Effects of Grief Play

DOI: 10.5176/978-981-08-8227-3_cgat08-39

Authors: Chek Yang FOO

Abstract:

Millions of players today participate in large Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games, or MMORPGs, spending upwards of dozens of hours a week in these online games. A number of players engage in a range of play styles that intentionally disrupt the gaming experience of other players. This behavior has been termed “grief play”. Grief play affects how players behave in the game world and how game developers design their game. Victims of grief play often report their incidents and how their play experiences have been affected in public discussion forums. Game sites also routinely publish interviews with developers of MMORPGs in development, with developers queried on how their game will deal with grief play. The little scholarly research on grief play there is has been concerned with types of grief play and the motivations of players who engage in it. This paper will seek to further our understanding of grief play by further exploring its effects, and specifically to investigate the impact of grief play on players, developers and operators of MMORPGs.

Keywords: MMORPG, Game design, Grief play, Role-play, Game rules, Player expectations, Multi-player, Online game