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The Digital Dollhouse: Context and Social Norms in The Sims Online Rosa Mikeal Martey and Jennifer Stromer-Galley Games and Culture 2007; 2; 314 DOI: 10.1177/1555412007309583

The online version of this article can be found at: http://gac.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/4/314

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Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 Games and Culture Volume 2 Number 4 October 2007 314-334 © 2007 Sage Publications The Digital Dollhouse 10.1177/1555412007309583 http://gac.sagepub.com hosted at Context and Social Norms in http://online.sagepub.com The Sims Online Rosa Mikeal Martey Colorado State University Jennifer Stromer-Galley University at Albany, State University of New York

This article investigates the relationships between norms and the rich visual environment of the multiplayer game The Sims Online (TSO). Literature suggests that people exhibit normative behavior in online environments. The complex actions and interactions possible with the game’s avatars and a minimal game structure make TSO an evocative online space in which to examine social interaction. Through participation and observation, we examined conversation and avatar conduct in TSO and found norms for verbal and nonverbal behavior that governed both text and avatar use. These norms are related to offline expectations of politeness and etiquette associated with visiting and hosting in people’s homes, and they correspond with the visual dollhouse-like environment of TSO and its characters. This game is a special context where social norms are clear and powerful, affecting not only players’ game play but also their social interaction.

Keywords: online games; social norms; avatar use; multiplayer games; The Sims Online

s the internet and the World Wide Web have grown, so too have networked A gaming environments. Although once online games such as MUDs (multiuser dungeon) and MOOs (MUD object oriented) were exclusively text based, today’s online video games include sophisticated and dynamic images of landscapes, build- ings, and characters. Long a fantasy of cyberpunk writers like William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, animated environments and their actors, digital avatars, have become a reality in games such as World of Warcraft, The Sims Online (TSO), and Second Life. These environments allow individuals to communicate and express themselves with both written and spoken words as well as through the creation and control of digital avatars. No longer is an online smile : -) limited to text, but instead it can include the smile of a digital animated self. The textual *hug* sent to a friend can be accom- panied by a hug between two animated characters in digital space. In this article, we explore the development of norms in a relatively new kind of multiplayer online space that includes extensive use of avatars (digital “bodies”). These games are a type of massively multiplayer online game, or MMOG, a genre

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Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 Martey, Stromer-Galley / The Digital Dollhouse 315 that includes fantasy-adventure games, war games, and the distinctive dollhouse-like game of TSO. Many of the norms that are developed in multiplayer online games develop within the gaming context; that is, the rules and goals of the game heavily influence which behaviors are and are not acceptable (Chen, 2005; Squire & Steinkuehler, 2006; Suler, 2002; T. L. Taylor, 2006; Williams et al., 2006). Generally limited or missing from these analyses are explorations of how norms are influenced by visual contexts (Becker & Mark, 2002). Although scholars may be certain that social norms and standards are present in textual interaction online, we ask, What is the nature of those norms when visual representations of self and context are present? Through participation and observation, we examined the social norms that make some behavior in TSO welcome and sanctioned and other behavior inappropriate and censured. We found standards for verbal and nonverbal behavior that are understood by most players of TSO. These online standards, or norms, parallel offline expectations of politeness in interacting with strangers and acquaintances as well as norms of visiting and hosting in people’s homes. These norms are influenced by the environment in which players interact and are constructed primarily through the performance of actions and interactions by participants.

The Sims Online

TSO is the massively multiplayer online version of the most successful offline video game ever created, The Sims (C. Taylor, 2003). In TSO, players pay a monthly fee to move animated, digital representations of themselves around an online game space and interact with other players. Players select the look and style of an avatar from a wide range of options, including gender, hair and skin color, clothing, facial characteristics, and body type. Players use their character to enter any one of hundreds of game “houses” to pursue game goals, such as earning money, and social goals, such as getting to know other players. The game’s houses are richly detailed visual environments created by other players and include a broad assortment of decorations, objects, archi- tectural styles, and activities. A successful house draws many players and provides all the objects sims need to stay “healthy” and earn “simoleans,” or sim currency. Most conversation in TSO is public within each individual house and appears as words in dialogue bubbles over the speaker’s head. Players can also use their sims to express themselves by making them wave, vomit, throw a temper tantrum, blow smoke out of their ears, or primp. Additionally, sims interact with each other, for example, by hugging, slapping, or giving a pile drive. Importantly, the programming of the game limits sim interaction to mutual permission: Requests for interactions such as hugs, dances, or pile drives must be actively approved. These constraints limit certain kinds of antisocial behavior but still permit a range of other sim transgressions. Although as a game, TSO has not enjoyed substantial success and membership has declined (C. Taylor, 2003), as a social environment, it offers intriguing possibilities

