Need or Greed? Fairness Norms in World of Warcraft

Hi friends,

Time to start the day with a good cup of coffee/tea and a new episode of Gaming Science. 🙂

It seems obvious to us that different countries and groups have different norms. But is this also the case for different servers of the same country? In this episode, we investigate how and if a common norm in video games changes across servers.

⚖️ Gamers want it Fair and Just

"People in online communities care about justice and fairness—they not only want to see fair and just outcomes but to participate in deciding what is just and fair [1]."

When we play video games, we have an inner drive to move forward and cooperate. In order to progress our in-game character (avatar), we try to obtain items from raids or dungeons. Usually, these can't be done alone and require other players. Once an item drops, the individual and group have to decide who gets it. For instance, in World of Warcraft, players can choose between "Need" (they need an item because it is an upgrade to their current gear) or "Greed" (they don't need the item to upgrade, but the item is worth gold when sold).

"Games... foster instances of spontaneous cultural divergence [1]," meaning groups (e.g., guilds and raid groups) or servers may develop different norms. The authors of the study we are looking at today aimed to analyze fairness norms among raid groups across multiple servers in World of WarCraft.

WoW is a perfect setting for this type of investigation because it provides an abstract setting, players are highly motivated and goal-oriented, and the game's basic functions imitate the real world (how we interact, trade, cooperate, etc.). Lastly, the same exact setting (world) can be copied on multiple servers, providing a perfectly equal starting point for each player and group.

"This replicability makes it possible to isolate the role of strictly social processes in driving social change. Furthermore, discrete code update events drive games to change constantly, allowing researchers to understand the dynamic by which players adapt to game design choices and game designers adapt to players’ adaptations [1]."

🎲 "Need" or "Greed"?

In order to test whether different norm-based approaches exist, the authors surveyed players from multiple WoW servers. The survey mainly consisted of questions regarding the players' Need/Greed behavior in random raid groups. For instance: "Those who need it press Need, everyone else presses Greed.", "Everyone presses Greed.", or "Everyone passes and then you discuss who needs it and then they roll for it."

In total, 205 WoW players from 26 different servers completed the questionnaire. However, many of them had to be excluded because a) they didn't have a character on max level, and b) fewer than seven responses were from a server. This resulted in 57 remaining players' data from across seven servers.

At that time (in 2006), there were over 9 million WoW players, playing 22 hours per week. Players were, on average, 28 years old with 84% self-identifying as male.

⚖️ Different Server, different Fair?

"Averaging over all servers, we find... many players with many seemingly irreconcilable notions of fairness coexist [1]."

This means that players, across the exact same environment (servers), have different standards and expectations when it comes to fairness. However, the item-claiming behavior (Need/Greed) players showed was consistent on each server. In short: if you play on server X where the general loot-norm is Y, you generally tend to be okay with it and follow the rules.

How does the server distribution look? Two out of the seven servers did not have a clear consensus about the loot norm. Three servers used the Need-if-Need rule, and two servers preferred Pass-and-Discuss.

In addition, players were asked what they would do when someone in their raid group did not follow the norm (expected loot behavior). As can be seen in the figure below, one person would do nothing, the majority would eject the person from the group, and about 20% would also try to punish the person by telling others about the misbehavior or finding a way to "punish" the person even more.

What strikes me as the most interesting finding of the study is the response rate of people when asked about the fairness of their server’s loot system. Over 90% of the WoW players thought that their server’s item-distribution norm was fair; remember, multiple norms exist across servers. This shows that, no matter the system used, being used to it and intertwined with this cultural behavior is what matters.

"In other words, players’ conceptions of fairness were adapted to the standards of their immediate social environment [1]."

🤔 What can We Learn from it?

We have seen that culture may differ across WoW servers when it comes to how people choose Need or Greed. It's easy to see now that there are many more domains where groups (and servers) differ. You have probably experienced this not just across servers of the same game, but also across games and game genres.

Firstly, it is worth pointing out that individuals and groups can find varying solutions to the same game (norms of picking Need/Greed). None of the different methods are more "right" or "wrong" per se.

Secondly, when a player doesn't follow the expected norms, they may be punished for their behavior (getting expelled from the group, or even punished beyond that). In an earlier episode (The Enjoyment of Griefing), I outlined how players are willing to go out of their way to punish others for bad behavior.

"[Thirdly], cultural evolutionary processes work within social and physical constraints to produce a brand of social construction that is open-ended but still guided by player values and incentives, and is by no means random [1]."

Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a great week.

Christian 😃

References

[1] Strimling, & Frey, 2020