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Challenges of designing for sociability to enhanceplayer experience in Massively Multi-player OnlineRole-playing Games

Georgios Christou , Effie Lai-Chong Law , Panayiotis Zaphiris & Chee SiangAng

To cite this article: Georgios Christou , Effie Lai-Chong Law , Panayiotis Zaphiris & Chee SiangAng (2013) Challenges of designing for sociability to enhance player experience in MassivelyMulti-player Online Role-playing Games, Behaviour & Information Technology, 32:7, 724-734,DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2012.754497

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2012.754497

Accepted author version posted online: 30Nov 2012.Published online: 23 Jan 2013.

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Behaviour & Information Technology, 2013Vol. 32, No. 7, 724–734, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2012.754497

Challenges of designing for sociability to enhance player experience in Massively Multi-playerOnline Role-playing Games

Georgios Christoua∗, Effie Lai-Chong Lawb, Panayiotis Zaphirisc, and Chee Siang Angd

aDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, European University Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus; bDepartment of Computer Science,University of Leicester, Leicester, UK; cDepartment of Graphic Arts and Multimedia, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol,

Cyprus; d School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent, Kent, UK

(Received 04 November 2011; final version received 26 November 2012 )

Massively Multi-player Online Role-playing Games (MMORPGs) have become a popular leisure activity. It has been sug-gested that the reason for their popularity is that they offer a new ‘third-place’ for people to socialise. However, designing forsociability in these games has been shown to be a challenge. In this article, we discuss the results of an online survey that wasdirected towards game design researchers and professionals. We then present a subsequent discussion on the results of thesurvey at a Special Interest Group (SIG) held at CHI 2011. Through analysis of the findings of the survey and the discussion,we propose six requirements that facilitate the design of MMORPGs: In-game Communication, Off-game Communication,Empathy, Grouping and Rewards, World Design, and Designed Relationships. We state that it is not necessary to add all theproposed requirements in the design of such games, but we also caution that a game that does not include any of the require-ments presented here cannot belong to this genre. We discuss limitations of this work, and offer future research directionsthat result from this work.

Keywords: game design; user experience; player experience; MMORPG; sociability; social games

1. Introduction and backgroundThe overarching goal of this article is to further the under-standing of the challenges in designing for sociabilityin Massively Multi-Player Online Role-playing Games(MMORPGs), and to begin a discussion on the require-ments of sociability design in these games. As playingonline games (of which MMORPGs are a part) is the secondmost popular activity among today’s Internet users (NielsenWire 2010), it is important to look at this topic and examinehow better design can enhance sociability without being sointrusive as to impede the overall Player eXperience (PX),which can be regarded as a specific manifestation of UsereXperience (UX)1 focussing on games. Amongst a rangeof qualities for PX, fun is a common as well as critical one(Nacke 2009, Drachen et al. 2010). Thus, many questionsrequire answers if we are to move further in the science ofdesigning social games, questions such as: How do existingMMORPGs provide a social experience to players? Whatdoes it mean to have a social PX? How does one opti-mise sociability design? Which structures actually supportsociability, and how does one evaluate the game structuresthat support sociability? To investigate some of these ques-tions, we created an online survey that was directed towardsresearchers in computer games and game industry profes-sionals (but not to game players) to gather opinions on

the challenges of designing for sociability in the contextof social games to enhance PX. The survey was createdin the form of probing interview questions to understandthe thinking process of experts in the field of social gamedesign.

Researchers have started to address various questionson topics as diverse as social impact (Seay et al. 2004),ethical questions (Warner and Raiter 2005), design (Duch-eneaut et al. 2004), presence (Ravaja et al. 2006), andgame experience (Fisher 1995, Clarke and Duimering 2006,De Kort and Ijsselsteijn 2008, Zaharias and Papargyris2009), and the way these manifest in the online commu-nities within MMORPGs. In fact, social cultural studieson computer games are gaining much popularity recentlybecause player–player interaction, both collaborative aswell as competitive, plays an important role in MMORPGs.

Also, the notion of sociability is central to the fieldof computer-supported collaborative work and of human-computer interaction (HCI) and is concerned ‘with devel-oping software, policies and practices to support socialinteraction online’ (Preece 2001). According to Preece(2001), three components contribute to good sociability:purpose (i.e. reason for belonging to an online social groupor community), people (i.e. individuals’ needs and roles insuch a group), and policies (i.e. formal and informal rules

∗Corresponding author. Email: christoug@acm.org

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

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govern interactions in the group). Whether this generic 3-Psociability framework, which has been operationalised intosome general success measures (Preece 2001), is applicableto specific online communities such as MMORPGs remainsan empirical question.