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 316 Games and Culture for online interaction. In addition, the significantly more diverse demographics of its users made the TSO environment far more similar to the internet user population than games such as World of Warcraft or EverQuest, which have long been populated mostly by young men (Willams et al., 2006). In contrast, TSO reported at its peak in 2003 that of its more than 82,000 subscribers, about 60% were female (“Jobs for the Girls,” 2005). Prior research into TSO and its offline counterpart, The Sims, has examined those spaces along a range of dimensions. Nutt and Railton (2003) suggest that The Sims genre is one of “real life,” making it especially suited to playing out “real world con- ceptualizations of family and other relationships” (p. 577). Iverson (2005) notes the importance of the games’ challenges and suggests that they provide “incredible free- dom to players in terms of defining [their] own goals and which challenges to engage in” (p. 6). Tsikalas (2001) argues that the console game The Sims provides an ideal space for learning, self-reflection, and identity development. In contrast, Steen, Greenfield, Davies, and Tynes (2006) examined three players’ diaries of TSO and conclude that players find the game goals of raising skills and making money to be deeply repetitive and boring. As a result, they tend to go “AFK,” or away from their keyboard, robbing the game of some of the depth and possibility for social interaction that seemed initially to be the point of the game. Consalvo (in press) notes that TSO has expansive possibilities for role-play but that its mundane (household) context generally is populated by mundane characters modeled more on real life than a fantasy world. Along with Consalvo and others, we have wondered why individuals play this profoundly “mundane” game and conclude that its social opportunities are central to its appeal. Although Steen et al. (2006) suggest that the game ultimately fails to be compelling, our experiences with and observations of players in the game suggest that the social possibilities are what serve as primary drivers to continue playing. We next turn to the literature on social interaction and norms to contextualize how visual factors, including avatars and the environment of the house, structure social norms and interactions that develop in TSO.

Social Interaction and Norms

Social norms are considered central to successful interaction in social environments (Deutch & Gerard, 1955). Generally considered social rules of behavior, norms are often unwritten and implied and create a frame of understanding within a group that identifies appropriate and inappropriate behavior (Bendor & Swistak, 2001; Deutch & Gerard, 1955; Goffman, 1967). Although often unstated, norms are communicated through language and social cues (Bendor & Swistak, 2001). This is true in the online communication context, as well. Current research has demonstrated not only the strong presence of social norms (Baym, 1998; Jeffrey & Mark, 2003; Peña & Hancock, 2006; Sassenberg, 2002; Yee,

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Bailenson, Urbanek, Chang, & Merget, 2007) but also intimacy (Walther, Loh, & Granka, 2005), cooperation (Walther, 1995), and greater self-disclosure in computer- mediated communication (CMC) chat than in face-to-face settings (Tidwell & Walther, 2002). The social identity/de-individuation effects (SIDE) theory suggests visual anonymity actually leads to greater adherence to social norms, particularly to the extent that personal identity is salient (Postmes & Spears, 1998). Similarly, the social information processing (SIP) model suggests that even with limited commu- nicative tools (such as text only), individuals online find alternative mechanisms to express social messages (Walther, 1995; Walther et al., 2005). Extending these notions to social environments with far more complex visual cues would, according to SIP theory, result in an equally strong presence of social norms as an aspect of relational information exchange and would suggest that individuals incorporate this broad range of cues into their self-expression. Furthermore, the SIDE theory would suggest that norms in those spaces would remain strong as individuals develop online identities. Indeed, the importance of social norms has been demonstrated in a range of graphical online multiplayer games (Becker & Mark, 2002; Chen, 2005; Jeffrey & Mark, 2003; Peña & Hancock, 2006; Squire & Steinkuehler, 2006; Stromer-Galley & Mikeal, 2006; Yee et al., 2007).

Norms and Online Video Games Research on human interaction in online spaces has addressed a range of concerns and questions about the nature of the norms that arise in that interaction. For example, Williams et al. (2006) examined social interaction around group (guild) participation in the MMOG World of Warcraft and found that players joined some groups in part because of the prevailing norms and culture of that group. Their analysis suggests that in that virtual world, norms are strongly related to group size, type, and goals. Chen (2005) found that successful game play in World of Warcraft requires players to learn prevailing social norms, particularly those regarding collaborative teamwork and equitable sharing of game rewards (e.g., treasure). Steinkuehler (2004) found norms related to mentoring and support for newer players of the video game Lineage. Transgression of norms is, of course, common in virtual spaces. Lin and Sun (2005) doc- ument the persistence of “flaming,” or insulting, group members in two MMOGs and conclude that norms regarding flaming differ for players of different experience levels. One major line of research concludes that norms are formed locally through interaction and must be studied in the context of their development to be clearly identified. Research has found that although some norms cut across different online spaces, norms are strongly related to local factors, including group goals (Williams et al., 2006), interface (Erickson, 1999), the design of the game (T. L. Taylor, 2006), and the programmed structure of game spaces (Ducheneaut & Moore, 2004) and settings (Yee et al., 2007). Erickson (1999) observes that online norms are strongly influenced by local social forces, including the goals, ideas, and stated rules of the space

