Adolescents and Boundary-Crossing Competence in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

• In Event: Exploring Influences of Game Types and Design Decisions: Issues of Learning, Interaction, and On/Offline Boundaries

Abstract

Purpose

This paper describes occasions of boundary-crossing by a group of Asian adolescent players of massively-multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), where the boundary is the border individuals must cross to participate in a community. Boundary-crossing competence implies understanding the practices on both sides of the boundary and the knowledge and resources to get from one side to the other (Walker & Nocon, 2007). The data comes from an ethnographic study over a two-year period from a group of English language learners (ELLs) whose out-of-school literacy practices included playing MMORPGs.

Theoretical Framework

This inquiry draws from Lave and Wenger’s (1991) description of communities of practice, which is often used to describe learning between novices and experts (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). Lave and Wenger’s notion of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) suggests that meaningful participation in a community depends on who has access to the right resources and who decides what activities count as legitimate forms of participation.

Methods and Data Sources

The social practices described here serve as comparative case studies (Yin 2003), demonstrating how play can differ among players with apparently similar backgrounds. With these participants, I was particularly interested in how their online/offline identities affected the orientation to their communities of practice and their abilities to participate in them. A consistent theme that emerged from my observations was the effort participants spent on organizing access and participation to their MMORPGs. This involved, in part, finding the right people, location, and time to accommodate everyone’s schedules and priorities. These decisions provided insights about how these adolescents delineated the nature of their shared activity, and thus, what constituted boundaries of their practice. This delineation influenced the games they chose to play, the methods they used to gain access, and the types of interaction engaged in while playing.

Findings and Scholarly Significance

The findings suggest a darker side of participation in virtual worlds, in terms of unequal access to resources and technical skills. Perhaps those who wish to incorporate virtual worlds into education need to teach novices about fundamental boundary-crossing competences, from how to maintain their hardware to community-specific rules to effectively ask for help, initiate collaborative play, etc.

Boundary-crossing competence is a complicated but crucial aspect of one’s involvement in any community of practice and an integral aspect of LPP. This competence is arguably the primary prerequisite to joining a community of practice, because participation cannot occur without knowing the community’s boundaries and how to cross them. We must remember that access to virtual worlds can be challenging for some players. Understanding how access is achieved, what resources are needed, and how they are maintained over time can help us better understand the social practices of users from diverse backgrounds, and also can help us learn how to redesign these communities to make them accessible to a wider range of people. As research on virtual worlds moves forward, a more comprehensive picture of how interactions in these worlds unfold is needed, using diverse research methods across participants, genres, and social contexts.

Author

• Aaron Chia Yuan Hung, University of Washington