Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how does massively multiplayer online role-playing games( MMORPG) has change the way people relate to their online identity, although it is a game, as it has a great social interaction in these games it can be also consider as a social media platform. A MMORPG is a video game that incorporates elements of role-playing and massively multiplayer online games. The player plays the role of a character (often in a fantasy or science-fiction world) and has power over all of the character’s decisions, similar to role-playing games (RPGs). MMORPGs vary from single-player or small multi-player online RPGs in the amount of players who can communicate with each other, as well as the game’s persistent environment (usually hosted by the publisher), which continues to function and grow even though the player is offline and away from the game. “World of Warcraft, Lineage, and Ever Quest are examples of this gaming genre, which has spawned a multibillion-dollar global market. There are currently over 16 million subscribers played in a persistent gaming environment around the world. Young people are embracing a digital entertainment lifestyle as a result of MMORPGs.” (Hsu, Wen, Wu, 2009). Throughout this essay we will see, why do people change their online identity for these online games, some are for protection, and others as they do not love themselves as they are. We will also see that it causes addiction to be another person and the disadvantage to change the online identity.

Keywords: MMORPG, Games, Video Games, Addiction, Identity

Using the online platform to change personality

Some people thought that when playing those games, the people using it are not changing their personalities and they are being themselves as they put firstly and avatar that represents themselves it the real world, with their same personalities, sex and dialogue. That they just play those games, and chat to be simply themselves and to made new friends. They said that the avatar are their projection in the real life, with the same weakness, same race, same strengths and form of their body. A researcher wanted to know why people were switching from reality to the MMORPG games and found that “ the factors that push people to leave one place (their original home) is the factors that pull them to migrate to a new location.” (Hou, Chern, Chen, Chen, 2011) that means that the people changes the real world to the online one because they found a brand new world and sometimes it is true as for example, with covid-19 people cannot go out and hang out with their friends or go to over countries, so they play and interact with these types of games where they can visit new maps and new location so as they can stress out and made new friends. Like the game animal crossing where you have a map and you must upgrade it a little bit like Minecraft but you can visit over maps and have a social life with other friends where you can talk, interact, build maps together and trade with them and with this many people were saying that they were feeling well. And the last thing is that during those game people live in peace. For example, one day a programmer die due to medical issues and to pay him respect many people on the game have done a pilgrimage, and it was like 100 000 people and they were all here to pay him respect and it is those moments that you find that MMO are beautiful games and all people was present even who were in a different guild.

Despite the previous arguments which says that MMORPG are a quite good thing and that people are using their real identity in the online world, there are many reasons to think that MMORPG is changing the online identity of the users and are causing many problems to them.

Using the platform to show their power

Many people changes their identity as they wanted to be another person on those type of games as the game itself is role play and the goal of a role playing is to be another person and sometimes a boy who is hetero in the real life, that dreams was always to be a beautiful girls a hang out with other boy, will put their character as a girl and will keep this role online. And also as per (Guegan, Moliner, Buisine, 2015), “According to SIDE, the anonymity of others to self leads to depersonalization: Because personal specificities of others are not perceived, individuals reason on the basis of social categories and see themselves and others as prototypical group members. This cognitive effect fosters group norms, social attraction to group members, stereotypes, and in‐group favoritism” Which reinforce my argument which says that it changes the identity of the people. And it is a bad thing as you do not know to which person you are talking and if his intention is good or not. Users sometimes must hide their identity and sometimes who they are such as people accept them as they can be racist or have a bad behavior against someone if they see that he is not the same color of skin like them or even can have body shamming is they find that the person do not have a type of body that they accept. And the last thing is a study by the same authors that reinforce the idea of changing the online identity (Guegan, Moliner, Buisine, 2015) is not so good have made an experiment where they were analyzing the languages and the attitudes of the players during the game of Dofus and the results was that the players have the tendency to use foul language and have a bad attitude against another guild ( it is a term in MMO games which means a group). When they were doing an exchange of stuff during the game, sometimes some players stole their stuff and just go off the map. Which is not from the part of the game as stealing, is not from the part of the game and so when the thief found this flaw in the game, they use it. As they know that they are anonymous, they do not care to stole, bully and to be racist against other players. And may young players are suffering from that, as they are young and easily manipulated by players who are bigger. And on the other side, people who are very powerful on these games and feel like they in the real world they are nothing, just a normal people, it can cause another problem which is addiction.

