September 16, 2008
Professor Given $100,000 to Study World of Warcraft
A researcher at University of California at Irvine got $100,000 from the National Science Foundation to study how Americans play the popular online game World of Warcraft, The Orange County Register reports.
A hundred thousand dollars to study a video game that pits ax-wielding ogres against a cast of other fanciful characters? That would buy about 50,000 cans of Red Bull to support those late-night gaming, er, “research” sessions.
As it turns out, the informatics professor, Bonnie Nardi, has already studied how the Chinese play the video game, which is used by 10 million people worldwide. In China she worked to debunk the notion that gamers there are interested only in turning World of Warcraft’s fake currency into real money.
Now she is out to determine why American players, who number just half of those in China, make more modifications to the game, she wrote in an e-mail message to Gary Robbins, the ScienceDude columnist for the Register. “We are examining the many reasons for this disparity, including cultural and institutional factors,” Ms. Nardi said.
Maybe a budget line for 3,000 Red Bulls will do. That leaves $94,000 for any additional expenses.—David DeBolt
Posted on Tuesday September 16, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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So let’s say Nardi abandoned all pretense at scientific objectivity and, instead of investigating whether or not Chinese gamers “are interested only in turning World of Warcraft’s fake currency into real money,” she — and I don’t know where you get this — actively “worked to debunk the notion.”
Further, let us assume that her research into “the many reasons …, including cultural and institutional factors,” for why American players make more game mods than Chinese players, is entirely successful, and she identifies the most-important reasons (probably already provided by the comments after the Orange County Register story).
The obvious question is: What does this research have to do either with increasing theoretical scientific knowledge or with having a direct impact on something practical? That would have been a better theme for the blog post than jokes about Red Bull (evidently a new term for the rising population of conservative animals).
The OC Register identifies a potentially important goal for this NSF-sponsored research when it quotes Nardi saying, “People here play [WoW] with brothers and sisters. But in China people don’t have brothers and sisters for the most part.” Their reporter might have followed-up by asking her, Why don’t you investigate whether Chinese gaming behavior deeply reflects social consequences of the country’s “one-child” population-control policy? Mindful of the conservative behavior forced onto athletes and broadcasters at the Beijing Olympics, the reporter might have continued with: Or would such impolite research prevent future work in China?
— Trancel Ruckus Sep 16, 07:28 PM #
Read some NSF solicitations and you’ll see that some program officers are very, very interested in game theory. No, really. They want to see how game theory goes “Bing!” when there’s Stuff in STEM education. This researcher must have done a good job pitching this project to the program officer and the reviewers. Thousands of scientists read things like this and go “Dang.” And we bang our heads into walls.
— Anton Sep 16, 08:01 PM #
Is there any NSF money for that bridge to nowhere?
— HL Morgan Sep 16, 08:55 PM #
Anton: This researcher only had to deal with the program officer because it is one of those SGER (pronounces Sugar) grants that required no panel reviews.
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0829952
— akm Sep 17, 12:50 AM #
That much $$ and no panel review, huh? Ugh. And I’m worried that mine is going to get dinged by multiple reviewers b/c I didn’t use the words “game theory.” In retrospect, I shoulda asked for release time for playing Doom3.
It just goes to show you, make your research area something that program officers are really into, and you can be one of the cool kids.
Snarky comments aside, I salute the PI for getting so much federal money to do this. It’s really something. “Dang.”
— Anton Sep 17, 06:44 AM #
How will this research be of any real benefit to anyone? With so many pressing needs in this country, it’s nice to know those who are stewards of our resources use it in such productive ways. Ridiculous!
— Gene Sep 17, 09:11 AM #
You might want to read the grant abstract (available at the link posted by akm) before commenting. Nardi is a well-known activity theory researcher. Understanding the activity of creative collaboration in game-based environments, has all sorts of applicability to the constituencies of interest to NSF.
— Mark Sep 17, 09:36 AM #
Well, the research may be helpful to the 10 million people playing WoW. Or it could be beneficial for understanding how game players (an increasingly diverse demographic) experience a virtual world’s potential.
