Virtual Gaming…or it is virtually living?

Social Media Bible, Chapter 17–Gaming the System: Virtual Gaming

I hesitate to quote an entire paragraph here, but this section from the beginning of this chapter says it all:

On average, [online gamers] spend 22 hours per week playing these games, and there is no correlation between hours spent playing and age. Sixty percent of all players report that they have played for 10 continuous hours at one time or another. Eighty percent of MMORPG players also play on a regular basis with someone they know in real life such as a romantic partner, family member of friend. In fact, MMORPGs provide highly social environments where new relationships are forged and existing relationships are reinforced. Many players report feeling strong emotions while playing, and a recent statistical study showed that 8.7 percent of male and 23.3 percent of female players have even had online weddings. The average MMORPG player is by no means average. (p. 322)

Well, when you read that you’d wonder why WOULDN’T someone get involved in virtual gaming, either from a participant as a player or from a company hoping to capitalize on this apparently large, relatively captive audience, with revenues exceeding a billion dollars. I appreciated the author’s explanation of basically three MMORPG business revenue models: “pay-to-play, free-to-play with in-game advertising and merchandising, and buy-to-play.” (p. 326)

Prior to reading this chapter, I had never heard the term MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) or of most of the games mentioned, including the most popular (according to Wikipedia) online subscription game, World of Warcraft. But then I did a little nonscientific research on the subject, asking friends about their use of online gaming. Surprisingly, the responses I got absolutely confirm most of the information in that first paragraph…coming from high school boys, college students, recently graduated college students and men and women over 50. I had people specifically mentioning the term MMORPG (as if I should already have known what that meant!) to saying that World of Warcraft is their favorite (the 50+ guy) to telling me how to find their avatar in Second Life (woman 50+) to saying they had stayed awake almost all night playing these games (the high school boys). This is a world I really knew nothing about, in which I’d have to agree with a couple of my survey respondents in saying “I’m too busy with my first life to worry about a Second Life!”

Listen to this response from a college sophomore, explaining his attraction to Halo:

“Halo attracted a bunch of players because it had a great campaign story line and it was a very well-balanced first person shooter. All the weapons had distinct advantages, making the game play pretty fair. The multiplayer runs very smoothly…it was one of the most advertised video games…Burger King even displayed it…it’s a classic good vs. bad guy to save the world…the Halo series is my all time favorite game…it was definitely a groundbreaking game.”

And I got an interesting bit of feedback from a recently graduated college student who agreed with the author that online gaming could be considered social media, but with a big difference…most people playing online virtual games are playing anonymously…as opposed to using Facebook when you usually know a lot about the person you’re chatting with.

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(Aside: here’s a fun spoof of Halo and Burger King by comedian Dane Cook. Be forewarned there is a little bit of raw language in this.)

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I am fascinated by the idea of virtual economies explained in the text, with the blurry lines between real and virtual world currency. I have just recently been discussing this issue in terms of a new online currency, Bitcoin. It’s really over my head, but suffice it say people are making money in the online world by trading in this new currency. But, a revenue stream I do understand is Adscape, (p. 333), a video game advertising company that lets developers place dynamic ads right inside a video game. Even watching my son play Grand Theft Auto when he was younger, you could see billboards and other ads from real companies. The same is true in Second Life.

With all this being said, for most companies, I think virtual gaming is probably not going to be a place where they will want to spend their marketing/advertising dollars, but it’s not a bad idea to be informed about it.