It has also been demonstrated that designing for sociabil-ity in MMORPGs is a difficult process. Many MMORPGsare created, but only relatively few have succeeded com-mercially. An example of sociability design backfire canbe observed in Star Wars Galaxies, an MMORPG whichtried to pressure the players into socialising through itsdesigned relationships between avatars, and eventuallypushed the players away (Ducheneaut et al. 2004). In addi-tion, the social implications of moving third-places (i.e.social surroundings)2 from the real world to the virtualworld are only beginning to be understood. All the while,this move requires the development of virtual third-placesthat draw people to them and promote the same types ofsociability (Simmel and Hughes 1949), just as real-worldthird-places do. There have been several attempts to createsuch virtual third-places, with various degrees of success(Ducheneaut et al. 2004, 2006). Still, one of the major drawsto MMORPGs is that in addition to the single-player gamecontent, they provide players the ability to socialise andplay together with friends and strangers, either as alliesor as competitors (Steinkuehler and Williams 2006). Inobserving that, as mentioned earlier, certain game featurespurportedly designed for sociability may backfire (Duche-neaut et al. 2004, Eklund and Johansson 2010); we needto examine the ways in which MMORPG design can affectsociability, which in turn affects the success or failure of thegame.

Therefore, the relevant question that we try to answerin this article is how do we design for sociability inMMORPGs so as to enhance fun – the key experiential qual-ity of games? As designing for social interaction in gamesis challenging, and this is a key differentiator from soli-tary digital games, a design method is required that takesinto account the social aspects of a game as well as anyother considerations that would normally go into creating asingle-player game. The social aspects need to be defined,presented, and even promoted by the game itself, so that itsusers may begin to play them.

The rest of the article is organised as follows: First,we present a study using an online survey aimed at gameresearchers and professionals who have had research or pro-fessional experience in the study and design of MMORPGs.The responses of the survey enabled the development of athree-factor model. Then we present a discussion and briefapplication of the model during a SIG at CHI 2011 (Confer-ence of Human Factors in Computing Systems). The resultsof the survey and the model were presented at the SIG, andthrough discussion with the participants the model was fur-ther defined and elucidated, leading to a six-factor model.We conclude by discussing the limitations of our approachand the consequences of our model on social game design.

2. The study2.1. AimThe study aimed at gathering the thoughts of people whohave worked in the field of game design, either profession-ally or as researchers, to create a common understanding ofwhat sociability is in the context of MMORPGs. The goalof this process was to delineate the structures that can beused in game design to support sociability, thereby pro-viding relevant PX. Once the structures were identified,a discussion could follow to explore design choices thatpromote sociability in a way that is not forced upon theplayers. This would enable players to socialise as well asplay. Such design would also promote the games’ socialfeatures to first-time players, so that they understand howto use these from the outset. The result from the discussionis then framed as three requirements that form the basis ofthe model for social game design.

2.2. MethodThe study was divided into two parts. The first part con-sisted of a survey that was placed online between Februaryand May of 2011. It was further opened to receive moreanswers between March and August of 2012. The surveywas publicised in several HCI- and Game Design-relatedmailing lists. During these two periods of time, a totalof 102 replies were received of which 12 were excluded,because the respondents had not completed any questionsother than the demographics. Therefore, the results pre-sented here are from a total of 90 answers. The reason for therelatively low response rate was that the survey was specif-ically aimed at researchers and game designers/developerswith experience in MMORPGs. Their desired experienceshould be either in designing or developing social games orin researching the social structures of MMORPGs. Hence,this study was not aimed at game players.

The survey was designed as a mini-interview aiming togather qualitative responses rather than as a survey aim-ing to gather quantitative data and not to measure anykind of psychometric properties. As such, the questionswere designed to gather the practices of practitioners andthe ideas of researchers about the design for sociability inMMORPGs. Towards this end, we believe that the richnessof the data retrieved as a result outweighs the small numberof replies.

The questions of the online survey are shown in Table 1.The survey consisted of two parts: the first set of ques-tions aimed to understand how researchers and practi-tioners define sociability in MMORPGs, and asked themto state their belief as to whether today’s MMORPGspromote sociability, and in what ways. The second partasked participants to state ideas about how sociabilitymay be hindered or improved through game design prac-tice. The survey resulted in the identification of threestructures that are necessary to create a social PX in anMMORPG.

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Table 1. Survey questions.

Survey questions

1. What is your primary occupation right now?2. Have you ever played any MMOG?3. Which ones? (conditional on the previous question)4. For how long have you been playing MMOGs?5. How do you define sociability in MMORPGs?6. Which perceived qualities of the following do you

believe contribute to sociability in MMORPGs?7. How does sociability influence other perceived qualities

of MMOPRGs?8. Mention any design methods that you have used to

specifically design for sociability in MMORPGs9. Mention any evaluation methods that you have used

to specifically evaluate sociability constructs inMMORPGs

10. Which design/evaluation methods could be considereduniquely applicable to MMOPRGs?

11. Which specific features of MMOPRGs entail suchspecific methods of design/evaluation? (conditionalon the previous question)

12. How can individual players’ UX be related to group (orsocial) experience in the context of MMORPGs? Isa whole greater than the sum of its parts, if they areadditive at all?