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 318 Games and Culture players join. His examples of norms regarding group limerick writing, for example, include aspects of rhyming, vocabulary, and originality that would be nonsense in a chat room for discussions about chess. Similarly, the norms regarding avatar use in the two-dimensional visual space of The Palace include rules about changing the image used for an avatar’s head (Suler, 2002), actions that are not at all possible in a more controlled environment, such as TSO, where avatars cannot be radically altered. Research suggests that a key factor is the environment in which players interact. For example, Pankoke-Babatz and Jeffrey (2002) compared norms across online spaces, including e-mail, chat, newsgroups, and games, and found that the nature of the norms differed according to environment. They explained that “the peculiarities of these electronic spaces will influence the behavior of their visitors” (p. 5). Harrison and Dourish (1996) explain that online “spaces” are transformed into cultural and social “places” when individuals generate mutual understandings of the norms relevant there. Coded structures become powerful social contexts that shape player behavior. Norms are influenced not only by the environments of game play but also by the presence of avatars. Avatar research suggests that the way online social actors present themselves to others and their relationship development are structured in part by the avatars used for interaction (B. Brown & Bell, 2004; Schroeder, 2002). Jeffrey and Mark (2003) examined norms regarding the shared use of space in both two- and three- dimension virtual spaces and found strong norms regarding personal space, privacy, and crowding. They conclude that three-dimensional spaces in particular provide cues to allow maintenance of personal-space norms. B. Brown and Bell (2004) determine from their examination of the visual virtual world There.com that avatar use enhances the sense that players are interacting with other human beings. These findings suggest that avatars are an important aspect of social coordination in such spaces. Especially intriguing and elaborate studies on norms in digital visual spaces have uncovered systematic similarities between offline and online space norms. For example, a study by Yee et al. (2007) found that offline personal-space norms apply among avatars in the virtual world Second Life. By calculating the head placement and placement of avatar dyads, they found that female pairs tend to stand closer to others and maintain more eye contact, whereas male pairs tend to stand farther away with less eye contact. In addition, they found that men tend to stand farther away from each other in outdoor versus indoor visual settings online. In similar research, Becker and Mark (2002) found that offline norms, such as proximity and use of private space, are stronger when settings and avatars are more realistic in online settings. These findings empha- size the importance of both avatars and visual settings to social interaction online. Because norms in these spaces are important to successful interaction, individuals who enter a game community must learn its prevailing norms. We argue that both linguistic and visual information in digital visual spaces contribute to players’ understanding of the relevant rules of behavior. Contextual factors, including social framework, member identities, visual settings, and game characteristics, influence the development

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 Martey, Stromer-Galley / The Digital Dollhouse 319 of a highly contextualized set of norms in online spaces (Wallace, 1999). Our analysis, therefore, focuses on the relationships between norms and these contextual factors, especially in the visual setting and characters in TSO.

Norms and Politeness A key perspective that we adopt for this analysis is the role of social norms in maintaining what many TSO players identify as “being polite.” Because this term was so frequently used in our observations, we examine it specifically. Politeness has been examined in a variety of contexts by scholars throughout the past several decades. Building on Goffman’s (1967) notion of roles and performative social positioning, politeness has been identified as a crucial component of effective communication as well as an indicator of social status (P. Brown & Levinson, 1978; Mills, 2000). P. Brown and Levinson (1978) propose a theory of politeness that attempts to explain how face management strongly influences the forms and structures of linguistic expression in the service of two types of wants: the desire to be liked and accepted by at least some others, and the desire to have one’s autonomy respected. Politeness theories explore the mechanisms for politeness in both linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts. Some scholars have noted that nonlinguistic communication, including smiles, voice tone, and body posture, is a crucial aspect of the expression and interpretation of politeness independent of linguistic channels (Ambady, Koo, Lee, & Rosenthal, 1996). Our interpretations of politeness in TSO, therefore, focus on how it is used to maintain norms of social interaction both in text- and avatar-based communication. An important characteristic of politeness is its association with women, especially in online spaces. Mills (2000) points out that there is a “stereotyped connection” between (White, middle-class) femininity and politeness that oversimplifies gendered speech. She explains that to understand the function of politeness as it intersects with gender, it is necessary to examine “the gendered domains of speech acts... and the perceived norms of the community of practice” (p. 11). Because TSO has an unusu- ally high proportion of women players as compared to other MMOGs (60%; “Jobs for the Girls,” 2005), and because gender1 must be selected,2 we take particular note in our analysis of gendered patterns of politeness norms and behavior. Considerable research has examined gender and politeness online, particularly as it manifests in chat rooms, games, or bulletin boards. Much of this research has confirmed offline notions that women tend to use more polite language than men (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2003; Guiller & Durndell, 2006; Herring, 1994; Postmes & Spears, 1998; Smith, McLaughlin, & Osborne, 1997). Bonvillain (2002) notes that “women typically use more polite speech than do men, characterized by a high frequency of honorific... and softening devices such as hedges and questions” (p. 139). Some offer, however, that gender constructions online are more fluid and dynamic than binary categories would suggest (Huffaker, 2004; Rodino, 1997)

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 320 Games and Culture and that levels of politeness in women can differ by cultural context online (Danet & Herring, 2003). From her work on online chat groups, Herring (1994) suggests that there is a tension between “the conventionally masculine value on antagonism and the conventionally feminine value on social harmony” (p. 8). We analyze norms of politeness in TSO in this gendered context but do not assume that politeness hinders women’s participation in that space. Some research suggests, in fact, that women’s politeness can be empowering in certain online communities (Panyametheekul & Herring, 2003).

