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Playing with Names: Gaming and Naming in World of Warcraft

Hagström, Charlotte LU (2008) p.265-285
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
MMORPG, online communication, computer game, play, names, game, virtual worlds
host publication
Digital Culture, Play, and Identity. A World of Warcraft Reader
editor
Corneliussen, Hilde and Walker Rettberg, Jill
pages
265 - 285
publisher
MIT Press
ISBN
978-0-262-03370-1
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Digital Culture, Play, and Identity A World of Warcraft® Reader Edited by Hilde G. Corneliussen and Jill Walker Rettberg World of Warcraft is the world's most popular massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), with (as of January 2008) more than ten million active subscribers across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia who play the game an astonishing average of twenty hours a week. This book examines the complexity of World of Warcraft from a variety of perspectives, exploring the cultural and social implications of the proliferation of ever more complex digital gameworlds. The contributors have immersed themselves in the World of Warcraft universe, spending hundreds of hours as players (leading guilds and raids, exploring moneymaking possibilities in the in-game auction house, playing different factions, races, and classes), conducting interviews, and studying the game design—as created by Blizzard Entertainment, the game's developer, and as modified by player-created user interfaces. The analyses they offer are based on both the firsthand experience of being a resident of Azeroth and the data they have gathered and interpreted. The contributors examine the ways that gameworlds reflect the real world—exploring such topics as World of Warcraft as a "capitalist fairytale" and the game's construction of gender; the cohesiveness of the gameworld in terms of geography, mythology, narrative, and the treatment of death as a temporary state; aspects of play, including "deviant strategies" perhaps not in line with the intentions of the designers; and character—both players' identification with their characters and the game's culture of naming characters. The varied perspectives of the contributors—who come from such fields as game studies, textual analysis, gender studies, and postcolonial studies—reflect the breadth and vitality of current interest in MMOGs. Contributors: Espen Aarseth, Hilde G. Corneliussen, Charlotte Hagström, Lisbeth Klastrup, Tanya Krzywinska, Jessica Langer, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Torill Elvira Mortensen, Jill Walker Rettberg, Scott Rettberg, T. L. Taylor, Ragnhild Tronstad. About the Editors Hilde G. Corneliussen is Associate Professor of Humanistic Informatics at the University of Bergen, Norway. Jill Walker Rettberg is Associate Professor of Humanistic Informatics at the University of Bergen, Norway.
id
901535ad-5f76-470a-90fa-5fbd5b3c891e (old id 1266881)
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 10:49:04
date last changed
2018-11-21 21:00:57
@inbook{901535ad-5f76-470a-90fa-5fbd5b3c891e,
  author       = {{Hagström, Charlotte}},
  booktitle    = {{Digital Culture, Play, and Identity. A World of Warcraft Reader}},
  editor       = {{Corneliussen, Hilde and Walker Rettberg, Jill}},
  isbn         = {{978-0-262-03370-1}},
  keywords     = {{MMORPG; online communication; computer game; play; names; game; virtual worlds}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{265--285}},
  publisher    = {{MIT Press}},
  title        = {{Playing with Names: Gaming and Naming in World of Warcraft}},
  year         = {{2008}},
}