Players Who Play to Make Others Cry: The Influence of Anonymity and Immersion Vivian Hsueh-Hua Chen
Henry Been-Lirn Duh
Chiew Woon Ng
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University +65 81183424
Interactive and Digital Media Institute/ Department of Electrical Computer Engineering National University of Singapore
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University +65 6790 6111
[email protected]
+65 65165253
[email protected]
[email protected] for greater understanding as to why certain gamers indulge in such antisocial behavior. More importantly, it is to investigate if Internet (or the Net) is the safe haven for misbehavior [7] in which leads griefers to perceive that they have found their niche in the Internet. An inveterate line of research accounted that Internet is the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah [8, 9] where people are emancipated to misbehave [7-11]. Some researchers argue that this misbehavior is due to the anonymity of the game in which gamers feel protected under the invisibility cloak [7-11, 21]. In addition, the deindividuation theory proposes that both anonymity and group immersion are the antecedents of such antinormative behavior. To begin, the following literature review traces the development of deindividuation theory in documenting how the shift from the notion of deindividuation occurred [12].
ABSTRACT This study employed the deindividuation theory to examine the four-category grief play motivations. The measure of players’ immersion and anonymity were used as an approximation of the player’s deindividuation effect. Data was compiled and analyzed from a survey conducted on 200 university student players. Overall, the results supported the deindividuation theory. Players who enjoyed anonymous identity online reported to enjoy all fourcategory motivations of grief playing. However, immersed players only reported to enjoy griefer-influenced and self-driven motivations of grief play. The results are presented and implications are discussed.
Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4.2.1 [Public Policy Issues]; K.6.5[Security and Protection]; K.4.2 [Social Issues]
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Deindividuation Theory
General Terms
Deindividuation theory was fundamentally applied to grasp the deviation of a normal individual when in a crowd, namely the preposterous crowd behavior [12]. Although Festinger and his colleagues were credited for coining the term deindividuation, indeed the concept was directly borrowed from Le Bon [12, 13]. According to Le Bon [13], individuals are conjectured ―to lose both external and internal constraints upon their behavior‖ as a result of immersed in a crowd. Inasmuch as being indistinguishable from others, individuals gradually lose the sense of self as well as the sense of responsibility that further lead to behavior deregulation. At first, individuals lose the conscious discrimination in which cause them to automatically echo after the emotions and actions of others. Subsequently, their conscious personalities are replaced by the collective unconscious selves that are foundation of the group. Hence, they become susceptible to suggestion and act impulsively.
Security, Theory
Keywords Grief Play, Deindividuation, Anonymity, Immersion, Games
1. INTRODUCTION Griefers are characterized as gamers who ―stalk, hurl insults, extort, form gangs, kill and loot‖ [1]. Overall, griefers can be summed as those who like to cause other gamers to enjoy their game less [2-4]. Although it is estimated that grief players only comprised of 3% in MMORPG games [5], the detrimental impact of grief playing to both gamers and game company are far beyond that. On the gamers’ level, griefers caused (1) other gamers to quit games due to the oppressive gaming experience, and (2) the refusal of new players to join the game because of the notoriety of the games. On the other hand, provided that the costs for fixing these problems is lavish that game companies sometimes begrudge in pouring millions of dollars into the deadlock [6].
Corresponding to Le Bon’s ―concept of submergence‖, Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb [cited in 14] define de-individuation as when member of the group feel indistinguishable and visible, the member becomes less behavioral constrained as the product of not being individuated. In general, deindividuation theory [14] proposes that anonymity and reduced sense of responsibility are the antecedents lead to uninhibited behavior.
Besides improving the marketability of games and enhancing the gaming experience, research into grief play motivations also allow
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The popularity of deindividuation theory is extended into the computer-mediated communication research to unravel the antinormative behavior online [13, 17, 18]. Juxtaposed with conditions in computer-mediated communication (CMC), CMC researchers concluded that both CMC and deindividuation theory comprise of anonymity, reduced self-regulation, and reduced self-
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deindividualized and hence aversive behaviors may accompany it [22].
awareness [13, 19]. These researchers argue that the unique features of CMC such as anonymity and immersion in the medium would produce the classic deindividuating conditions of reduced self-awareness and disinhibition [13]. As a result, it is not surprising that computer users’ uninhibited behaviors such as flaming are often justified as a product of disinhibition as the users lose their sense of identity—deindividualize—by submerging in the anonymous crowd [18].
