World of Twittercraft: Social Media are MMORPGs

Posted: February 2nd, 2009 | Author: Panos Karageorgakis | Filed under: Culture, Web | Tags: Internet, MMORPG, Social Media, Twitter, WoW | No Comments »

I haven’t been a hardcore gamer in my life, except for manically trying to finish the Monkey Island series when I was younger and perhaps the short burst I had with Grand Theft Auto, but I don’t usually play games. I did, however, indulge into trying out World of Warcraft (WoW) which led to some serious time-wasting that could almost be classified as an addiction.

Having played WoW for almost a year before quitting and indulging into social media lately, I can’t help but witness the similarities between the two (of course this applies to almost all MMORPGs, but I’m referring to WoW since it’s the only one I’ve ever used).

A whole new world

World of Warcraft is actually the MMORPG version of the game Warcraft, and Blizzard (the company that created it) did a very nice job in creating a massive and diverse universe for its players. The world is quite big, spanning continents with dozens of areas, each being special in its own way. It’s not so trivial to explore all the different lands in the game since the world is just too big.

Social media, on the other hand, don’t have the equivalent of space – there is no such thing as a “world”. However, explorations are not at all absent, since there are many different “areas” that users can explore. For example, Facebook sports applications as well as groups, and even browsing all of them could possibly take years. There’s something new to explore, and there are even applications (games) on Facebook that are plain versions of MMORPG’s (e.g. Mob Wars).

A parallel universe

Even though scientists have yet to decide upon a commonly accepted universal theory about the nature of our universe, it’s pretty safe to say that we (at least physically) appear to be living in the same universe with each other. However, our players in WoW are living in their own universe. It doesn’t really matter if that universe exists only inside Blizzard’s servers, it’s still a valid universe with its own space-time and its own laws. It is a parallel universe to ours, albeit in a Matrix-like fashion (maintained by computers).

Who’s to claim that the Internet isn’t a parallel universe as well? We all know we can go “online”, but where is that online space? Your online identity exists not in the real world (there you have your “actual” identity) but in the Internet world. You can log in anytime to this world and interact with it. You “peek” into this universe every time you launch your favorite Twitter browser, so you can interact with other “online” versions of actual people (or even robots – bots). You enter it every time you’re on Facebook, and in a more direct way when you log into the 3D virtual world of Second Life.

Be it newsgroups, Twitter, Facebook, Second Life, WoW or even the web, the Internet is a parallel universe created and maintained by humans with the aid of machines. Each one of us has their own (possibly multiple) identity in each of such worlds.

Levelling

One of the most important aspects of WoW is that of levelling. You start at level 1 as a young and poor guy (or gal) with practically no knowledge of surviving in the world. You soon begin to learn how to combat, so to protect your life from predators as well as how to make money out of the items you get by looting their corpses, so you can buy new clothes, weapons etc. Every time you gain enough experience, you “level” (used as a verb) and become more powerful; your health, strength and other stats are increased and you can buy arms and clothes of higher quality.

Levelling makes the world really addictive mainly for two reasons: first, players always want to gain “one more level”, so they never stop playing; second, because they’re in a constant direct/indirect competition with all the other players, so they need to level up and become better than them. This is so true in WoW, that having a character of the highest possible level brings much joy to players and makes them feel rather superior to their lower level peers.

People are always in direct or indirect competition to each other in our society and it’s always enjoyable to feel “better” than others or “superior” to them. Social media was built on this premise, which is the key to their success: people want to show-off and become “better” than others, even if it’s only for their online presence (they may still suck in the real world). Showing off is perhaps the most important reason people are using social media for.

But since the media itself is an arena where players from every corner of the planet can compete in becoming the coolest person in the universe, the idea of levelling is not absent. Not only does a person’s status increase by the mere number of followers in Twitter, or friends in Facebook, but there are dedicated services like Grader that calculate a score in the range of 1-100 that’s based on how important your online “character” is. Even top user lists are compiled, where people compete to climb up and beat their peeps, in either ethical or “unethical” ways.

Socializing

We all know that prolonged use of computers is supposed to make people less social in real life, but at least the Internet helps people socialize in the online life. WoW is quite fun to play mainly because you get to play along with other players who are not bots but actual persons. You can form a team and beat hard enemies, fight other (real) players of the opposing faction, form “guilds”, chat, and even flirt with them. There have been cases where people met in the game and then got married in the real world (but unfortunately I don’t have reference for this one). The bottom line is that fun comes when interaction with other humans is in play.

Of course, the same applies to social media. You get to chat with your friends or with people you don’t know, become friends with them, flirt with them, get on a date or even marry someone you met online. Although, as in WoW, you never really know the gender or looks of another person as it’s pretty easy to present yourself as something that you’re not.

Time-wasting

One of the main reasons people are condemning WoW players is their severe time-wasting, since they may be playing for many hours every day. But aren’t there Facebook users who spend hours in front of their computers, “socializing” with their friends and spending great amounts of time (and even money) on useless and almost pathetic “applications”? Both activities are huge time-wasters, but it’s still a matter of taste if one fancies spending their time killing virtual beasts, or throwing Britney Spears’ to their buddies and feeding their virtual pets!

Social media are MMORPGs

Examining all the differences, we could say that social media are indeed a form of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. They are used massively by multiple “players” all over the world who go online to create their own “characters” and engage in a role-playing “game”. In both of them, you get to interact with people who you don’t know, compete against them, show how “cool” you are, try to become better and more important than others and gain popularity. There are many new things to do and unknown territories to explore.

Participating in either MMORPGs or social media steals much of your time. Both are worlds of their own, in parallel to ours. They’re both another way for a person to participate in a “non-real” environment where they can show-off as much as their heart desire. Aren’t they all nothing more but different facets of the new multi-dimensional universe we have created, named “The Internet”?

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