Method

To examine empirically the relationships between social norms, avatar use, and visual environment in TSO, we performed systematic ethnographic participant observation for 3 months, from June 2003 until September 2003. Although 2003 is, in some senses, ancient history in the digital world, these data are particularly helpful to address questions about visual representations and social interaction because they were collected at a time when TSO was popular and novel. We each entered TSO three to five times per week and observed player actions and interactions for between 2 and 4 hours per session. Throughout the observation, we discussed which houses we visited to avoid overlap in observations and observed each house for no more than four sessions. We selected houses from the game-designated “Top 100” most popular houses with at least six people in them, and we stayed in the selected house for the entire length of each session. We returned to the most popular houses during several sessions on different days of the week and during different times of the day to examine any temporal patterns. The average number of people in the houses we visited was about 10 and, because of game-designed limitations, never held more than 20. Although we spent time in every type of house, our observations primarily occurred in the most popular type: those that specialized in skills, money, or games. We visited a total of 30 houses in TSO to ensure we observed a broad range of players. We took detailed field notes to assess whether and what kinds of norms emerged through avatar movements and text exchanges. We played in two towns in TSO, Alphaville and Blazing Falls. In Blazing Falls, we played the avatars we had created previously: Martey played as Belladonna “Bella” Nightshade and Stromer-Galley played as Kindra Garten. We developed new avatars for Alphaville, where Martey played as Belladonna “Bella” Hemlock and Stromer- Galley played as Arabella Moon. We did not identify ourselves as researchers during our observation; however, entering TSO requires the visual presence of an avatar, a digital embodiment of a player. Therefore, it is impossible to enter TSO invisibly (“lurking”), as some researchers have done in text-only chat rooms. As suggested by CMC researchers such as Baym (1998), this study was a naturalistic one in which we engaged, albeit minimally, with other individuals throughout our observation period.

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Important to research on online communities, especially gaming communities, is a familiarity with the environment, technical aspects, and the nature and range of activities (Paccagnella, 1997). We were comfortable in TSO as a result of recreational play we had performed since the game’s release in December 2002. As players, we gained an intimate sense early in the game’s release of what was appropriate and inappropriate behavior in TSO. We recognize that participant observation entails limiting our conclusions to the case of TSO; claims of “game behavior” or “social interaction online” must be understood as claims about TSO and not about such interactions and behaviors in gaming environments or social interaction generally. In addition, we recognize that this study is not an exhaustive examination of the wide range of possible player contexts3 but, rather, is limited to those experiences we had as actual players. One of the difficulties in studying norms is systematically verifying their existence. For the purpose of this investigation, we adopt a definition offered by Bendor and Swistak (2001). The authors identify active sanctioning and censure and write, “We will understand norms as behavioral rules that are backed by sanctions” (p. 1494). A norm exists when behavior that departs from a norm is followed by punishment. It is also possible for reward behavior to signal the presence of norms. Thus, for our research, when we witnessed praise or punishment, we attributed such as a sign of potential normative behavior.

Findings

We found evidence that norms govern textual and avatar interaction. Guided by Bendor and Swistak’s (2001) definition of norms, we observed that censure and praise of behavior were primarily textual. These norms concerned aspects of chat as well as avatar use. We concluded that normative behavior in TSO occurs in a wide range of behaviors and on many levels, from the relatively subtle, acknowledging all entering visitors, to the blatant, responding to excessive insults. Our observations of norms are grouped into five rough categories: hosting, being a visitor, group projects, public conversation, and avatar action and interaction.

Hosting One of the few incentives TSO offers for play is the opportunity to get one’s house listed in the “Top 100.” Houses on this list are the most heavily trafficked by other sims. Property residents must be present for other sims to visit, and as hosts, residents recognize certain norms of hospitality they generally work hard to fulfill. When visitors teleport to a new house, a polite host will welcome them by name and will mention what activities are occurring in the house; sometimes hosts simply tell visitors to make themselves “at home.” Many hosts will try to remember visitors who have

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 322 Games and Culture been there before, greeting them not simply with a “hello” or “welcome” but “welcome back.” Hosts are also frequently asked for advice, information, help, and services such as food or beds. “Newbies,” new players finding their way around the game, frequently turn to hosts for information about game rules, conventions, and options. A vital component of host etiquette is providing services, especially maintaining food supplies. If the food runs out, hosts will cook or buy more and apologize when the delay for food is too long. Guests also expect hosts to keep bathrooms clean, beds made, and objects in good repair. When, as sometimes occurs, guests clean a bath- room or make a bed themselves, polite hosts will acknowledge that work kindly: As one host commented, “Wow you guests are very clean. I love it!” For example, we observed one guest doing a significant amount of cleaning. The host insisted she did not need to bother, acknowledging that it was his job. When she continued to clean, he used his avatar to approach her and give her a hug, then followed up with an entertaining jitterbug dance. These nonverbal interactions served as a fun-to-watch reward to the generous guest for her work and elicited text “laughter” and a joyous “I should come here to clean all the time!” Hosts typically intervene when conflict arises between guests in the house. For example, at a skill house, Private Sally4 entered the property and was greeted by the owner of the house, Suze. Sally began demanding that the other players in the game do 100 push-ups, calling them “maggots,” and declaring that they were now part of her army. Players ignored her, but after a few rounds of Sally’s demands for push-ups, Suze said, “This house isn’t an army.” When Sally walked over to the pool table and demanded that a “maggot” play pool with her, Suze said, “I thought we said please in this house.” When the rest of the visitors continued to ignore Sally, she left. Suze’s gentle interventions and the rest of the players’ dismissal of Sally serve as good examples of the gentle censure that hosts often perform when players have over- stepped the bounds of propriety.5