13. How important is sociability to the overall experience ofthe game?

14. How is sociability promoted in MMORPGs?

The second part of the study was a discussion on theresults of the survey and the topic ‘Designing for sociabil-ity to enhance player experience in massively multiplayeronline games’. This discussion occurred in the context ofthe SIG at CHI 2011 (Christou et al. 2011). The results ofthe survey were presented to the SIG participants to enablethe discussion. The SIG brought together researchers andpractitioners from various disciplines such as sociology,

anthropology, computer science, HCI, and psychology, todiscuss the challenges of creating social games. The formatof the SIG was both structured and open. It was structuredbecause it systematically set a stage which presented socia-bility issues and challenged the participants to come up withsolutions through discussion on some specific sub-topics,and it was open because any person interested in this areacould attend and contribute. For the purposes of our analy-sis, we first present the results of the survey, then the resultsof the SIG discussion, and finally we synthesise our find-ings into six requirements that may be used to facilitatethe creation of MMORPGs. The whole process, togetherwith the results from each part of the study, is shown inFigure 1.

The online survey was open between February and May2011, and between March and August 2012. We publi-cised it in various academic and game industry forumsand mailing lists, such as the SIGCHI, Usability News,and the Digital Games Research Association. During thesecond round specifically, we personally invited experts ingame design and development, both from academia andindustry, to ensure that the sample also included respectedprofessionals who have worked on the creation of success-ful MMORPGs. After both rounds, we gathered 90 validresponses. The survey questions are shown in Table 1.The first four questions aimed at understanding the demo-graphics of the respondents. Specifically, questions 2 and 4asked participants whether they had any experience in themore general field of Massively Multi-player Online Games(MMOGs). The reason was to retrieve the experience of theparticipants as broadly as possible on online social games.Questions 5–7 aimed at understanding the respondents’views on what sociability is in MMORPGs. Questions 8–11were design-specific, questions 12 and 13 asked about therole of sociability in shaping game experiences, and finally

Survey-derived requirements

Online Survey

In-game communication

Sociability through grouping

Off-game communication

SIG Discussion

In-game communication

Designed Relationships

World Design

Grouping and rewards

Empathy

Off-game communication

Survey + Discussion Requirements

Figure 1. The research process and the findings from each phase.

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question 14 asked about structures that are used to promotesociability in MMORPGs.

2.3. Results and discussions2.3.1. Demographic dataThe first four questions of the survey dealt with the demo-graphic data. The 90 replies came as follows: 61.11%researchers/academics, 14.44% graduate students, 4.44%undergraduate students, and 20% game industry profes-sionals. From these respondents, 54% had not only workedon but had also played MMORPGs, with World of War-craft (WoW) being the most popular among the participants(40%) and the second choice being Lord of the RingsOnline with 6.15%. Participants reported playing in total36 different MMORPGs.

2.3.2. Definitional issuesQuestion 5 aimed at understanding how participants definedsociability in the context of MMORPGs. This responsewas free text, thus giving respondents the opportunityto write about their thoughts freely. We then gatheredall the responses and categorised them according to key-words that emerged through analysis. To extract themesfrom the responses to the free questions of the survey, weused thematic analysis (Miles and Huberman 1994). The-matic analysis is by nature iterative. We read through theresponses to each question several times, each time creat-ing a category or adding each response to one or more ofthe existing categories. Then, we went through the cate-gories created and simplified the categories, either unitingcategories where needed, or creating new categories andonly stopped when saturation was reached (i.e. all itemscould be placed in existing categories). Through succes-sive iterations of this process, three major categories, whichcan be seen as requirements, were identified (Table 2). Thesame process was followed for all the other questions thatrequired free text replies. Responses such as ‘being able to

Table 2. Sociability requirements derived from the responses tothe online survey.

Requirements Explanation

In-gamecommunication

Sociability as it is perceived by players,i.e. through chat, grouping (short andlong term, persistent or ad-hoc, etc)

Off-gamecommunication

Define sociability not only in termsof in-game experiences, but alsostructures and artefacts that support itout-of-game, such as forums, wikis, etc

Sociability throughgrouping

Sociability through content that requiresmore than one player to complete, andthe provision of structures that allowsplayers to create groups

communicate with other people (in-game and externally),form groups and experience (appropriate) content together,and also having an infrastructure for the group available(e.g. guilds in WoW)’ straddled categories. In this case, theresponse fits into all of the categories. Other responses weremore direct towards defining sociability as direct interac-tion, such as ‘where directly interacting with other humansis a meaningful part of the game’. However, all responsesfocussed on direct or indirect interaction between players.

Table 2 summarises the three categories that emergedfrom the survey’s responses. The first category ‘Sociabilitythrough communication’, accounts for any in-game struc-tures that allow players to communicate or that supportthe ability of players to communicate. Players communi-cate through in-game global chat, private chat between twoor more players, or through channels reserved for short-and long-term groups that may be persistent or ad-hoc inMMORPGs. On the other hand, grouping mechanisms thatallow players to create persistent or ad-hoc groups with anykind of longevity are structures that support the ability ofplayers to communicate.

The second category is also about communication, butwhich is not situated in-game. Rather, it comes from inter-actions through structures that are external to the game.This communication could be just information transfer fromthe structure to the player, with no reciprocity mechanism,but most of the time, such structures offer various mecha-nisms through which two-way communications may occur.The structures that we refer to here are, for example, wikis,forums, reference sites about the game, and even real-lifegroups, either official or fan-created. Such structures takethe social aspects of a game one step further, creating a com-munity that not only lives in-game, but also has significantsubstance outside of it.

