Ganking, corpse camping and ninja looting from the perception of the MMORPG community: Acceptable behaviour or unacceptable griefing?
- Authors: Achterbosch, Leigh , Miller, Charlynn , Vamplew, Peter
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive entertainment p. 19
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Every day in online games designed to entertain, an unknown percentage of users are experiencing what is known as 'Griefing'. Griefing is used to describe when a player within a multiplayer online environment intentionally disrupts another player's game experience for his/her own personal enjoyment or material gain. Unrestrained, griefing could lead to a downward spiral of the number of people playing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG)s, and possibly the death of smaller MMORPGs. Big game publishers may not wish to risk supporting the genre. There have been studies conducted in the past that attempt to define griefing and the different forms it takes in MMORPGs. These were outlined from the perception of the general player, and so did not examine differences in perception of griefing by different types of players. The authors conducted an online survey with the intention to discover the perception of various in-game actions previously identified in research as griefing, among griefers and griefing victims. In general players who identified themselves as griefers were more likely to regard these actions as a part of the game people had to learn to accept and not griefing. However some patterns of commonality were also observed between griefers and subjects of griefing, with some actions previously identified as griefing in the literature less commonly regarded as griefing by both player types in this survey.
A taxonomy of griefer type by motivation in massively multiplayer online role-playing games
- Authors: Achterbosch, Leigh , Miller, Charlynn , Vamplew, Peter
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Behaviour and Information Technology Vol. 36, no. 8 (2017), p. 846-860
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: There is an anti-social phenomenon known as griefing that occurs in online games. Griefing refers to the act of one player intentionally disrupting another player’s game experience for personal pleasure and possibly potential gain. Achterbosch [2015. “Causes, Magnitude and Implications of Griefing in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.” PhD thesis, Faculty of Science and Technology, Federation University Australia] carried out a substantial two-phase mixed method investigation into the behaviour and experiences of both griefers and griefed players in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The first phase consisted of a survey that attracted 1188 participants of a representative player population. The second phase consisted of interviews with 15 participants to expand the findings with more personalised data. The data were analysed from the perspectives of different demographics and different associations to griefing. One of the most unique findings is the factors that motivated a player to cause grief to another player. This paper analyses these factors to propose a taxonomy of ‘Griefer’ types (griefer being the individual who imposes upon others). The taxonomy consisted of eight types of griefers, based on their motivation for griefing. Some types related to previous studies, although new types of griefers were discovered such as the retaliator and elitist and these are discussed in detail in the article. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Griefers versus the Griefed - what motivates them to play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games?
- Authors: Achterbosch, Leigh , Miller, Charlynn , Turville, Christopher , Vamplew, Peter
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: The Computer Games Journal Vol. 3, no. 1 (2014), p. 5-18
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: 'Griefing' is a term used to describe when a player within a multiplayer online environment intentionally disrupts another player’s game experience for his or her own personal enjoyment or gain. Every day a certain percentage of users of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) are experiencing some form of griefing. There have been studies conducted in the past that attempted to ascertain the factors that motivate users to play MMORPGs. A limited number of studies specifically examined the motivations of users who perform griefing (who are also known as 'griefers'). However, those studies did not examine the motivations of users subjected to griefing. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the factors that motivate the subjects of griefing to play MMORPGs, as well as the factors motivating the griefers. The authors conducted an online survey with the intention to discover the motivations for playing MMORPGs among those whom identified themselves as (i) those that perform griefing, and (ii) those who have been subjected to griefing. A previously devised motivational model by Nick Yee that incorporated ten factors was used to determine the respondents’ motivational trends. In general, players who identified themselves as griefers were more likely to be motivated by all three 'achievement' sub-factors (advancement, game mechanics and competition) at the detriment of all other factors. The subjects of griefing were highly motivated by 'advancement' and 'mechanics', but they ranked 'competition' significantly lower (compared to the griefers). In addition, 'immersion' factors were rated highly by the respondents who were subjected to griefing, with a significantly higher rating of the 'escapism' factor (compared with rankings by griefers). In comparison to the griefers, the respondents subjected to griefing with many years’ experience in the genre of MMORPGs, also placed a greater emphasis on the 'socializing' and 'relationship' factors. Overall, the griefers in this survey considered 'achievement' to be a prime motivating factor, whereas the griefed players tended to be motivated by all ten factors to a similar degree.