- Joined
- Mar 8, 2005
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- 94
(Because Qcdn.org wants me to post stuff...) Sharing a scholarly article, sadly, I quit the game after I read this (and other articles, such as Nick Yee's project) and the sources they used to write it.
In the world of online games where players from several regions of the globe can interact with each other, real life social problems still take a toll on the virtual world. Racism being the biggest problem, followed by classes struggle still occurs in the virtual world. How can humans solve these social problems in the real world without being able to cope with them in virtual worlds? I believe that using the virtual worlds of MMORPG to study society in the virtual world is the first step to solve real world social problems.
There are many MMORPG, an acronym for massive multiplayer online role-playing game such as World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Final Fantasy XI. Players from different continents such as Asian and North America can interact with each other in these games, attempt missions as a group or even battle enemies as a group. Being a FFXI player for almost a year myself, it is obvious to notice these virtual worlds have as many social problems as the real world. At times, the problems seem worse than their real world counterparts. Due to my familiarity with this FFXI as an online game, I will explore racism, class struggles, and other social problems in Vana’diel, the world in which this game takes place and suggest solutions to these problems.
Due to the fact that virtual worlds are similar to their real world counterparts, there are many psychologists, sociologists, and economists studying virtual worlds. “Interactive online games for more than two players or multiplayer online games have become a popular object of investigation ever since social and cultural sciences began studying the Internet.” 2 Since gamers can choose to be anything or even any gender they want in the virtual world, social interactions in the virtual world are unique. Nick Yee studies the psychology and sociology of these virtual worlds and the players that make up the virtual worlds. In Yee’s large study name the Daedalus Project, he discovered that many players joined MMORPG to escape the social problems of the real world. Instead, the players are greeted with social problems of the virtual world, no different from the real world. “It is easy to think of the fantasy worlds offered by MMORPGs to be an escape from real world constraints, prejudices, and stereotypes. The problem is that the more we look, the more we find that many of our real world constraints and stereotypes follow us into MMORPGs.” 1
The most popular study is the class struggle between male and female players. Male players will often harass female players, or even male players playing female characters in the virtual world. As a player in an MMORPG myself, it is amusing to see how far a male player will go to save my character during battles or even give gold and items. A male player that Yee interviewed stated that, ”the funniest experiment about not being me was to play a female character. Strange how players were nice with me. They start conversations without reasons, gave me items, money or time. Some even died to save me. I guess a lot of MMORPG players are single men, that's why.” 1 When a female character asks for help in the linkshell, a group chatting room, they get answers really quick. When a male character asks for help, he usually gets crickets. Do females really have the upper hand in MMORPGs by these standards though? In the real world, a woman earns about 75 cents on a man’s dollar. Yee studies that male characters, if sold on online auctions such as eBay, are worth more than female characters with the exact same equipment and statistics. So, female characters in virtual worlds still run into the same problems the females in real world encounter. Male players mock the stereotype that all females cannot play video games. It is not necessarily that you earn less than a male player in the virtual world, but most male players will believe that a female player accomplishes far less in the virtual world. A male playing a female character in another popular online game Everquest stated that, “I never realized how irritating it can be to have to put up with unwanted advances.” 1 These “unwanted advances” are common when male characters harass female characters constantly sending in game tells or sending virtual gifts. I believe that MMORPG is a solution to educating males in the real world about problems that females encounter. Due to the fact that they can somewhat step into the shoes of a female in these virtual worlds.
There are already female versus male tensions in online MMORPG societies. Yet, another social problem of racism also plagues the virtual world. The nature of online games is hooking people up from all over the world to engage in adventures or battles together. The main demographic of people playing Final Fantasy XI speak Japanese or English. Of course, there are a small majority of European and Chinese players, but they all speak English ranging from a little to being fluent. From playing FFXI for almost a year, the game involves grouping together with other people and killing monsters for experience points, thus making your character stronger. In the comments of many Japanese players, it is common to find “JP ONLY”. In the comments of many English-speaking players, I find “NA/EU/JP”, which means they do not care who they are grouped with. FFXI is a unique game offering an auto-translation system to allowing communication between Japanese and English speaking players. It is a shame a system created by the programmers has gone to a waste because a majority of Japanese speaking players do not bother to reply to in-game tells using the auto-translate function.