The third category encompasses the structures that allowplayers to join forces against game obstacles that cannot betackled by a single player. There are various mechanismsof grouping. These could be ad-hoc or semi-permanent,long term and short term. However, grouping mechanismsdo not presuppose that players belonging to a group willautomatically communicate. In fact, it has been suggested(Ducheneaut et al. 2006, Eklund and Johansson 2010,Christou 2011a) that many times players do not commu-nicate when in groups. But the act of grouping togetherpresents a social action, and together with helping otherseven instrumentally to achieve a game goal can be viewedas social.

2.3.3. Quality attributes contributing to SociabilityThe sixth question, as shown in Table 3, provided severalchoices to the survey participants. Table 3 also shows thedistribution of answers. The quality attributes were selectedfrom traditional software quality models as well as fromemerging UX research. Some of these attributes overlap andsome differ from Preece’s (2001) ‘determinants of success’

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Table 3. Perceived qualities that contribute to socia-bility in MMORPGs.

Quality Percentage of participants

Responsiveness 28Privacy 19Credibility 18Desirability 13Security 11Beauty 7Branding 4

(p. 352), which cannot be generalised to MMORPGs. Forinstance, the measure ‘number of messages’ is not relevantto online game environments whereas ‘trustworthiness’(i.e. ‘credibility’) remains applicable. Subsequently, weelaborate each of the quality attributes and the associatedfindings.

Amongst the list of quality given, responsiveness isperceived as important for sociability by 28% of therespondents, the highest percentage obtained. The concept‘responsiveness’ can be defined as the specific ability of afunctional unit to complete assigned tasks within a giventime (Weik 2000). As the temporal aspect (i.e. speed) isthe basic requirement for most, if not all, games, especiallyMMORPGs, it can explain the relatively high rating (thoughlow in an absolute term) for responsiveness. About one-fifthof the respondents consider that privacy can contribute tosociability. At first glance, being private and being socialseem antagonistic. But if we understand sociability in termsof Preece’s (2001) definition, then this finding makes sense.Setting policies to decide who would be allowed to join acommunity and how easy it would be can affect social inter-action in the community and address individual members’concerns about privacy. However, the relationship betweenprivacy policy and perceived trust is somewhat ambiguous(Fogg et al. 2003), and the latter is closely related to credi-bility, which is regarded as important for sociability by 18%of our respondents, as described below.

Credibility is a trait that indicates the degree to whicha person is perceived as believable, trustworthy, and com-petent (McCroskey and Young 1981). In avatar-mediatedonline interaction, credibility is determined by an avatar’sgender and anthropomorphism (Nowak and Rauh 2006);such findings are relevant to the perceived sociability ofMMORPGs. Besides, according to Preece (2001), trustwor-thiness (or credibility) is a critical determinant of sociability,and can be classified into three types with one of them beingclosely related to security policy. The relationships betweencredibility, risk, and security have been studied by a num-ber of researchers (e.g. Corritore et al. 2003). Only about11% of the respondents think that security can contributeto sociability. This finding is not so surprising, given thatMMORPGs normally do not involve any material transac-tion that needs to be protected in terms of security policies.

However, this may change with a new trend started by Dia-blo III (Blizzard Entertainment 2012) where real money canbe used to trade virtual goods and the in-game currency onthe game’s virtual auction house (Tassi 2012).

While it is not surprising that the respondents do notperceive credibility and security as particularly importantto sociability, what is unexpected is the very low percentof our respondents agreeing on the relevance of desirabil-ity, beauty, and branding. In the emerging field of UX,these non-instrumental qualities have already captured quitesome research efforts (e.g. Hassenzahl and Tractinsky 2006,Law et al. 2009). A product is desirable if it is seen as worthhaving or seeing (cf. Hassenzahl’s (2004) hedonic attributeof identification), as being useful, beneficial, or pleasing(Benedek and Miner 2002). Apparently, our respondents donot see the teleological value as relevant to the sociability inMMORPGs. Besides, unlike fashion or dress up games, forgames like MMORPGs, fun and challenge are the salientqualities that players typically appreciate; aesthetic qualitycould be a nice-to-have but not an essential quality. Further-more, branding shapes a user’s expectation about the qualityof a product/service. What can account for our findings isthat most MMORPGs are not ‘branded’ applications; theyare not ‘marketed’ in the way the commercial worlds do.Thus, viewing this from a player’s perspective, we surmisethat the players will only continue playing a game if theyfind it desirable to do so. The respondents may see these fac-tors as preconditions for playing a game and therefore notrelevant after the players decide to continue playing. In sum-mary, none of the seven qualities proposed are perceived ascritical for sociability in MMORPGs. More research workis called for to identify such system qualities.

2.3.4. Three consequences of sociabilityQuestion 7 asked how sociability interacted with otherperceived qualities of MMORPGs. This was again an open-ended question. We analysed the answers in the same waywe did question 5. The perceived experiential qualities iden-tified by respondents as positively affected by sociabilitywere Motivation, Fun, and Relatedness. Motivation refersto the observation that the players remain interested in thegame and continue playing it. Relatedness refers to theobservation that the players feel that the game world is asreal as the real world, thus relating the game experienceto their real-world experience. The respondents mentionedthat:

after playing a game for a longer time it become boring, what stillattracts players to stick to the game is the community/the otherplayers. In the long run sociability is the most important factorfor many players to stay in an MMORPG (or they even decide tomigrate as a group to the next one).

