Title: An Ethnography of a Virtual World: The Political Economy of EVE Online
Prepared for: Dr. Lori Shyba, Professor of MMEDIA 3B03, McMaster University
Introduction
Virtual worlds have been proliferating for years. From the MUDs of the 80s to the MMORPGs with millions of players, virtual worlds have grown to proportions unimagined when they began. From the blistering deserts of Kalimdor in World of Warcraft to the cold empty space of EVE Online to even the isometric pixel-world of Habbo Hotel, all of these virtual worlds have one thing in common: social human interaction.
These virtual worlds are sometimes better known as social games. They involve massive amounts of users logging into the server at once and playing the game usually together. For example, in World of Warcraft, one could conceivably play the game without interacting with anyone, but it would hardly be effective. To be able to play the game to the fullest, with all of the dungeons and the bosses and the player versus player battles, one must join a guild.
Guilds are the basis for any social structure in virtual worlds. They are organized and run by players and they have different purposes. Some guilds aim to complete all of the high-level dungeons, feats that require the utmost practice and precision. Some guilds aim to help out low level characters, to make it so they have an easy time learning the world. Some guilds are even just made up of low level characters, helping each other out to eventually become one of the high-level dungeon guilds.
How do players form these kinds of groups? Do natural leaders begin groups, or is it simply players who have more time to invest in the game? Are guilds age-restrictive? Gender restrictive? There are so many questions pertaining to how players organize and operate within guilds, it requires an ethnographic approach to really understand how these social structures are formed.