPG genre, otherwise he would not have known, let alone understood the importance of some aspects of the genre that he would have needed be familiar with in order to ask some of the questions that he did.

Limitations

Conclusion Validity

In one of the questions Yee asked the players if they had been on a raid for more than 8 hours. He concluded that since the majority of plays that stated that they have been on a raid for more an 8 hours were women (M:26% < F: 35%), that it must me associated with the relationship and teamwork factors that women were held strong in. However, this author does not believe Yee took into consideration the occupations of the women. Women have traditionally held the “stay at home mother” role, and while this trend has saw a significant decrease over the last half century, recent studies have shown that this trend has seen a noticeable increase as of late (Cohn, Livingston, Wang 2014). Therefor there are an unproportionate amount of women who have significantly more amount of time on their hands to do 8 hour raids as opposed to men who according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics spend less time on leisure activities and more time at work (ATUS, 2017).

Instrumentation Threat (Internal Validity)

Yee began The Daedalus Project survey back in 2002, it is of the opinion of this author that this is a potential weakness. The reason this author believes the 2002 start date to be a weakness that falls prey to the Instrumentation Threat is because technology and trends are constantly changing, since the time he put the survey on hibernation in 2009, many new MMORPGS have come into the market and many of the popular ones during the time of the survey have lost popularity. Though the biggest threat is the rise of the mobile gaming market and their seedy business model trends seeping over and corrupting the PC and console platforms. Changing the genres player demographic as a result.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this article identifies the 10 major attributing motivations for playing MMORPGs and breaks them down by gender analysis. This article will aid this author in his Mastery Journal Topic because it directly identifies the major contributing factors to why people play the MMORPG genre. Finally this author believes that Dr. Adams Greenwood-Ericksenwould be the best mentor for him to consult do to Adams’ extensive experience in Human Factors Psychology as well as his apparent fondness for the RPG genre.

References

Yee, N. (n.d.). Motivations of Play in MMORPGs. Retrieved from http://www.nickyee.com website: http://nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

Cohn, D., Livingston, G., & Wang, W. (n.d.). After Decades of Decline, A Rise in Stay-at-Home 
     Mothers. Retrieved from Pew Research Center website: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/04/08/after-decades-of-decline-a-rise-in-stay-at-home-mothers/  
American Time Use Survey. (2017). Retrieved from Bureau of Labor Statistics website: 
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