Fun and Relatedness were subjective qualities that werementioned by many of the respondents in conjunction withthe ability to play with other people whom players knoware real and not interactive game artefacts. One respondent

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mentioned that ‘the more people playing and interactingin quality ways in an MMORPG the more fun the gameis. Without people, or when people begin to leave anMMORPG, it dies off’. Another mentioned ‘it adds to the“reality” of the game by making the other players more“real” as persons’. Such perceived realism enhances thefeeling of relatedness. For the respondents, socialising withother real players increases the game’s enjoyment, mak-ing it more fun. One of the respondents even stated that‘a good sociability factor can let people continue to playgames that do not meet their expectations in a game with-out sociability’. Finally, another respondent mentioned that‘I think sociability is an integral part of the MMORPGexperience, as opposed to single player games. Lack ofsociability deprives one of the main features of MMOGs’.This respondent hints at the fact that sociability is one ofthe distinguishing features of MMO[RP]G games.

To question 7 respondents conveyed the feeling thatsociability is an added value to a game that makes it unique,one that makes the game’s perceived value to playersgreater, and a value that works towards the retention of play-ers because players have a place to socialise with friends,thus agreeing with Steinkuehler and Williams (2006) in thatMMORPGs are virtual ‘third-places’.

2.3.5. Design methods for sociabilityQuestions 8, 9, 10, and 11 were aimed specifically at mattersof designing sociability structures and evaluating them inthe context of MMORPGs. On the issue of specific designmethods used for MMORPGs, all the respondents statedthat they did not use specific methods for designing socia-bility structures. The respondents’ answer reveals a gap ingame design methodology, opening up a large area for futureresearch.

On the other hand, they did specify methods forevaluating sociability structures. The methods mentionedwere: semi-structured interviews with players, third-partyanalysis of video recordings of game episodes, forumand discourse analysis and hermeneutic deconstruction,social network analysis, virtual ethnography, and StructuredExpert Evaluation Method ‘returnance’ measuring survey.Of these, the methods suggested the most were those ofvirtual ethnography and interviews. All the respondentsagreed that these methods were not only directed at eval-uating sociability structures in MMORPGs, but they haveequivalents in other research areas, such as ethnographyand literature. The respondents also mentioned that becauseMMORPGs are largely closed worlds (with the exceptionof out-of-game structures as mentioned earlier) and becauseof the ease with which chat logs and virtual trails can beobtained, the analysis of sociability characteristics in gamesis more convenient than in the real world. Therefore, theevaluation of sociability structures in MMORPGs becomesmore convenient than the same practice in the real world.

2.3.6. Social experience versus individual experienceQuestion 12 asked how the individual player’s UX wasrelated to the social UX in a MMORPG. This questionbrought the most variance of answers and opinions by thesurvey respondents. One respondent answered that ‘it isintrinsically connected. There is no “non-social” mmog’.However, as research shows, a large part of the PX inMMORPGs is experienced individually (Ducheneaut et al.2006). Another responded with:

it is near impossible to measure an individual player’s experiencecorrectly. Trying to measure a ‘group experience’ is a questionof definitions. my definition: no such thing as a group experi-ence exists. a group is not a single mind, but individuals tryingto get along and having individual experiences. if anything likegroup experience exists, it is the mean experience between allparticipants. So the group experience is less than the sum of itsparts.

Yet another respondent stated that:

The whole is greater than the sum, due to the shared experience,evolution of culture (traditions, specialized language, etc.), andpermeability of that culture into mainstream culture.

And another brought up Durkheim’s (1982) work asrelevant to this question:

I think this is one of the situations where Durkheim’s idea of analyz-ing the social by just the social very much applies, i.e. the individualexperiences, summed up and given the context, will explain muchof what is taking place during, and around (on e.g. game fora), play.

Most respondents agreed on the fact that it is individualexperiences that shape the social experience. However, theydo not agree on the nature of the experience. This has impor-tant implications for social game design, especially whencombined with the answers in the previous questions abouthow the respondents design the social attributes in theirgames. Once more the ‘social’ in social games is shownto come from experience and current practice than from anunderstanding of the social structures and how they affectthe game experience in social games.

2.3.7. Engaging in social behaviourQuestion 13 intended to uncover how players are encour-aged by MMORPGs to exhibit social behaviour in theirplay. The respondents highlighted the need for content thatrequires cooperation, with appropriate rewards for playingthe game socially rather than solitarily: ‘Voice and text chat-ting, customizable avatars allowing projection of identity,group affiliations (clans), shared adversity (quests and ene-mies), laws/rules, ownership of land and objects, economicexchange, etc’. Again, out-of-game community structureswere mentioned: ‘Guilds (as in WoW), group content (fordifferent group sizes and different levels of difficulty), com-munication abilities, community building activities likecontest outside the game’. One respondent’s view wasthat ‘… sociability does not need promotion’. From whatwe understand, this respondent’s position is that to play any

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Table 4. Importance of sociability in MMORPGs.