Being a Visitor There are certain conventions that hosts and other players expect of visitors. For example, the greetings for incoming visitors expected from hosts generally call for a response from guests. When Stromer-Galley used Kindra to enter a money house, she missed the host’s initial welcome. After Kindra got settled beating on piñatas to make money, Stromer-Galley used a feature that allows players to see the past public conversations in the house. She discovered that the host had greeted her. When she had not responded, he said, “I guess I’m talking to myself.” When Kindra later apologized to the host for not greeting him back, he said it was okay, but when she attempted future interactions, he seemed uninterested in talking with her. Visitors are generally expected to show respect to the host and other guests, a convention sometimes formally stated in property description pages: “Please if you visit be polite and considerate to ALL here.” Visitors generally thank hosts for

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 Martey, Stromer-Galley / The Digital Dollhouse 323 providing food, especially when the host cooks higher quality meals instead of simply buying the less “nutritious” buffet food. Some guests clean up after themselves regularly, but others leave dirty plates in the kitchen and do not make the bed. At a money house we visited, one guest took it upon herself to instruct other visitors to clean up, admon- ishing, “whoever stopped up the toilet should be ashamed for not cleaning it up!” The same sim later commented, “*thinking: do people not realize they can clean toilets?”

Group Projects Part of TSO’s design rewards players who work well together. Certain objects, such as the lucrative “code” or “pizza” machines, require between two and four sims to operate. Sims that work together can earn significantly more money than they do on solitary job objects, although this coordination is often highly socially charged. Less structured group projects sims coordinate together, such as weddings, contests, or dance parties, also require a certain social finesse and are subject to various codes of behavior. Sims who want to use a group money-making object such as the pizza machine benefit only when all participants work together, requiring considerable social coordination. Sims must gather players together, which in the chaos of other activities can be quite difficult. People sometimes resort to “yelling” for pizza team members (“ANYONE FOR PIZZA!! PLEASE!”), sometimes eliciting scolding comments (“don’t yell please”), and avoidance from regulars to the property and residents. During pizza machine use, polite sims pay attention to the leader, follow instruc- tions, and participate until the group decides to stop. Those who do not cooperate are usually scolded or asked to leave the group. Group events such as dance parties or weddings are less structured but similarly bounded by convention. Dance parties are meant to provide entertainment for players because they are fun to watch; avatars can use a wide variety of complex dance moves, and the more involved the dance, the more interesting the party. Enthusiastic players are praised and encouraged for particularly advanced actions their sims perform. Players who hold weddings similarly expect others to make their avatars do the appropriate actions: take a seat to watch the speeches, stand up and applaud at the end of the ceremony, hug and kiss the bride and groom. We witnessed players who did not enter into the spirit of the activity. When that occurred, they were scolded, and in one instance, the host threatened to kick the misbehaving guest out of the house.

Public Conversation Public conversation is the mainstay of entertainment in TSO. Because the game has so few built-in goals, much game time is spent conversing with other players. As a result, conventions regarding conversational subject matter, style, and avatar use emerge. As in many online environments, excessive insults, “shouting,” and overly

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 324 Games and Culture crude language are generally censured in TSO. For example, players who swore in some houses were told, “please don’t swear in this house.” Polite sims follow these requests, and those who do not are sometimes banned from properties. Public talk is talk that can be “overheard” by other players. Not all public conversation is entirely open to all present, however. For instance, a group of players in a house might conduct a conversation in public that ventures on sensitive topics not appropriate for public “ears” but is nevertheless viewable by everyone there. Polite players ignore these public-but-private conversations; those who intrude are often scolded. For example, at a money house, three players who knew each other were exchanging personal stories about physical illnesses that had affected them. When a new player “listening in” on the conversation asked one of players what the specific illness was, his query was ignored. He persisted until he was told by another participant, “maybe she doesn’t want to share that,” then, “leave her alone.” This situation reflects what seems to be a fine line between respecting other people’s conversations and a tacit implication that public chat is, indeed, public. As would be expected in any social context, insults to other players are a delicate matter and sometimes strongly censured. In some cases, friendly insults are exchanged as entertainment, but persistent insults are protested. For example, one particularly belligerent sim entered a house and started to insult another sim with both generic and racially charged insults, including calling the sim “a dumb spick.”6 As their exchange escalated, other visitors gently asked them to stop, and finally one visitor asked the two to leave. Interestingly, the host did not step in with any comments, leaving the admo- nition to guests. Generally, though, the convention is for hosts to handle transgressions with help from supportive visitors. Similarly, polite sims navigate sexual comments very carefully in TSO. For example, in a money house, two sims, a male and a female, were sitting across from each other at a telemarketing table when the male sim started teasing the female sim, demanding that she swear and talk dirty to him. She refused and expressed mild annoyance at his aggressiveness. The homeowner intervened, telling the male sim to “be nice.” After another, more gentle round of teasing, he backed off. When he asked the female sim if she was mad at him, she said that he had been “mean” to her. He then apologized. It was clear he had crossed a line of acceptable behavior in his requests. One of the most egregious transgressions in chat mode is “spamming.” In the TSO context, this unwanted advertising is usually requests for roommates, invitations to contests at other properties, or requests for visitors to come to another property. In one particularly heated example, two male sims at a money house got into a fervent public exchange about accusations of spamming. Reggie Sims, a visitor unknown to the hosts, entered and began to ask if anyone would be his roommate. After several ignored requests for potential roommates, another guest, Soul Spin, shouted, “NO SPAM!”

