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Genevieve14 Maybe because American gamers like to customize things more (and break more rules), and Chinese gamers like to play BY the rules.-
jennatar Awesome point. I know the subject has been known to lift eyebrows, but there really are distinctive differences in design philosophy, depending on your culture and your geography. It makes sense that I, being a happy sandbox gamer, might think of WoW as a social sandbox, too, bring that mentality to the game and play it differently than a Chinese woman might.
(see also http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3155815)
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number8 The real question is, where did UC Irvine get $100,000 to spend on video game research? I hope it was alumni.-
jennatar Hey, now! Video games are serious business.
Also, the sociology of virtual spaces is totally, um, scholarly.
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terryrag Really interesting. The article quotes the professor of "informatics" (?) at UCI, and she really emphasizes that the stereotypes re: Chinese WoW players are simply misperceptions, which makes me kind of do a double-take -- I guess I assumed everyone in China just kind of gold-farmed.
The professor also points out that a higher percentage of American women play WoW than do Chinese. It's interesting, but sort of unsurprising. But then she goes on to say this: "Here and in Europe and Australia/New Zealand people play with parents and event grandparents. Not in China. The older generation dislikes video games. People here play with brothers and sisters. But in China people don’t have brothers and sisters for the most part, so friend relationships are very important." Really fascinating stuff.
UC Irvine studies differences between Chinese and US players
WoW.com —
... ) Register have an article up about how the University of California at Irvine has received a grant to study the differences between US and Chinese players of World of Warcraft. And the differences are fairly interesting: apparently US players use many more UI mods and addons than Chinese players do. Additionally, more Chinese players play the "more challenging version of the game" (seems like they mean PvP servers to us, though that may change with ...
UC Irvine to compare WoW players from America, China
Massively —
... players, according to the Orange County Register. The study will mostly focus on explaining why American players are much more likely to employ modifications such as ...
National Science Foundation to fund World of Warcraft study
Big Download Blog —
... study is supposed to look into why Chinese players of the game tend to play it as is while American players tend to try to use mods to play the game. UCI informatics professor Bonnie Nardi, who will head up the study, says, "We are examining the many reasons for this disparity, including cultural and institutional factors," We will leave it to our readers to debate whether a government agency should be spending our money in this matter. [Via Massively]%Gallery-26411% Read | Permalink | Email this | ...
$100,000 To Play WoW?????
Wandering Goblin —
... It's been reported in the Orange County Register that Professor Bonnie Nardi from UC Irvine has received $100,000 from the National Science Foundation to study (ehem...play) World of Warcraft. At question: Why do Americans go to such great lengths to mod the World of Warcraft over their Chinese counterparts? ...
