World Builders A Study on the Development of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Peter Zackariasson Umeå University 2007 World Builders: A Study on the Development of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role- Playing Game Studies in Business Administration, B-series, No 62 ISSN 0346-8291 ISBN 978-91-7264-250-8 Print: Print & Media, Umeå University 2007:2002662 © Peter Zackariasson, 2007 (www.zackariasson.com) Doctoral thesis at Umeå School of Business Umeå University SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden Peter Zackariasson Organization Document type Author Umeå School of Business Doctoral dissertation Peter Zackariasson Umeå University www.zackariasson.com Date of dissertation SE-901 87 Umeå June 5, 2007 Sweden ISSN 0346-8291 ISBN 978-91-7264-250-8 Title World Builders: A Study on the Development of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role- Playing Game Abstract This dissertation is a study of the development of a video game called Anarchy Online. This game was developed by the Funcom company between 1995 and 2001, and is a so-called Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). This genre of video games differs from traditional games in that it offers a persistent virtual world that gamers can access at all hours of the night or day. It is also a world where gamers make avatars that play with or against each other. All in all, it is as much a social sphere as a game. The popularity of MMORGPGs has continued to increase, and today there are several million gamers worldwide who participate in these virtual worlds. Because virtual worlds are places where many people socialize, play, and spend a great deal of time, there is a need to form an understanding of them. In this thesis, I am studying how Anarchy Online was produced in order to understand the assumptions behind the rules governing the interaction in this specific virtual world were selected and organized. In doing so, I am using material from two sources: the developers and the game itself. This material was gathered through interviews, documents, and virtual ethnographic observations. Ultimately, games consist of codes; but in order to program the code, they need to be specified by a game content. The analysis shows that the content of the game is defined by the developers’ view of a good society – the belief in a human being’s need for self-actualization and social interaction. The thesis thus concludes with the observation that the need to select the discourses and/or philosophies for content and possible gamers’ actions requires the development of games and virtual worlds such as Anarchy Online to be more than the creation of an entertaining product. Rather, discourses were recreated from the physical world in which the developers live. In the end, gamers are locked into a discoursive prison created by the developers. Keywords Organizing, video game, development, massively multiplayer online role-playing game, virtual world • Acknowledgements In the courtyard of the oldest university in Vietnam, the Temple of Literature in Hanoi, there are 82 stone tablets. Each tablet is mounted on the back of a stone tortoise. On these tablets the graduate students made their wisdom available to the world. Forever engraved in stone, their words are there for generations of readers to witness and contemplate. Here is my thesis. Where is my turtle? In writing this thesis, I am indebted to my two supervisors, Professor Anders Söderholm and Associate Professor Nils Wåhlin, for constantly challenging me to think further and to confront my beliefs and assumptions during the production of this text. Like the Yin and Yang of academia, one constantly striving forward, the other challenging the present. Professor Tim Wilson has also been a major source of knowledge and inspiration during this work, as teacher, colleague, mentor, and the co-author of several journal articles. Without Tim, my academic life would, without a doubt, have been more unproductive, invisible, and dull. I would like to thank those who provided comments on early drafts of this text, especially Erik Piñeiro and Jessica Ericsson, who were the discussants at the official manuscript seminar; Eva Gustavsson, a true lifesaver, for providing me with invaluable help and support in the last revision; T.L. Taylor, who was kind enough to lend me her invaluable knowledge and to point out some possible ways I could improve the text; Nina Colwill for guiding me through the structures of the English language and ensure that this text lives up to her standard of a good text; and Jessica Enevold for language editing an earlier version of this thesis. I am honored that you all have invested time in this thesis. Academic life is also a writing life, and