Research question: Why do massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) like World of Warcraft and Everquest appeal to players, male and female, who are in the age range fourteen to twenty-five? What kind of psychological, personality, and social aspects become of the player by playing these games? Also, how can one avoid the negative aspects of MMORPG while still enjoy the escape of the mind through game play.

Beck, John, and Mitchell Wade. The Kids are Alright: How the Gamer Generation is Changing the Workplace. Boston: Harvard, 2006.

This book is was originally meant for a research and then reintroduced as a book for concerning parents that are worrying about their children playing too much video games. In the beginning it depicts out how video games where a fad to a piece of our culture. Anybody who was born after the 1980’s has some experience with video games. Also it depicts how this new generation of gamers might change the world of the workplace.

Bramer, M.A. Computer Game-Playing: Theory and Practice. New York: Horwood, 1983.

This book presents a lot of information from past computers. This book is a collection of articles to present an overview of the artificial intelligence of computer based games. The first part of the book focuses heavily on the game Chess. Then eventually into the game called Go. The some of the chapters focus on single games like Reversi, Brand, and Scabble. Others focus on multi-strategy games like Draw Poker and regular Poker. What they are trying to do in this book is to find a way to program computers to have a humanistic strategy in the game, so it feels like playing against another intelligible person.

I know this book probably will not help me out in the end for my research question. What I am thinking is to use as, in a sense, background information. This entire book is based on the really old computers. Everything had to be programmed into what we know as MOS DOS in order to run programs.

Gee, James. What Video Games have to teach us about Learning and Literacy. New York: Macmillan, 2003.

This book explains, how the player, learns how to think in order to play a game. The author goes explains how every person has a different way of reading a certain text and she is applying this concept on video game; which includes games from Playstation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube, and computer games. One day the author picks up a computer game herself and realizes the game was challenging and yet, life enhancing.

Juul, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: MIT, 2005.

In the book Half-Real it depicts the rules of the game and the game world. Like how the author Juul said, “…to interact with real rules while imagining a fictional world…” He goes on explaining how the rules of a particular game called Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The central theme of this book is the game rules and the game fiction. Next the author goes on how video games were the successors of non-electronic games and when/where these non-electronic games came from.

This book will provide more information on updated games. Rules are always part of any game one will play. So this book will probably be one of the major sources I will use for my research.

Taylor, T.L. Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge: MIT, 2006.

The book starts out the author going to a convention for game called Everquest. She notices how easily the players get along with each other at this convention. The people are split up by the servers that the players belong to. She was also trying to find other players that are in the same server that she was in. At one of the event the author encounters a player who apparently passes out flower to all the female players in the game and is now doing the same thing offline. Later on she goes on about the research that she is doing.

I can draw a lot of points off of this book too. I certainly can relate playing online and meeting new people, but also seeing or talking to those people in the offline world. I do not have the experience of the convention, but I can only imagine how it would be.


Chappell, Darren, Davies, Mark, and Griffiths, Mark. “Demographic Factors and Playing Variable in Online Computer Gaming.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 7.4 (2004): 479-487. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. U of South Dakota, I. D. Weeks Lib., Vermillion, SD. 6 April 2008 <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.usd.edu>.

This article focuses on the players of a particular game called “Everquest.” To get the information from the players the authors used an online question survey. The main questions are gender, age, marital status, nationality, education level, and occupation. Also, the authors ask the player how much time does s/he plays the game per week. Another thing is about the playing history like when did s/he first started the game and how long. The author was also interested in the psychology factor as well.

Castronova, Edward. “The Price of Bodies: A Hedonic Pricing Model of Avatar Attributes in a Synthetic World.” Kyklos 57.2 (2004): 173-196. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. U of South Dakota, I. D. Weeks Lib., Vermillion, SD. 6 April 2008 <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.usd.edu>.

This article tends to focus on the avatars, the character of the player, in the game of “Everquest” and how much the services for those avatars and the synthetic world that they live in. The main focus is “the price of goods and services that only exist in a game.” The article also mentions that the game is not just a game, but a place where people can socialize and can do experimental economics. Also, the players of the game do not see other players as users, but as residence of the game.

Lo, Shao-kang, Ching-I Teng, and Pe-Cheng Wang. “How to Know and Choose Online Games: Differences between Current and Potential Players.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 10.6 (2007) 837-840. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. U of South Dakota, I. D. Weeks Lib., Vermillion, SD. 6 April 2008 <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.usd.edu>.

This article is how the players choose their online game. The authors split the players into two different group the current players and the potential players. Currently players tend to pick their game by comprehensive information and they also try free trials to see the game play of the graphics. Now with the potential players they look for the advertisements and both of the current and potential players tend to find the game they want to play by word-of-mouth and gaming programs.

Smyth, Joshua M. “Beyond Self-Selection in Video Game Play: An Experimental Examination of the Consequences of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Play.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 10.5 (2007) 717-721. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. U of South Dakota, I. D. Weeks Lib., Vermillion, SD. 6 April 2008 <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.usd.edu>.

The articles deals with massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPGs). Apparently these MMORPGs have created a new experience for gamers. The article is a “longitudinal study of examined the effects of being assigned to play different video game types on game usage, health, well-being, sleep, socializing, and academics.” They use one hundred 18 to 20 year old participants randomized assigned to play arcade, console, solo computer or MMORPGs for an entire month. The researchers would look at all the aspects above and see if they would improve or worsen between the different type of games.