Virtual worlds and online videogames for children and young people : promises and challenges MERCHANT, Guy <http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8436-7675> Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/10879/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version MERCHANT, Guy (2015). Virtual worlds and online videogames for children and young people : promises and challenges. In: GUZZETTI, Barbara and MILLINEE, Lesley, (eds.) The handbook of research on the societal impact of social media. Advances in media, entertainment and the arts . Hersey, PA, IGI Global, 291-316. Copyright and re-use policy See http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk Handbook of Research on the Societal Impact of Digital Media Barbara Guzzetti Arizona State University, USA Mellinee Lesley Texas Tech University, USA A volume in the Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts (AMEA) Book Series Managing Director: Lindsay Johnston Managing Editor: Keith Greenberg Director of Intellectual Property & Contracts: Jan Travers Acquisitions Editor: Kayla Wolfe Production Editor: Christina Henning Development Editor: Erin O’Dea Typesetter: Amanda Smith; Kaitlyn Kulp Cover Design: Jason Mull Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA, USA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com Copyright © 2016 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. 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Lesley, Mellinee, 1965- HM851.H34836 2016 302.23’1--dc23 2015019888 This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts (AMEA) (ISSN: Pending; eISSN: pending) British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher. For electronic access to this publication, please contact: [email protected]. 291 Chapter 12 Virtual Worlds and Online Videogames for Children and Young People: Promises and Challenges Guy Merchant Sheffield Hallam University, UK ABSTRACT Online virtual worlds and games provide opportunities for new kinds of interaction, and new forms of play and learning, and they are becoming a common feature in the lives of many children and young people. This chapter explores the issues that this sort of virtual play raises for researchers and educa- tors, and the main themes that have emerged through empirical investigation. I focus on children and young people within the age range covered by compulsory schooling, providing illustrative examples of virtual environments that promote play and learning as a way of underlining some key areas of interest. Drawing on work from a range of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives the chapter emphasises how these environments have much in common with other imagined worlds and suggests that looking at the ways in which the virtual is embedded in everyday contexts for meaning making provides an important direction for future research. 1. WHAT IS A SUCCINCT new kinds of virtual play. Developers and entre- OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH? preneurs are designing increasingly sophisticated virtual environments, and so it seems timely to Virtual worlds and video games are high profile review the key findings that emerge from empirical and popular forms of entertainment in the new and theoretical work, and to address those issues global mediascape. They attract large numbers in meaning making and learning that are of in- of children and young people, and this has led to terest to parents and educators. In what follows I interest in some quarters and concern in others as contribute to this endeavour by looking critically we grapple with the promises and challenges of at the specific promises and challenges of using DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8310-5.ch012 Copyright © 2016, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Virtual Worlds and Online Videogames for Children and Young People computer-generated virtual worlds and online Of course it may not always do this - it may not videogames with children and young people for touch everyone equally, and there is evidently educational purposes. The research base in this enough ‘good’ and ‘bad’ drama performance to area is still in its infancy, but we can now draw on create lucrative livelihoods for critics! Nonethe- studies of children in the early years, of teenagers less the enduring popularity of drama and other and adults – studies located in a range of differ- narrative media such as books, films and video- ent settings and jurisdictions. This body of work games reminds us of the significance of imagined outlines the kinds of understandings that virtual worlds in our lives. I want to argue that virtual play can foster, and points to how it is integrated worlds and video games, rather than being radi- into everyday lives, as well as how it might be cally new and hard to comprehend, are simply a absorbed into more formal educational practice. recent manifestation of this same phenomenon. However, first hand experience of virtual worlds Although their realisation is new – in the sense and videogames is alien to many parents and that virtual worlds are created from pixels and educators and the media reaction to immersive mediated through screens - the desire to engage online play is often one of moral panic (Gillen in world building, and the cognitive processes & Merchant, 2013). As a result it is necessary to involved in meaning making are inherently similar be clear about what constitutes or defines these to those at work in constructing other imagined environments, and to explore some of the popular worlds (Gillen & Merchant, 2013). myths and misconceptions that have attached to But for all this similarity, virtual worlds and these new forms of play. I begin with a focus on videogames have introduced a new dimension. We these issues. now no longer simply consume the text, we ‘play’ or create it as we go along (Mackey, 2002). It is ‘This Insubstantial Pageant’: as if we had taken on a role in the drama and can Understanding Virtual Worlds then dictate the course of events, seeing things from our character’s point of view, or indeed from In Shakespeare’s Tempest, the magician Prospero multiple points of view. In short our actions can refers to the play itself as an ‘insubstantial pageant’ influence what we see on the screen. In this way and in a much-quoted speech draws out parallels virtual worlds and videogames have many similari- between theatre and life itself. The dramatic per- ties to each other, both being computer-mediated formance, and the imaginary world that is conjured environments in which players have at least some up by it, is seen as an insubstantial pageant, a cast degree of agency. This agency, dictated of course of characters involved in a sequence of events that by opportunities and constraints imposed by the we temporarily believe in. A play could be seen game design, is often achieved by adopting a as a prototypical virtual world. As an event it is character, or avatar, that can be moved around real enough, it takes place in space and time with the screen and can interact with other characters all the material supports of a theatre or similar or objects. Although it is possible to engage with venue; members of the audience are embodied virtual worlds and videogames offline, their cur- and present, but yet the world they are transported rent popularity can be largely attributed to the fact into is constructed in their individual imagina- that online connectivity provides opportunities tions, and filtered through their own particular for play and interaction with others who are not lived experiences. in the same location, as well as those who are. Drama, in common with other art forms, has The technical literature on virtual play draws the potential to entertain and enrich our lives as a distinction between Massively Multiplayer well as to educate and enlighten us, even to the Online Games (MMOGs) and Multi-User Vir- extent of challenging or changing our world view. tual Environments (MUVEs). MMOGs include 292 Virtual Worlds and Online Videogames for Children and Young People the hugely popular World of Warcraft with its 7 protest against them, and experiment with self- million active accounts (Satista, 2014) as well government. (Morningstar & Farmer, [1991] as newcomers like Clash of the Clans, currently 2008, p.1.) strong in the rapidly expanding mobile games market. The most popular MUVEs are usually In Habitat, users were shown on-screen as referred to as virtual worlds (Second Life and Ac- a simple figure or avatar.