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Reggie Sims: I’m not spamming, I’m just saying Soul Spin: that’s spam you asshole . . . Soul Spin: fucking newbie Reggie Sims: I’m not a newbie, asshole

This exchange continued for some minutes, escalating to more intense insults. In this example, like the insult exchange mentioned above, the host did not step in to mediate the fight, as in other, similar situations. As players, we found this public display uncomfortable. Similar episodes have elicited private messages from other players to us with comments like, “there [sic] too annoying. why doesn’t the owner just boot them?”7

Avatar Action and Interaction Avatar actions and interactions are a central component of TSO and have three primary functions in the game’s social environment: They allow sims to build stronger social ties to other players, they are entertaining for players, and they allow players to express themselves. Avatars can be used to build and reinforce bonds between players. Alongside text greetings, such as “hi,” “great to see you again,” and “how are you?” players commonly greet friends with avatar hugs and kisses or demonstrate fun moves on each other, such as the bench press, the tango dance, or “worshipping” another sim. Avatar interaction as entertainment is common in TSO and is often in the form of taking turns performing solitary and joint actions to demonstrate sim abilities. Refusing to exchange interactions is frequently taken as a social snub. In general, players talk and flirt with one another, although polite players are careful not to offend. Some sim actions are more intimate than others, such as the “hot kiss,” which involves a rather sexy moment between avatars. Most players, especially those with female sims, find it rude to receive this interaction request from a stranger and will refuse it. For example, a male sim visitor initiated a kiss interaction on a host; she refused, saying, “I don’t kiss on the first date.” After failing in further attempts to kiss other female sims, he left. The host who received the first round of unwanted attention said, “wow, what a jerk.” A visitor agreed, saying “he was trying to pick up in here.” Other interactions, including the slap and eye poke are violent and can even decrease sim health levels. Although many players enjoy engaging in these interactions for entertainment, they require explicit permission from the participant both technically and socially. The norms of interaction govern both the requests and the performance of these behaviors. Avatars are frequently used to shift the meaning of comments, especially when players are interested in getting to know each other better. For example, in a skill house, one sim approached Belladonna after a brief exchange of humorous quips. The interested sim bowed and danced for Bella and followed up his actions with the

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 326 Games and Culture comment, “a bit of fun for the lovely lady?” After Bella responded, “why thank you, sir!” to indicate approval of his actions and comment, he then used the “sexy wiggle” action and commented, “more fun, perhaps?” His sexy action shifted this comment from benign to flirtatious. If he had instead done a coin flip or a vomit action, the “bit of fun” would have had more neutral, less flirtatious connotations. Certain activities have minimal involvement with other sims yet seem to carry their own sets of norms. For example, sims who leave the keyboard while undertaking tedious and static skill building generally announce they are AFK. This notice is especially important from hosts, who frequently are called on for help or services. When players do not place their avatars in convenient locations while AFK, other players will remind them to be more aware, especially if they get in the way of other activities. Sometimes an unattended avatar is conceptually, even if not technically, disruptive. For example, one sim, Chameleon, forgot about her avatar when she left the keyboard. Her sim was placed behind others so that she seemed to be standing over them, “watching.” When the player realized her sim was making others uncomfortable, she apologized and said she did not realize she was “just standing over [them].” One of the most provocative offenses is to steal the result of another sim’s work on a solitary job object. After spending the 7 or so real-time minutes necessary to complete a money-earning job task—for example, solving a logic problem on the chalkboard—some sims forget to select “sell solution” to receive their earnings. It is then possible for another avatar to “sell the solution” and receive the payout. Other sims and especially hosts admonish, “Guys, please do not take boards that is [sic] not yours if we do not say you may.” Use of avatars to indicate participation and group membership is also common in TSO. For example, one house held a dance party in which guests were expected to wear togas. Those who were in other types of clothing were asked, “where’s your toga!!!” Similarly, contests often require participants to change clothes, wear a hat, or stand in a certain area of the house. Those who do not conform are frequently excluded from the contest or receive annoyed comments from other participants. Norms of avatar costuming frequently emerge spontaneously and are an important way many players add interest to the game. If sims do not fully engage with the game, contest, or activity in the way it is designed, they are considered new and ignorant at best or disruptive troublemakers at worst.

Discussion

Behavior in TSO is largely governed by norms that emerge through player interaction. In our observations of TSO, we both felt as actors and observed as researchers that certain norms dictate appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Through our research, we found consistent norms regarding hosting, house visiting, group projects, public conversation, and avatar use. Unlike the guilds of World of Warcraft (Chen,

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2005; Williams et al., 2006), TSO’s houses do not have distinct cultures and norms associated with them among which players choose. Instead, many of the norms we observed seemed to arise out of the environment that structures the game play and through the interaction with other players and their avatars more globally. These norms are seen in “appropriate” avatar behavior as well as conversational interaction. As the research on text-based interaction online suggests (Baym, 1998), normative behavior should be expected. Thus, the question became, What kinds of norms are present and why might they have emerged in this environment? We offer two classifications of norms in TSO: expectations of politeness and appropriate behavior for visitors and hosts in sim houses. We explore why these observations might exist, offering these explanations: (a) The metaphor of the “house” shapes players’ sense of appropriate behavior that parallels offline behavior in a home, and (b) politeness is expected in both conversation and avatar use to facilitate comfortable interaction with strangers and friends. Such politeness is communicated both linguistically and through the use of avatars and is influenced by the environment of TSO.