I have had the advantage of authoring some articles with a number of highly competent people who also have taught me the ins and out of publishing: Tim Wilson, Gert-Olof Boström, Tomas Blomquist, Alexander Styhre, Eva Gustavsson, Martin Walfisz, and Henrik Linderoth. Thank you all for sticking out the sometimes frustrating process of having me as a co-writer. Working with you all has, I believe, had an impact on this text. I am indebted to Umeå School of Business for making it possible for me to write this thesis, for not demanding my constant physical presence at the department and to Gothenburg Research Institute where I have been graciously provided with a home away from home, an inspiring and challenging environment indeed. I am also deeply gratetful for the generous access granted to me by the organization I studied, Funcom a/s in Oslo Norway. It was truly an amazing experience! Never before have I come across an environment that was so welcoming to researchers. Thank you! Last, but not least, this thesis would not have existed without the support from my family, my lovely wife, Ann-Christin, and my two daughters, Sofie and Amelie. Thank you for always believing in me, putting up with my annoying and disruptive ways, and keeping my passion somewhat under control. Peter Zackariasson Gothenburg, 25 April 2007 • CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. VIDEO GAMES 17 3. METHOD 39 4. EMPIRICAL 1.0 57 5. EMPIRICAL 2.0 97 6. ANALYSIS 125 7. DISCUSSION 157 GLOSSARY 167 REFERENCES 171 • 1 INTRODUCTION In 2001, the Norwegian video game developer, Funcom, launched a video game called Anarchy Online. This was a game belonging to the genre, Massively Multiplayer Online Role- Playing Game (MMORPG) that had been introduced onto the gaming market in the second half of the 1990s. The popularity of this genre seemed to increase with each new launch. Its novelty was the huge number of gamers who were able to coexist in the same game, in the same virtual world, where all the action was taking place. Indeed, many of us gamers would come to spend countless hours in Anarchy Online. It was in no way a Utopian world that the developers offered us, but a construct of something that was meant to be fun and immersive. They developed and provided a video game, and we were playing it. On a grassy plain in the northern parts of Rubi-Ka, the Enforcer was leaning over a lifeless body. The motionless body on the ground was that of the Trash King, mighty and vicious in life. Now, as a result of its mortifying defeat and the Enforcer’s victory, it was a pile of metal scrap. With his heart still racing from the recent battle, the Enforcer searched the body and found what he had been looking for: the The Trash King, screenshot Communication Rack! It was for this item from Anarchy Online that the battle had been raging; for this sole purpose that the Enforcer had spent hour after hour on that otherwise deserted plain. Over and over, the warrior had been trying to kill the Trash King. Many times it had resulted in his own death, but now, finally, victory. Thrilled by his success and laughing to himself, the Enforcer announced to his guild, the Nordic Alliance, over its channel, “omg! 1 I owned TK!!”1 The replies were instantaneous and numerous; a legion of abbreviations – “gratz”2, “gz:)”3, “gj”4 – quickly filled the small chat window, which continued to scroll up with an even speed as the congratulations rolled in. Strengthened by the support of his Nordic Alliance brethren, the Enforcer related the gruesome details of the long, drawn-out killing of the Trash King. The painstaking defeats, the tedious waiting for spawns5 and, finally, the ultimate victory, when, with only a fraction of health left on his health-bar, he got the King down on his knees. The time had come to finish what he had started, the mission must be completed. He equipped his Yalhama 29480, his private plane that would take him to Dodga Demercel, a man located on top of the Rising Sun, southeast of the City of Old Athen. With the Shoulder Pads for the Veracious, which he received as a reward for returning successfully from this mission, he would stand out in the crowds when walking around in the cities of Rubi-Ka. He had distinguished • himself as one of the few to have undertaken the agonizing effort required for this mission, one of the few to have completed it – “hopefully awed by most”, he said to himself, and grinned. By introducing the game, Anarchy Online, and its virtual world, Rubi-Ka, Funcom presented a setting with a number of specific relationships among the people that inhabited it. The lure of the game was dominated by war and conflict, and most actions had the pragmatic purpose of making the gamer be and feel like a strong, mean and forceful killer.