The tension of racism between non-English and English speaking players is more heightened in the virtual world than in the real world. An English-speaking player that Yee interviewed stated her frustration with the discrimination on Everquest, “I'm an American living in Japan, and because of the time zone differences, my husband and I belong to a big Asian guild in EQ. As a result, I've experienced some really nasty, prejudiced reactions from people who see my guild tag and assume I can't speak English. There are a lot of very negative attitudes about Asian guilds in English-speaking countries--most of them based simply on stereotypes and ignorance. Participating on EQ message boards and communities, I have often ended up very embarrassed at how rude and thoughtless Americans can be.” 1
The “guild” in Everquest is the same as “linkshell” in FFXI, it is a group that a player is part of in the virtual world somewhat similar to clubs in the real world. By equipping a certain linkshell or guild tag, other players will automatically stereotype you no matter what language you speak. Other players will stereotype you to what language the majority of your linkshell or guild are. It is very rare to see a mixed language linkshell in FFXI due to the racism between English and non-English speaking players.
The solution to solve racism in the real world and virtual world is still out of reach, but understanding each others cultures is the first step in solving this problem. FFXI itself disables the function to type Japanese on the North American version of the game, thus furthering separating the gap between English and non-English speaking players. So a solution to solve the imbalance in the virtual world of FFXI is to open up the Japanese typing function in the North American version and include a booklet about Japanese culture and language. Also include a booklet about American culture and language in the Japanese version of the game.
Despite the fact that Japanese players do not want to team up with English speaking players, the game still continues and players of both languages are still able to accomplish missions and quests in the game. The Conflict Theory plays a large role in MMORPGs because the nature of the game is competition and the question of who is the best. As stated from the Inside Sociology book, the nature of society in the view of a conflict theorist is a set of competing interest groups with a social foundation based on power or conflict. The economy does not collapse because of a language barrier. This works because the conflict theorists believe that, “society is held together in spite of conflicting interests.” 3 Many Japanese players can speak English despite their broken grammar and many English players know a few phrases of broken Japanese. “Society persists because no one conflict can become so great as to tear the society apart.” 3 The language barrier is large, but it is not large enough to cause a rip in FFXI game play.
Another part of conflict theory is a society based on power. FFXI was released in Japan for a year before its release to America. Perhaps the Japanese thought since they had one more year of experience, they were in a sense “better” and wish to remain better than American players who started a year later. “Racism is defined as meaning the predication of decisions and policies on considerations of race for the purpose of subordinating a racial group and maintaining control over that group.” 4 This is the grounds for in-game racism with Japanese players calling American player’s “gaijin”, a slang term for foreigner that is as bad as “******” in the states. Then we have American players using the World War II term, “japs”. All this is caused by the power struggle between Japanese and English speaking players.
Within the different racial groups, there is even more power struggle and gender roles between male and female players. Similar to the real world, male characters in the virtual world of FFXI tend to play the role of “Paladin”, a job that can be closely related to a knight in shining armor. The job class of “Paladin” is strong and dominant. Female characters tend to play “Mages”, this job class is weak against the physical attack of monsters and can not fend for themselves. The “Mages” class can be closely related with nurses in the real world. The male players feel that they have a gender role of protecting the female players, thus a majority play the “Paladin” job class. The female players feel they have a gender role of supporting the male players, this a majority play the “Mages” job class. Gender roles are existent in the virtual world and the real world.
With all these problems and solutions, MMORPG proves to be a very important study in the social problems field. All the real world problems exist in the virtual world of Vana’diel. Most attempts at trying to solve the social problems in FFXI end in scoffing from other players. It is amazing how the real world and virtual world are so similar, yet it is easier to analyze social problems and find the solutions to social problems in MMORPG due to the fact that the span of MMORPG is smaller. Before attempting to solve real world problems, we must use MMORPG as a framework and our guide.
Sources
1. Yee, Nick. "The Daedulus Project." The Transfer of Prejudice and Stereotypes 2005 07 August 2006
<http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000894.php>.
2. Kolo, Castulus. "Living in a Virtual Life." Social Dynamis of Online Gaming 2004 07 August 2006
<http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/kolo/>.