The House Metaphor as Organizing Principle Building on the notions of politeness discussed earlier, we suggest that the game’s house environment provides a conceptual dimension that shapes norms. Pankoke- Babatz and Jeffrey (2002) argue that context shapes the specifics of local norms online. Similarly, the home as the center of activity in TSO shapes the nature of sim interaction in part because, in this dollhouse-like game, the house is the principle mechanism players have to demonstrate success and is the only place avatars can interact with each other. Not only are the norms of behavior structurally and practically shaped by the digital house of game play, but the house also creates a metaphorical space in which players use offline notions of expected behavior to guide their actions as hosts and visitors. The structure of the “home” creates a symbolic context that encourages players to treat the virtual home like a real one. These findings support previous research that has demonstrated relationships between conceptual context and norms online (Becker & Mark, 2002; Yee et al., 2007). The norms players follow as they move through TSO homes reflect a pride and respect similar to that expected in real-world homes. For example, norms regarding entering and exiting a house encourage players to greet each other and to thank hospitable behavior, as in a real-world home. Making a mess in someone else’s home is considered rude, just as it would be in a real home, and homeowners feel an oblig- ation to provide visiting players with food and entertainment. Indeed, players will frequently invoke the concept of the house in reinforcing norms by noting, “this is someone’s home,” “not in my house,” or “[say] please in this house.” The metaphor of the house in TSO influences players’ sense of what is and is not appropriate. Players invest considerable game resources in the development of expen- sive homes and furnishings, and most home residents demonstrate strong devotion to

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 328 Games and Culture their dwellings. When they receive guests, they do more than maintain a space for game play; they welcome others into a space they have designed and built, where they live and work. This investment contributes to the game space as a cultural “place” that guides social understandings of its use (Harrison & Dourish, 1996).

Politeness as Behavior Standard An important part of what governs players’ conceptions of the norms of behavior in TSO is the notion of politeness. Players frequently include comments in their property and sim descriptions, for example, indicating that rudeness is not tolerated. Unacceptable behavior is often censured with complaints of “that’s rude.” In TSO, players use both textual channels and avatars to establish, maintain, or violate politeness. The additional dimension of avatar flexibility shifts politeness from a text-only set of mores to one that applies to both text and avatar behavior. TSO thus creates a special context in which social connections and mores develop. Nevertheless, players seem to use offline standards of politeness to determine which behavior fits or counters these norms. New players can integrate themselves fairly easily into these environments by drawing on notions of politeness from offline environments, particularly ones that apply to visiting and hosting in a home. Players both speak and use their avatars in ways that respect others and the environment in which they are interacting. The notion of polite behavior among sims is reinforced largely with praise and somewhat with condemnation. Sanctioning is done both linguistically, through text-based interaction, and with avatars, although the latter is less common. When sims act in ways that fit with notions of politeness prevalent in the game, players will praise and thank in chat as well as use their sims to add visual appreciation in the form of sim actions and interactions. Censure is almost exclusively textual, however. When sims act contrary to these norms they are (usually) gently scolded. If the behavior does not cease, the scolding language is often intensified and multiplied by additional players. Only rarely will players use their sims to censure with a “slap” or by moving the sim away from an interaction. Part of the reason for minimal use of avatars for censure may be the structural characteristics of the game environment. Most players’ avatars are constantly engaged in some activity (building skills, eating, making money). For one avatar to act on another avatar (e.g., one sim slapping another), the recipient must accept the act. It costs time and energy to disengage a sim from building lawn gnomes, walk over to an annoying sim, ask to slap the sim, and have the slap rejected. It is much easier to use the public chat function to tell a player to stop problematic behavior. The avatar environment opens up the possibility for multidimensional interaction, but it is used more commonly for self-expression than player censure. An important exception to this is cen- suring the actual avatar by removing or banning it from the house. Avatars do play a role in politeness, however. We suggest that the predominantly human-looking avatars shape norms of politeness, because players interacting with such avatars are visually reminded that there are other human players “behind” the

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 Martey, Stromer-Galley / The Digital Dollhouse 329 avatar, as has been suggested elsewhere (B. Brown & Bell, 2004). As noted earlier, research suggests that players bring online their norm expectations established in offline environments, and one norm for social interaction is politeness. In TSO, rules of politeness incorporate both conversation and avatar use. Thus both intrusive avatar use and intrusive language are considered rude. These findings support previous research that suggests that offline bodily norms apply in avatar spaces (Jeffrey & Mark, 2003; Yee et al., 2007). We do not investigate gender explicitly in this analysis, but it is important to note that the somewhat feminized norms of politeness we observed in TSO correlate with other research on politeness and gender online (Herring, 1994). Although some theorize that gender roles are weakened in online interaction (Michaelson & Pohl, 2001), we observed gender role alignment, especially in norms of politeness, that was quite strong, as SIDE theory would predict. Our findings support other research that suggests that the house environment, large numbers of women, and doll-like characteristics of the avatars of TSO contribute to a more feminized social environment (Beavis & Charles, 2005; Flanagan, 2003; Kline, Dyer-Witheford, & De Peuter, 2003). Importantly, we do not examine gender switching in TSO, although in our experience as players, we encountered very little. Gender is, however, an explicit aspect of the game: Players must actively select male or female avatars. These representations of the gendered body seem to contribute to the social context of politeness norms and deserve more careful study. The interaction in TSO looks very much like polite interaction offline. Why might this similarity be so strong? Many online communities develop their own, unique standards of appropriate and inappropriate behavior (see Erickson, 1999; Herring, 1994; Suler, 2002). Our research suggests that for players of TSO, politeness emerges as a mechanism to facilitate interaction and save face, particularly in the presence of strangers. In a given house, there are usually several players who have never met before. To navigate rooms full of strangers and fulfill game goals—making money, building skills, and maintaining health—players must grasp the prevalent norms quickly. Our analysis suggests that politeness is a strong guiding principle in TSO both because of its clear and easily understood relation to politeness in offline contexts and because it is a good way for players to maintain a positive social image and self-esteem (Goffman, 1967). Polite players seem to make friends more easily; with TSO’s minimal built-in goals, building social ties with other players is one of the driving motivators of game play.