Some Gamers Forget the Real World

Playing those games can be very addictive for some people. Firstly as per(Hsu, Wen, Wu, 2009) there are 3 levels of “addiction” for these games. Firstly it is the one who is curious and who plays to stay inform, secondly it is one who play when he has the time and thirdly the one who play with obligation which means that cannot stay without playing the game. And also the result is that “the addicts may alienate themselves from the real world, hamper their interpersonal relationships, degrade their academic performance, and lose their sense of time . Some heavily addicted gamers even require psychological intervention to bring them back to a normal life”(Hsu, Wen, Wu, 2009). The causes of their addiction sometimes starts with their changes of online identity, they want to be better than in real life, and for that they change many things, for example if he is big, he will made himself skinny with beautiful eyes and etc. If he is homosexual and he does not admit it in the real world he will made himself a girl in the online world and he will act as if he is really. And here starts the problem, they will find themselves free in the online world, with a community, friends, and if they are strong in the game they will have glory and an audiences which will help them in their adventure. They can find many things that they do not have in the real world, like challenge and rewards. To precise that the challenges can talk several hours in real time, sometimes days or week depending on the game that you are playing and thus it takes many times of the real world to achieve things and it can affect the social life of the gamers, and as they were less socially active in the real world, these games with their new identities made them feel more comfortable and more addict to those games.

Another reason with people changes their online identity is because of security. To protect themselves from other people so as to not to be bully in the real life or to do not get troll. Like the streamers that their address were leaked they were been victims of swatting, which means that the swat came in their house violently by breaking their doors and sometimes it has a bad ending like in a case the swat kills a streamer or another time where they shot a father for no reason as the SWAT got a wrong address and for these cases the police are becoming very severe for it. Another reason why the people are hiding their identity online in games is because of objects online. Sometimes objects in games can be very expensive as it is very rare or it was an object of collection. One day a student told one of his online friend to lend him an object, which was a sword which cost actually more than 10 000 dollars online, as he love his friend, he lend him the sword, and the other friend sell the sword, and disconnect his account on the game, but the boy knows his address and one day in the night he comes in his bedroom and stab him to death, just for a game. And for this action he gets a life sentence. Another example like this is that a couples of parents sold their babies so as they can continue to pay their account at the internet café so as to continue to play their online game and the last example is the guy who die due to lack of movement in his body.  He was playing his game for 3 days in continuity and he died due to a blood clots.

To conclude, sometimes even with all this disadvantages of changes the online identity, we can found beautiful things with these online communities, like one day a programmer were found dead due to illness and all the people in the same game as his done a very big memorial by putting his pseudo and also his true name. Many players around the game has done a big pilgrimage even people from the other guild, and shows the beauty of an online identity, but if people to concentrate on their games they can be really very addicted and can cause even health problem, with mental and so on.  And also by living in an avatar to much with a fake life, the people can think that it is the true life that they have dream about it for many times. To live a better life and to be in peace with our identity I think we must change ourselves in the real world to the people that we want to be.

Reference list:

Chern, A., Chen, H., Chen, Y. (2011).‘Migrating to a new virtual world’: Exploring MMORPG switching through human migration theory. Computers in Human Behavior,Volume 27, Issue 5,Pages 1892-1903, ISSN 0747-5632. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.04.013.

Guegan, J., Moliner, P., and Buisine, S. (2015). Why are online games so self‐involving: A social identity analysis of massively multiplayer online role‐playing games. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 45, 349– 355. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2103.

  Hsu, S., Wen, M., Wu, M.(2009). Exploring user experiences as predictors of MMORPG addiction. Computers&Education, Volume 53, Issue 3,Pages 990-999,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2009.05.016.

Milik, O. (2017). Persona in MMO Games: Constructing an identity through complex player/character relationships. Research Gate. 10.21153/ps2017vol3no2art672