2.3 Overview of the Study The present study intends to examine grief play motivations using the deindividuation theory, by analyzing the links between anonymity and immersion in the online games with the four categories of grief play motivations. This study operationalizes immersion as the number of hours players spend playing online games per day. Immersion can be defined as players immersed in the games or groups, they are willing to devote more time in it. It should be noted that the anonymity factor in the grief playing motivations would be excluded. Hence the following research questions are proposed:
2.2 Grief Play Notwithstanding the media reports of grief play, the research is still in its infantry. So far, a handful of research has only explored the definitions, motivations, impacts, and constructs of grief play [2-4, 20, 21]. A grief player or a griefer is commonly known as A player who derives his/her enjoyment not from playing the game, but from performing actions that detract from the enjoyment of the game by other players. [22] (p.475).
RQ1: How does anonymity affect the four categories of grief play motivations? RQ2: How does the degree of immersion in online games affect the four categories of motivations?
Despite that the definition may imply that grief play as intentional, the later research suggest otherwise. The interview data reveal that griefers sometimes are unaware that their actions have distressed others; likewise they often report feeling grief after realizing it [2]. Astonishingly, research also found that griefers may fail to view themselves as griefers albeit that their gaming behaviors do resemble what they define as grief playing [20]. Thereby, these observations confirm that the definition of grief play can be ―ambiguous, changing and subjective‖ [2, 20].
3. METHODS 3.1 Participants Participants were (N=200) student volunteers from a local university in Singapore: 141 males (70.5%) and 59 females (29.5%). The participant ages ranged from 17 to 33 with the median age at 23 years old. Majority of the participants were Engineering major.
Foo and Kovisto [2, 3] investigated griefers’ motivations, and proposed a four-category taxonomy on grief playing motivations based on sixteen factors. To be specific, three of the categories are externally influenced (game, player, and griefer); whilst one is internal driven (self). The following are the four categories of grief player motivations and the associated factors: 1.
3.2 Measures Player were asked to rate their agreement on the following statement ―How much do you enjoy the experience of anonymity in games?‖ on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). To measure players’ gaming experience, players were asked on the number of hours they spent on playing online games per day.
Game influenced: Factors oriented around the game world and its operation. Factors including anonymity, boredom, greed, protest, testing, and game premise.
2.
Player influenced: Factors oriented around other nongriefers in the games. Factors including spite, victim vulnerability, and revenge.
3.
Grief influenced: Factors oriented around other griefers in the games. These factors include ritualization and group identity, and reputation.
4.
Self: Factors oriented around the griefer’s personality and his desire to immerse in character. These factors include bad mood, wanting to feel powerful, attention, enjoyment, and role-playing.
A sixteen-item scale based on Foo’s sixteen motivations for grief play [3] was used to measure player’s grief playing motivations. Sample questions of grief play include ―I like the experience of wanting to feel powerful while playing online games‖ and ―I like the experience of victim vulnerability while playing online games‖. Players rated their agreement on these items on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). To facilitate interpretation, these scores were transformed to Percent of Maximum Possible (POMP) that ranged from 0 to 100. These scores were then computed into four grief play motivations: game influenced, player influenced, grief influenced and self. Players mean sample for game influenced grief playing behavior was 45.18, standard deviation was 23.70, and the Cronbach’s alpha for five items (including experience such as boredom, greed, protest, testing, game premise) was 0.86. Player mean sample for player influenced grief playing behavior was 42.71, standard deviation was 25.78, and the alpha for three items (including spite, victim vulnerability, and revenge) was 0.84. Player mean sample for griefer influenced behavior was 48.96, standard deviation was 25.68 and the alpha for three items (comprising of ritualization, group identity, and reputation) was 0.79. Player mean sample for self grief playing behavior was 58.05, standard deviation of 22.97, and the alpha for five items (comprising of bad mood, wanting to feel powerful, attention, enjoyment, and role-playing) was 0.82.
The sixteen factors are categorized through best fitting. However, it is noteworthy to point out that some of these motivation factors do not fall exclusively into a single category. A successful Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPGs) can be defined by the number of subscribers. With the increase number of subscribers in game, a player may feel that they have become less noticeable as well as invisible in which it facilitates the sense of anonymity. In addition, many MMORPGs allow players to create more than one avatar (online character) to experience the range of different roles. Consequently, ―under the protective cloak of anonymity‖, players would be
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4. RESULTS In this study, we use multivariate regression to test on four correlated dependent variables: game-, player-, grief-influenced and self-driven grief play. The independent variables in this study include the anonymity that the gamers feel in games, and immersion as the number of hours per week gamers spent in online games.