Conclusion

The MMOG is a rich social environment where the use of text chat and avatar interaction allow for a broad range of player behavior. The game’s minimal rules and goals allow players to have considerable influence over the social and gaming

Downloaded from http://gac.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on June 1, 2009 330 Games and Culture environment. The dollhouse-like context of TSO, with extensive avatar control and open chat space, encourages the development of player-generated activities, events, and standards. Our research found that the norms that arise in TSO game play follow offline standards of politeness quite closely and that these norms are influenced by the structural and metaphorical impact of the house as game environment and the presence of human-like avatars as characters. The use of a digital “body” in game play both broadens and constrains acceptable and unacceptable activities in TSO. Behavior that counters standards of politeness or common offline hosting and visiting mores is often censured, and polite characters are often more successful. Although game characteristics certainly influence the shape of these norms, they exist independently from game goals or structures. Although this research can draw no definitive conclusions about the relationship between TSO’s norms and offline norms, the patterns of behavior we observed are clearly similar to offline standards. Especially those norms that contribute to smooth social interaction among strangers are suggestive of stereotypical norms of American suburban life. For us as players and as researchers, the familiar patterns of politeness of our offline (White, middle-class, suburban, feminine) cultures provided easily accessed templates for our behavior in TSO. As similar to offline norms the standards in TSO may be, interacting and com- municating in a digital visual environment is fundamentally distinct. Most important, the programmed structure of the game creates unique barriers to action and interaction: Only certain predesigned actions, such as a disco dance or “sweet kiss,” are possible; explicit permission is required to interact with another avatar; guests cannot affect the structure of a house. This analysis sought to understand how players developed norms within those limitations, and it suggests that the programmed structures of the home and human-like avatars contribute to the transformation of this digital space into a powerful social place that shapes visitor behavior, as Harrison and Dourish (1996) suggest. Considered in the larger context of digital social interaction, the nuanced avatar use in TSO leads us to consider new ways to connect and communicate with others. Introducing a virtual body into online social interaction as in TSO opens up a broad range of behavior that can lead to the development of norms and standards for both text and avatar actions. Although that game was not highly successful (C. Taylor, 2003), the rise of digital social spaces such as Second Life have emphasized the importance of avatar use online. As that world populated by avatars increasingly attracts individuals (topping 9 million at this writing) as well as offline businesses such as IBM, Sears, and even the news service Reuters, the possibilities for visual as well as textual interaction online will also increase. If avatar use were widespread in other online contexts, would these kinds of norms cut across various online spaces, or would they develop independently? Would avatars increase users’ sense of connection with others online, or simply enrich their existing range of available self-expression?

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Does the use of avatars encourage the reproduction of offline social divisions and restrictions based on gender, race, class, and sexuality? We maintain that development and maintenance of norms in visual digital spaces will be an important aspect of understanding future social interaction online.

Notes

1. In The Sims Online (TSO), there are several nonhuman avatar choices that do not indicate gender, including a bear and a robot. However, non-human avatars were extremely rare; we did not encounter any regular players using them in the houses we visited. 2. Although gender switching has been documented in online communities (see, for example, Roberts & Parks, 1999), we do not examine that here. We did not ask players questions about their offline gender and therefore base our analysis on depicted gender of avatars. However, in our experience as players, we encountered very little gender switching in TSO. 3. In particular, we did not examine norms or behavior regarding “cheating” in the game, such as hacking or cracking. 4. To protect the identity of players, names of players’ sims have been changed. 5. We were able to witness only public sanctioning, although we learned through an interview with a player that some hosts prefer to sanction inappropriate behavior privately. 6. There was nothing about the insulted sim that indicated he was Latino, but the insulting sim used this and many other racist insults during the argument. 7. “Booting” guests is kicking out a sim from a property, a prerogative only property residents have.

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Rosa Mikeal Martey is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Technical Communication at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on: online information seeking and its social and economic impact, gender and new media technologies, social constructions of identity and media, and the social implications of graphical online interaction environments.

Jennifer Stromer-Galley is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Her research interests include the uses of communication technology and its implications for democratic practice, mediated political campaign communication, and the social implications of three-dimensional online interaction environments. Her current research investigates the process and content of political deliberations. Recent publications can be found in Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and PS: Political Science and Politics.

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