Paper Info
Title
Heterogeneous knowledge distribution in MMO player behavior: Using domain knowledge to distinguish membership in a community of practice.
Abstract
Current examinations of expertise in the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) domain focus primarily on player performance; explorations of player knowledge, however, have the opportunity to meaningfully supplement these studies. Including player knowledge in MMO studies provides the framework needed for a detailed examination of the role of experience and community membership in defining engaged MMO players within a larger population of potential players. Using the Community of Practice framework, we developed a measure of participant's knowledge of MMO specific language to identify individuals who actively engage with other players, a constantly shifting subpopulation who are meaningfully different than those who are not actively participating. We used membership in a community of practice, as determined by our knowledge assessment, to examine the effectiveness of broader demographic questions and more MMO specific demographic questions in creating a predictive model of membership. Our findings indicate that demographics specific to MMO players are more predictive of membership than those used for a general population. Consequently, we recommend that future studies use knowledge-based measures to identify a subpopulation of engaged MMO players within a larger population, allowing researchers to describe their effects with greater precision.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1016/j.chb.2015.09.032
Computers in Human Behavior
Keywords
DocType
Volume
MMO,Community of practice,Expertise,Social learning
Journal
55
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0747-5632
0
0.34
References 
Authors
39
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Shan Lakhmani120.76
Paul Oppold200.34
Michael A. Rupp3343.36
James L. Szalma48212.27
Peter A. Hancock523821.89