4.1 Game-Influenced Grief Play The overall regression model for players’ game-influenced grief play was significant, F(2, 197) = 86.00, p < 0.01, and R2=0.48. There was no significant association between immersion and game-influenced grief playing experience. However, players who enjoy anonymous identity reported to enjoy game-influenced grief playing experience more ( = 6.51, p < 0.01). A significant interaction ( = 1.87, p < 0.05) revealed that in general, players who enjoy being anonymous in game engage in more gameinfluenced grief-play than those who don’t. The effect doubled when it is combined with immersion, resulting that immersed players who enjoy their anonymity tend to grief-played the most (M = 49.44).
Figure 2. Interaction Plot of Anonymity (v2), Immersion and Grief-Influenced Grief Play2
4.4 Self-Driven Grief Play The overall regression model for self-driven grief play was significant, F(2, 197) = 38.62, p < 0.01, and R2 = 0.27. Players who were more immersed in games reported to enjoy more in self-driven grief playing behavior ( = 12.52, p < 0.01). However, players who believed that anonymous identity is a factor in grief playing reported to enjoy more in self-driven grief play ( = 11.81, p < 0.01). There is no significant interaction.
5. DISCUSSIONS 5.1 Implications 5.1.1 Association between Anonymity and Grief Play Results showed that increased anonymity would increase players’ enjoyment in all four-category of grief playing motivations. Relating this finding to deindividuation theory, this finding seems to be supportive of the notion that anonymity in online games lead players to disinhibit more and hence gamers engaged in antisocial behavior—grief playing.
Figure 1. Interaction Plot of Anonymity (v2), Immersion and Game-Influenced Grief Play1
5.1.2 Association between Immersion and Grief Play
4.2 Player-Influenced Grief Play
The second part of the results indicated that increased immersion lead to increased enjoyment in player- and grief-influenced and self-driven motivations but not game-influenced motivations. In other words, grief-influenced and self-driven griefers were found to spend more hours per day in online game. Perhaps, players who grieve with self-driven motivation spent many more hours in online game as a form of coping mechanism.
The overall regression model for player-influenced grief play was significant, F(2, 197) = 50.37, p < 0.01, and R2=0.34. Players who were more immersed in game ( = 16.17, p < 0.01) and players who enjoyed anonymous identity ( = 17.06, p < 0.01) reported to indulge in player-influenced grief playing behavior but no significant association was found between anonymity and playerinfluenced grief play.
5.1.3 Interpreting Interaction Effects Although the two significant interactions observed in game- and grief-influenced grief play motivations found that players who enjoy anonymity grief-played more. In game-influenced motivation, the grief play effect is heightened when anonymity and immersion are high. In contrary, in the grief-influenced motivation, the grief play effect gap is lessened when anonymity and immersion are high. For game-influenced motivation grief play, griefers may engage in antinormative behavior as a result of their reactions towards the game companies, which may solely be personal rather than group-oriented. Consequently, high immersion and anonymity would be the optimal condition for them to carryout their vengeance against the game company.
4.3 Grief-Influenced Grief Play The overall regression model for grief-influenced grief play was significant, F(2, 197) = 47.11, p < 0.01, and R2 = 0.42. Once again, players who were immersed in games reported to indulge in grief-influenced grief playing behavior ( = 16.17, p < 0.01). On the other hand, players who believed that anonymous identity as a grief play factor reported to enjoy more in the experience of griefinfluenced grief play ( = 17.06, p < 0.01). A significant interaction ( = -2.64, p < 0.05) showed that players who enjoy being anonymous engage in more grief-influenced grief play than those who don’t. Interestingly, players who don’t immerse in games and enjoy anonymity engage the least in grief play (M = 24.27). 1
On the other hand, grief-influenced players are more grouporiented. Perhaps grief-influenced players are immersed in the 2
V2 in the interaction plots for Figure 1 represents anonymity.
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V2 in the interaction plot represents anonymity
group resulting in spending more time playing online game. As a result, they gradually became depersonalized. Subsequently, they are less concerned about the anonymity would serve as ―the protective cloak‖ while they are engaged in antisocial behavior. Instead, the group immersion has influenced these players to identify themselves through the social identity. In addition, despite that the grief player social identity is known to be a socially negative label in the online game world, they still bask in the group identity for its notoriety.
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5.2 Future Directions Future study should look into the diversified population instead of using the student population to better understand grief playing. It is also important to find the equilibrium in anonymity that can facilitate the positive while reducing the negative effects of anonymity.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was co-funded by National Research Foundation in Singapore (Grant number NRF2008IDM-IDM001-014) and by Nanyang Technological University (Grant number RG24/05).
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