WoW and Labyrinth have many common and also different features. They achieve different experiences around mastery, and it's worth analyzing why.
Comparing WoW and Labyrinth
WoW and Labyrinth strengthen mastery motivators in different ways and to different degrees. On the one hand, WoW provides a persistent world and social relevancy and visibility that Labyrinth can't. On the other hand, Labyrinth does not contain activities that simply reward an investment of time ( grinding, or the treadmill ). As a result, Labyrinth does a better job than some of the activities in WoW at creating personal relevancy.
WoW makes progress more personally visible than Labyrinth does. WoW gives players explicit levels, and makes all progress countable. Labyrinth does give players scores and reputation, but they carry less weight. Players' interactions with each other do not hinge upon each player's score, though those interactions may be affected by reputation informally. In WoW, players often think of themselves by their level and class: "I'm a level 47 priest." Players of Labyrinth don't think of themselves in the same way by their scores, though they still enjoy seeing the scores increase.
WoW creates significantly more social visibility than does Labyrinth. Through its 3D, immersive world, it creates a sense of physical presence and copresence that Labyrinth cannot match. These increases then strengthen social visibility, since the more players feel they are spending time together and in an actual space the more they notice details of progress both small and large. Labyrinth does create an opportunity for heightened social visibility by encouraging and allowing people to play together at the same computer or any two nearby computers. This is where WoW has an opportunity to make up the deficit by extending some of the gameplay to mobile.
WoW creates social relevancy more powerfully than does Labyrinth. The heightened visibility contributes to social relevancy. But come a more powerfully, WoW forces players together. And labyrinth, particularly competent players could feel as though they could complete the game on their own. Because WoW uses a class system, players know that they depend on each other's assistance for the games more advanced activities. WoW gives players the choice at every moment to engage in activities that can be accomplished alone or that require collaboration. Labyrinth allows for collaboration, but contains no activities that require it.
WoW creates personal relevancy better than Labyrinth through all kinds of presence. The transporting and non-transporting physical presence allowed by the immersive, 3D world strengthen personal relevancy. Real-time group play creates copresence. Features like mail and auctions strengthen asynchronous social presence. But, the opportunities WoW creates for self presence and self construction create the most personal relevancy. Labyrinth is weakest in these aspects.
WoW creates self presence through its customizable avatars and through physical and social presence. Players can choose many aspects about their avatars' appearances and abilities. This customization helps them feel represented in the world (through choices, if not resemblance to real selves) and increases self presence. Social presence occurs with interactions with other players through these avatars, so the stronger social presence feels the more legitimacy self presence obtains. Similarly, physical presence allows players to feel their avatars actually exist by giving them spaces in which to act and explore. Labyrinth allows players to customize their avatars' appearances somewhat (by picking a mask and color), but much less so. It doesn't allow avatars to take on skills directly, also diminishing self presence. It does encourage players to develop skills, but the competition between the player and her avatar for primary self during play undermines both selves.
WoW creates many more opportunities for self construction than does Labyrinth. Its range of activities helps players feel control over the play experience, moment to moment, and allows for many situations in which to experiment with identity. Players can join social networks (guilds, servers) and leave again as many times as they wish, allowing them to start fresh. Labyrinth allows this too, but because the range of activities is so limited players may feel like they've experienced everything already and not choose to return. By allowing players to invest in constructing selves over the long term, and to see constant growth during that time, WoW encourages players to think of constructed selves as permanent (even if they are in fact temporary). Labyrinth's shorter play experience does not allow players to think of their identities as permanent.
In summary, WoW provides the infrastructure that inspires and allows players to invest in self-experimentation and construction. It motivates mastery, as represented by the avatar, more effectively than does Labyrinth. And, with the changes suggested in this chapter, it has the opportunity to make an even stronger bond with players.
ReflectionsOver the next several years, mobile technology will change the way we self-construct. We will rely much more heavily on mobile, using it in almost every aspect of our lives. It will become the hub through which we conduct our social networking, more than it already occupies this role. Over time, it will change the way we think, just as language and writing and computers have. Games will become an even more important context in which we interact with our social networks, and, as our use of the technology reshapes our thinking, so too will we reshape the ways we think about ourselves.
Mobile does have limitations. Especially in the near term, bandwidth will be highly limited, latency will be high, storage and processing power will be low, and battery power will be short. All of these shortcomings will dissipate with time. Small screens and cumbersome interface will remain much longer, shaping our expectations for mobile experiences. In the more distant future, ways of connecting mobile to larger displays and controllers will become more common. Different people have predicted different technologies will fill this role, from USB memory sticks to MP3 players, but mobile shows the most promise. People care enough about its capabilities to invest in upgrading it frequently and over the long term, and they already carry it everywhere.
Mobile MMOs will ride the rising wave of highly-capable, portable technology, tying players into virtual words and selves constantly. These worlds and selves will take on greater personal and social relevancy, as whole generations invest time and money in them and base some sense of self-efficacy on their in-game achievements.
This thesis has looked at self-construction based on mastery, but players construct selves based on other aspects of themselves, too. Identities of mastery, though powerful, do not comprise the full range of possible identities players care about. Future research should investigate how players experiment with seeing themselves as (or not as) moral, loyal, loving, and any number of other qualities. I chose mastery to begin this exploration because games encourage and represent it well already. Future games may represent other qualities.
The mastery motivators discussed in this thesis, likewise, are not the only motivators. Rather, they are they primary motivators of mastery found in games. Future research should examine other mastery motivators, especially those not commonly found in games, to see how including them in game designs can strengthen self presence and opportunities for self construction.