Importance Participants’ selection (%)

Extremely important 31.03Very important 27.59Important 20.69Slightly important 17.24Not at all important 3.45

MMORPG effectively, a player is required to engage in allthe behaviours mentioned by the other respondents, whichare inherently social. We also believe that this is the case.The features that promote sociability in an MMORPG areexactly those that make the game an MMORPG. Sociabilityis weaved into the fabric of MMORPGs.

Finally, question 14 asked participants to rate the impor-tance of sociability in games, in general. The answersare shown in Table 4. More than 75% of the respondentsagree that sociability is at least an important structure inMMORPGs.

The survey allowed us to create a preliminary modelof which social structures should be considered as standardcontent when designing an MMORPG. It also allowed us todiscover that there are several open questions about how todesign social games. The next step was to discuss the resultswith another set of experts, with a more varied background.For this reason, we organised a SIG at CHI 2011. This setof experts only commented on the results received from thesurvey up to April 2011.

3. The Special Interest GroupThe SIG was organised to further discuss the results of theaforementioned survey. At the SIG, there were 23 partici-pants. A SIG slot at CHI is 80 min long. From the allocatedtime, we took about 10 min to present the results of the sur-vey and to acquaint ourselves with the participants. Then,the participants were placed into three groups, according tothe table at which they were seated. After the presentationof the survey’s responses, the participants were asked todiscuss the three requirements for designing for sociabil-ity (shown in Table 2) that stemmed from the survey, andadd anything that they felt was important. This process tookabout 15 min. The groups were then given 20 min to dis-til certain design ideas that may work towards promotingsociability in MMORPGs through design practices. Finally,for the remaining time, the groups were asked to brainstormabout an MMORPG they would like to create, explain socia-bility features, and discuss how they would evaluate thosefeatures. For each of the questions posed to the groups, eachgroup had a few minutes to present their ideas and all theparticipants could comment. The groups were also givenpaper and markers to write notes and present their ideas tothe rest of the participants. These posters were gathered at

the end by the organisers, and their content was publishedon the blog page of one of the organisers (Christou 2011b).

3.1. Additional requirementsThe SIG participants agreed that the three requirements(Table 2) given by the survey respondents were truly partof what makes an MMORPG. The participants argue, how-ever, that the list shown in Table 2 may be incomplete.Thus, the aim of the initial discussion was to add to thethree requirements that came from the survey so that a morecomplete set of requirements would emerge. The partici-pants augmented the initial three requirements of Table 2with the following:

• Sociability through Grouping and Rewards: group-ing was one attribute that was identified while goingover the survey’s responses, particularly those toquestion 13. However, rewarding grouping behaviouradds an extra incentive to push players to socialisethrough grouping. Several MMORPGs use rewardsto encourage social behaviour. For example, bothWoW and Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR)awards different types of points to players if theyengage in collaborative Player-versus-Player (PVP)or Player-versus-Environment play. In fact, SWTORhas a specific mechanism through which playersearn ‘social points’ when they complete any in-gamechallenges (many of which can also be completedsolitarily) as a group.

• Sociability through Empathy: a second requirementbrought up by SIG participants is a clearly definedenemy. The enemy’s identity defines the goal of thegroup that players belong to, thus creating a strongcommunity that wants to stand against this enemy.An example of this, brought up during the discus-sion, is two factions in WoW, one of the most suc-cessful MMORPGs today: ‘Alliance’ and ‘Horde’.This distinction clearly defines for each player whotheir enemies are, and through PVP structures, thegame provides direct confrontation between the two-player communities. To further the in-game animos-ity, WoW also provides a rich lore that explains whythis animosity exists between the two communities,further defining the reasons of the conflict.

• Sociability through World Design: SIG participantssuggested that creating a world that puts togetherplayers of similar experience, especially at the begin-ning levels, may provide the opportunity for socialis-ing and grouping together to more easily get past theinitial difficulties of getting to know the game. Thisis common practice in AAA3 MMORPGs, such asSWTOR and WoW.

• Sociability through Designed Relationships: thegame play should also be designed to encourage some

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dependence on other players. Things such as buy-ing and selling of game items between charactersshould be designed into games. However, we mustalso be cautious not to push these ‘designed relation-ships’ too far, as some players prefer playing alonein MMORPGs. Even social players would like togo solo sometimes. Thus, ‘designed relationships’should not be implemented as the only way to pro-ceed in the game. Instead, they can be built as a moreproductive means of playing, without forcing certainplayers to engage in collaborative play.

3.2. Designing for sociabilityOnce the requirements for designing for sociability inMMORPGs were set, the SIG participants were asked toapply them by coming up with preliminary MMORPGdesigns with the main goal to promote the sociability aspectsof their proposed games. Each group was allowed to workfor about half an hour, and then a representative from eachgroup presented the group’s ideas.

The first group proposed the building of a sports gamethat would allow its players to take the role of coach,player, cheerleader, or spectator. Each player would beallowed to socialise with other players in certain locations,namely the Clubhouse, the Locker room, the Arenas, andthe Fields. The group suggested that social interactionswould be encouraged by giving social points to players,which would be earned for the following actions: helpingteam-mates, recruiting, doing things in the game as a group,playing with more than one role, scoring/winning, and forgathering fans. The group did comment that they could not

come up with ways of attributing points to the in-game roleof audience.

