Assignment 10- World of Warcraft

The online game that I played was World of Warcraft. In this game, I chose a ‘race’ in which I was an Orc. An Orc is typically resistant to spells, and can sustain more damage than other races (making it advantageous to be an Orc). In certain areas of this game, as an Orc, I could choose which climate to be a part of, in order to benefit my ‘racial specialties.’ The main purpose of this game is to survive, and become a better warrior and member of my ‘race’ by choosing a certain occupation. For example, I could become a merchant, and support my teammates by lowing prices in order to make the race a better one.

While playing the game, I felt as though the game parallels real life in certain aspects. For instance, during game play, I am constantly aware of my surroundings to make sure that I am not killed by an opposing ‘race.’ Further, if I am unfortunate enough to be killed in battle (or perish), I lose a significant amount of my gold which takes a long time to gather. This is the same in real life; if you are confronted with a major hardship (even though after death, you can no longer come back alive), you may lose certain belongings based on various circumstances. Moreover, taking advantage of my skill sets as an Orc has been an adaptation of mine; I specialize in hand-to-hand combat, so I must be within close proximity of an opponent. This would be true in my actual life. I am not the largest individual, so in order to win a certain confrontation (which I do not condone), I would have to be within a close distance of my foe (if this ever occurred).

In real life, I pride myself on being a leader with many activities. In World of Warcraft, I portrayed the same characteristics within my ‘race.’ My actions and characteristics as an Orc deter away from Yee and Bailenson’s results, as an Orc is usually a smaller character (who would be perceived as inferior to larger characters). Yet, I did not feel inferior because I was able to separate gaming from reality in this aspect. Although at different times I feel engrained in the game and that my actions outside the game my be the same as in the game itself(stated by Yee and Bailenson in the behavioral confirmation portion of the article), I am able to separate reality from gaming. Lastly, I would like to point out that I agree with Yee and Bailenson’s argument supporting SIDE theory with online gaming. Due to anonymity within gaming (among actual users), this causes deindividuation for real life individuals. Yet social identification (group bonding and collaboration) can also be found within ‘races’ or clans that develop in online games. Gaming such as this creates this great paradox, unique to this medium, and this medium alone.

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