3. Hughes, Michael. Inside Sociology. New York: McGraw Hill, 2007.
4. "Racism." Wikipedia. 7 Aug 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism>.
Thanks for your time and patience.
In the world of online games where players from several regions of the globe can interact with each other, real life social problems still take a toll on the virtual world. Racism being the biggest problem, followed by classes struggle still occurs in the virtual world. How can humans solve these social problems in the real world without being able to cope with them in virtual worlds? I believe that using the virtual worlds of MMORPG to study society in the virtual world is the first step to solve real world social problems.
There are many MMORPG, an acronym for massive multiplayer online role-playing game such as World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Final Fantasy XI. Players from different continents such as Asian and North America can interact with each other in these games, attempt missions as a group or even battle enemies as a group. Being a FFXI player for almost a year myself, it is obvious to notice these virtual worlds have as many social problems as the real world. At times, the problems seem worse than their real world counterparts. Due to my familiarity with this FFXI as an online game, I will explore racism, class struggles, and other social problems in Vana’diel, the world in which this game takes place and suggest solutions to these problems.
Due to the fact that virtual worlds are similar to their real world counterparts, there are many psychologists, sociologists, and economists studying virtual worlds. “Interactive online games for more than two players or multiplayer online games have become a popular object of investigation ever since social and cultural sciences began studying the Internet.” 2 Since gamers can choose to be anything or even any gender they want in the virtual world, social interactions in the virtual world are unique. Nick Yee studies the psychology and sociology of these virtual worlds and the players that make up the virtual worlds. In Yee’s large study name the Daedalus Project, he discovered that many players joined MMORPG to escape the social problems of the real world. Instead, the players are greeted with social problems of the virtual world, no different from the real world. “It is easy to think of the fantasy worlds offered by MMORPGs to be an escape from real world constraints, prejudices, and stereotypes. The problem is that the more we look, the more we find that many of our real world constraints and stereotypes follow us into MMORPGs.” 1
The most popular study is the class struggle between male and female players. Male players will often harass female players, or even male players playing female characters in the virtual world. As a player in an MMORPG myself, it is amusing to see how far a male player will go to save my character during battles or even give gold and items. A male player that Yee interviewed stated that, ”the funniest experiment about not being me was to play a female character. Strange how players were nice with me. They start conversations without reasons, gave me items, money or time. Some even died to save me. I guess a lot of MMORPG players are single men, that's why.” 1 When a female character asks for help in the linkshell, a group chatting room, they get answers really quick. When a male character asks for help, he usually gets crickets. Do females really have the upper hand in MMORPGs by these standards though? In the real world, a woman earns about 75 cents on a man’s dollar. Yee studies that male characters, if sold on online auctions such as eBay, are worth more than female characters with the exact same equipment and statistics. So, female characters in virtual worlds still run into the same problems the females in real world encounter. Male players mock the stereotype that all females cannot play video games. It is not necessarily that you earn less than a male player in the virtual world, but most male players will believe that a female player accomplishes far less in the virtual world. A male playing a female character in another popular online game Everquest stated that, “I never realized how irritating it can be to have to put up with unwanted advances.” 1 These “unwanted advances” are common when male characters harass female characters constantly sending in game tells or sending virtual gifts. I believe that MMORPG is a solution to educating males in the real world about problems that females encounter. Due to the fact that they can somewhat step into the shoes of a female in these virtual worlds.
There are already female versus male tensions in online MMORPG societies. Yet, another social problem of racism also plagues the virtual world. The nature of online games is hooking people up from all over the world to engage in adventures or battles together. The main demographic of people playing Final Fantasy XI speak Japanese or English. Of course, there are a small majority of European and Chinese players, but they all speak English ranging from a little to being fluent. From playing FFXI for almost a year, the game involves grouping together with other people and killing monsters for experience points, thus making your character stronger. In the comments of many Japanese players, it is common to find “JP ONLY”. In the comments of many English-speaking players, I find “NA/EU/JP”, which means they do not care who they are grouped with. FFXI is a unique game offering an auto-translation system to allowing communication between Japanese and English speaking players. It is a shame a system created by the programmers has gone to a waste because a majority of Japanese speaking players do not bother to reply to in-game tells using the auto-translate function.