The second group did not come up with a specific gameconcept, but rather focussed on the aspects of any gamethat wants to promote sociability. This group stressed thatany social game should include an advanced chat inter-face, which would allow holding conversations with severalpeople as well as include channels for general chat. Thegroup also stressed that of great importance are the socialnorms that should be instilled in the game. These normswould define how players can interact with each other,either by helping or through conflict. On the matter of con-flict, the group insisted that ‘griefing’ (Chesney et al. 2009)could be avoided by regulating the way that players canattack each other. The group finally argued that becauseof their social aspect, these games should provide real-world meeting opportunities, so that the sense of communitycreated through game-playing would become more tightlyknit.

The third group came up with the notion of a Car Enthu-siasts’ MMORPG. For this group, promoting socialisationwould come from creating specialised roles for the playersand creating role dependencies. The group also proposedthat in the game there should be ways of creating incentivesfor players to create a community, through extra features,such as sharing stories and photos of game artefacts, thusallowing players to create their own stories, and giving theopportunity to the players to get to know each other’s gamepersonas, thus creating in-game ties through understandingof personal histories.

Each group’s proposal is shown in Table 5, cross-tabulated with the requirements for design for sociability.

Table 5. Summary of the sociability requirements against the proposed games.

Car enthusiastsRequirements Sports game group No-game group game group

In-gamecommunication

Specific places designed forsocialising

Advanced chat interface thatsupports chatting with one ormore people privately and throughpublic channels

Dependencies between roles that canbe taken on by players, to increaseinteraction

Off-gamecommunication

Real-world meeting opportunitiesset up by the people/companyproducing the game

Provision of extra features (forum,wiki) that support the community

Empathy Nothing proposed (but impliedempathy towards own team andanimosity against other teams)

Specific ways under which conflictbetween players will be regulated,specific ways in which playersmay interact

Understanding of player personasthrough the creation of personalhistories and of sharing them

Grouping andrewards

Points for specific social actions.Players must group together intoteams

Players need to group together intoteams

World design All the places are designedaround specific social activities(collaboration, chatting, andcompeting)

Special space where groups candisplay their achievements andin-game persona histories

Designedrelationships

Roles created are co-dependent(except spectator that was notclearly defined)

Mentioned that roles need to blendtogether, but no further thoughtwas recorded

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732 G. Christou et al.

If a cell is empty that means that the group did not includethat particular requirement in their preliminary design.

4. General discussionThe survey yielded several results that may potentially beuseful in the design and development of MMORPGs. Start-ing with the last question, the survey showed that bothacademics and practitioners believe that sociability is some-what important in any kind of game. Even for games thatare traditionally played by a single player, there should bestructures that support socialising. In fact going back tothe 1980s and 1990s, the arcade was a place where soli-tary games were played in a social context (Fisher 1995).Hence, playing ‘together alone’ (Ducheneaut et al. 2006)is not a concept that only fits MMORPGs. Nevertheless,it is clear that different design and evaluation approachesare required for co-located and computer-mediated ‘social’games with the goal of enhancing game experience (e.g.De Kort and Ijsselsteijn 2008). Question 5 provided infor-mation about specific requirements that MMORPGs need tohave so that they can be characterised as MMORPGs. Com-munication structures, both in- and off-game, together withgrouping mechanisms are requirements proposed by thesurvey respondents. To question 13, however, the respon-dents suggested that to engage players in social play suchas grouping, the players must be rewarded.

The respondents agree that adding social structures ina game can shape different perceived qualities. Motivation,replayability, fun, relatedness, and the sense of presenceare amplified. On the other hand, the perceived qualitiesthat affect the sense of sociability in an MMORPG areresponsiveness and privacy. In other words, the games areso designed that they can respond to players’ actions in atimely manner, contributing to fun and immersion, and thereshould be good policies regulating the membership of thecommunity, enabling them to feel safe in their in-game iden-tities. And once the players engage in this type of play, therespondents suggest that the players will ‘become hooked’in a sense to the social aspects of the game, which willincrease their fun and sense of presence, which in turn willincrease the replayability value of the game. To evaluatesociability in MMORPGs, it was evident from the answersthat current approaches from disciplines that perform socialresearch in the real world are relevant. The respondents,however, disagree on the nature of social experience. Itneeds to be stressed, however, that the respondents did notprovide any method or framework that they used to design orto think about how to create social structures in MMORPGs.

The survey helped initiate thinking towards structuresthat give an MMORPG its identity. While the surveytouched upon several topics related to the design for the UXof sociability in MMORPGs, the time constraints made itimpossible to discuss them all during the SIG. Therefore, theSIG emphasised the design aspect more than the evaluationof the UX. In the end, six design features emerged that may

help game designers to think about how to design for the UXof sociability in MMORPGs. These are: In-game Communi-cation, Off-game Communication, Empathy, Grouping andRewards, World Design, and Designed Relationships.

The SIG participants argued that an MMORPG doesnot have to include all the requirements, either the onesfrom the survey or the ones that were proposed during theSIG. However, it was suggested that the more requirementsdesigned into an MMORPG, the better the UX of sociabil-ity becomes. The requirements aim to support the buildingof communities around and inside a game, and to encour-age people to participate in these communities. Buildingcommunities comes from providing structures to supportcommunication, both inside and outside of the game. In-game chatting and out-of-game forums are very importantfor community building (Preece 2001). And to increase thecohesion of these communities, empathy towards peoplein the same community and animosity against a commonenemy can be used. Finally, players should be rewardedwhen joining these communities, and they should be moti-vated to stay in them, otherwise the concept of a communitywill not be woven seamlessly into the game’s mechanics.

The results of the survey combined with the SIG dis-cussion produced a list of specific requirements that whenfollowed will guide designers into creating social experi-ences for their users, and will make the social structures ofthe game more accessible to players. However, as shown bythe game designs created by the three groups during the SIG,the requirements do not have to all be designed into everygame created to provide the desired social experience. Nev-ertheless, during the discussion, it was agreed that if none ofthe requirements are designed into a game, then one cannottalk about sociability in a game and the social PX it affords.

The six requirements that were suggested during the SIGprovide a starting point for the game designer to think abouthow to create an MMORPG, something that is shown bythe preliminary designs that were created during the SIG,in a relatively small amount of time. We, therefore, do notbelieve that the requirements that are provided here area definite answer to how to design social structures intoMMORPGs. However, we believe that they are a helpfulstarting point for game designers of MMORPGs who, up tothis point, do not have any formal frameworks upon whichto base their work.

5. LimitationsThis work is not without limitations. One limitation is thesmall sample of respondents for the survey. However, thesurvey was used more as an online interview of expertsin the field of social game design, rather than as a sur-vey from which we would extract statistically significantresults. In this sense, we believe that the survey fulfilledits role in allowing us to start the process of understand-ing how experts perceive the sociability in MMORPGs andexperiential qualities it engenders.

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Another limitation is the limited time we had duringthe SIG session. We believe that more time would allowdiscussion on structures for the evaluation of the sociabilityand the associated experiential qualities.

6. Future workThrough the survey answers, it became evident that thereis a need for a comprehensive framework for informing thedesign for sociability in MMORPGs. While the concept ofsociability has been studied in depth, there is still a void indesign guidelines for social structures.

Another open research question is the impact of thecurrent practices of supporting sociability in MMORPGs.Again, research exists on how sociability occurs and howit is expressed in MMORPGs (i.e. Ducheneaut et al. 2004,2006, Steinkuehler and Williams 2006). However, we stilldo not have any specific methods for evaluating how struc-tures and artefacts that are designed into a game to supportsociability impact particular experiential qualities such asfun, relatedness, flow, immersion, challenge, tension, andother affective responses.

There is still further work that needs to be done in eval-uating the results of this study as well. Further iterations ofthe proposed guidelines may lead to a framework that willinclude in-game, off-game, structural, and socio-culturalaspects of MMORPGs, thus creating a comprehensiveframework for informing the design of sociability that cansupport a range of targeted gameplay experiences.

7. Concluding remarksIn this article, we have presented findings from a surveyand subsequent discussion on the topic of designing for theUX of sociability in MMORPGs. First, we presented find-ings from the survey, and then we described how the surveyresults were used to inform the discussion during the SIG.Through these exercises, we came up with a basic structurefor sociability design for MMORPGs. The resultant struc-ture that was created helps with the design of sociability inMMORPGs. This structure was implicitly used during theSIG discussion with the SIG participants creating their ownpreliminary designs of MMORPGs.

We believe that further work needs to be done in thisdirection to expand the model, either by adding moresub-requirements which highlight more detailed sociabil-ity design features that will cater to other types of onlinegames, not only to MMORPGs. Through this, the model willbecome more useful not only for academics, but also prac-titioners. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis based onthe proposed model can be carried out on commercially suc-cessful and unsuccessful games to extract sociability designfeatures that succeeded or failed to provide practical designpatterns. Given that the scope of sociability spans across in-game and out-game, structural and socio-cultural aspects ofgames, such analysis should improve our understanding of

PX at the holistic level as well as at the finer-grain, com-ponent level, thereby enabling us to gain insights into therelationships between game features and experiential quali-ties. Finally, it is evident that there is a need for the creationof a framework for the design of the social experience inMMORPGs as well as methods for evaluating the impactof the designed structures.

Notes1. While the notion UX does not yet have a canonical definition, it is

commonly recognised as highly subjective, contextual, and dynamic(Law et al. 2009). According to ISO 9241-210 (2010), UX is definedas ‘a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the useof anticipated use of a product, system or service’. UX encom-passes a wide range of experiential qualities, including sociability,and associated evaluation approaches (Bargas-Avila and Hornbæk2011).

2. The term ‘third-place’, which is central to community building, isdefined as social surroundings separate from the first-place – home –and the second-place – workplace (Oldenburg 1989). However, onemay argue that the dividing lines between these places are gettingblurred.

3. AAA (triple A) games are those that have a large development andproduction budget, and usually are considered high-quality games bythe trade press.

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