The tension of racism between non-English and English speaking players is more heightened in the virtual world than in the real world. An English-speaking player that Yee interviewed stated her frustration with the discrimination on Everquest, “I'm an American living in Japan, and because of the time zone differences, my husband and I belong to a big Asian guild in EQ. As a result, I've experienced some really nasty, prejudiced reactions from people who see my guild tag and assume I can't speak English. There are a lot of very negative attitudes about Asian guilds in English-speaking countries--most of them based simply on stereotypes and ignorance. Participating on EQ message boards and communities, I have often ended up very embarrassed at how rude and thoughtless Americans can be.” 1
The “guild” in Everquest is the same as “linkshell” in FFXI, it is a group that a player is part of in the virtual world somewhat similar to clubs in the real world. By equipping a certain linkshell or guild tag, other players will automatically stereotype you no matter what language you speak. Other players will stereotype you to what language the majority of your linkshell or guild are. It is very rare to see a mixed language linkshell in FFXI due to the racism between English and non-English speaking players.
The solution to solve racism in the real world and virtual world is still out of reach, but understanding each others cultures is the first step in solving this problem. FFXI itself disables the function to type Japanese on the North American version of the game, thus furthering separating the gap between English and non-English speaking players. So a solution to solve the imbalance in the virtual world of FFXI is to open up the Japanese typing function in the North American version and include a booklet about Japanese culture and language. Also include a booklet about American culture and language in the Japanese version of the game.
Despite the fact that Japanese players do not want to team up with English speaking players, the game still continues and players of both languages are still able to accomplish missions and quests in the game. The Conflict Theory plays a large role in MMORPGs because the nature of the game is competition and the question of who is the best. As stated from the Inside Sociology book, the nature of society in the view of a conflict theorist is a set of competing interest groups with a social foundation based on power or conflict. The economy does not collapse because of a language barrier. This works because the conflict theorists believe that, “society is held together in spite of conflicting interests.” 3 Many Japanese players can speak English despite their broken grammar and many English players know a few phrases of broken Japanese. “Society persists because no one conflict can become so great as to tear the society apart.” 3 The language barrier is large, but it is not large enough to cause a rip in FFXI game play.
Another part of conflict theory is a society based on power. FFXI was released in Japan for a year before its release to America. Perhaps the Japanese thought since they had one more year of experience, they were in a sense “better” and wish to remain better than American players who started a year later. “Racism is defined as meaning the predication of decisions and policies on considerations of race for the purpose of subordinating a racial group and maintaining control over that group.” 4 This is the grounds for in-game racism with Japanese players calling American player’s “gaijin”, a slang term for foreigner that is as bad as “******” in the states. Then we have American players using the World War II term, “japs”. All this is caused by the power struggle between Japanese and English speaking players.
Within the different racial groups, there is even more power struggle and gender roles between male and female players. Similar to the real world, male characters in the virtual world of FFXI tend to play the role of “Paladin”, a job that can be closely related to a knight in shining armor. The job class of “Paladin” is strong and dominant. Female characters tend to play “Mages”, this job class is weak against the physical attack of monsters and can not fend for themselves. The “Mages” class can be closely related with nurses in the real world. The male players feel that they have a gender role of protecting the female players, thus a majority play the “Paladin” job class. The female players feel they have a gender role of supporting the male players, this a majority play the “Mages” job class. Gender roles are existent in the virtual world and the real world.
With all these problems and solutions, MMORPG proves to be a very important study in the social problems field. All the real world problems exist in the virtual world of Vana’diel. Most attempts at trying to solve the social problems in FFXI end in scoffing from other players. It is amazing how the real world and virtual world are so similar, yet it is easier to analyze social problems and find the solutions to social problems in MMORPG due to the fact that the span of MMORPG is smaller. Before attempting to solve real world problems, we must use MMORPG as a framework and our guide.
Sources
1. Yee, Nick. "The Daedulus Project." The Transfer of Prejudice and Stereotypes 2005 07 August 2006
<http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000894.php>.
2. Kolo, Castulus. "Living in a Virtual Life." Social Dynamis of Online Gaming 2004 07 August 2006
<http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/kolo/>.
3. Hughes, Michael. Inside Sociology. New York: McGraw Hill, 2007.
4. "Racism." Wikipedia. 7 Aug 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism>.
Thanks for your time and patience.