Game theory may also help us understand the changing trends of online socialization and help us create a more immersive world where people’s social skills can grow rather than shrink while playing. I think there are a lot of possible uses of this research.
— Nathan Sep 17, 09:50 AM #
Can my 15-year-old be a Co-PI? He is certainly an expert on this particular software.
— Ugh Sep 17, 10:26 AM #
Granted some of the assumptions we are making about the proposal may be true, but they may equally be untrue. And thus, that kind of speculation and sarcasm is really more about stroking our own cynical tendencies than objectively assessing an idea. We think too often that only researchers are obliged to be objective, however it is also expected the reader considers material with objectivity as well. With that in mind, objective readers tend to go to the source rather than relying on media snippets (such as this) and sound bytes for their understanding of a study.
We also tend to criticize the research questions of others when they do not correspond to our own interests or curiosity. I remember making some sarcastic and closed minded responses (even more than those offered by others in this exchange) to the study of cow flatulence, which of course now is much more interesting given its role in climate change.
We also tend to think that research is only about the scientific method, even though a majority of research is not experimental, and we forget even more about the subjective methods of qualitative inquiry, methods of which I would suspect this project would involve. The implications could be highly beneficial to the development of successful and effective software for k-12 education, noting that features that make it successful in China will not necessarily transfer to success in the US. Thus being able to not only know there are cultural differences, but being able to identify and specify those differences and understand their nuances is important.
I believe that the study could be worthwhile given that emerging research suggests that gaming may be partially responsible for cognitive advantages (i.e. problem solving, perspective taking) and may not deter or impede live social interaction as much as we may think or perhaps at all. Much of our contemporary understanding of gaming and its influence is based on lay perceptions, and thus the more knowledge we can gain from research, both quantitative and qualitative is useful, because like it or not, gaming and online culture is only going to become increasingly pervasive throughout society.
— Stan Sep 17, 10:45 AM #
Reading the abstract, this actually looks like a rather interesting study. It’s not about WoW per se, but rather about the behaviors that take place around it. With the increasing importance of digital interaction, it’s important to understand how that change will affect us.
— Ibid Sep 17, 11:07 AM #
I think this research is intriguing and I for one cannot wait to find out results. My sons play WOW all the time and I cannot get them interested in anything else as much no matter what incentives I offer. The the social implications of this is far reaching for the next generation. I would also like to understand how to hook the next generation to studying, to working, to volunteering, to parenting…etc. as successfully as WOW does? What features and styles and charateritics make WOW so successful in hooking the next generation (read, my sons) and how can we in society and business utilize some of what Wow may be incorporating…
— rk Sep 17, 11:20 AM #
I published last year about this game. Anyone who does not think there are some serious social, cultural, physical, and psychological concepts to measure has not thought it through
— Boy Dean Sep 17, 12:12 PM #
Bonnie Nardi is one of the leading enthographic researchers of our time. I’ve heard her give keynote addresses about her research on information ecologies at a Library of Congress Institute in 1998 and at other national conferences. I look forward to her research in this area. There aren’t many presentations that are so significant that I remember them 10 years later.
— vk Sep 17, 01:36 PM #
I’m a bit curious as to why there apparently was no peer review for this award. Nonetheless, considering the emphasis on WoW it’s hard not to question whether this represents serious science (remember the Proxmire awards?). Perhaps the next NSF award should be to study the societal implications of tatoos, or is that one already in the hopper?
— CW Sep 17, 02:43 PM #
The following is an excerpt from NSF GPG. It explains SGER in some details. Contact your Sugar at NSF for more details on how to get this “small” grant.
D. SPECIAL GUIDELINES
1. Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) Proposals
Proposals for small-scale, exploratory, high-risk research in the fields of science, engineering and education normally supported by NSF may be submitted to individual programs. Such research is characterized as:
preliminary work on untested and novel ideas;
ventures into emerging and potentially transformative research ideas;
application of new expertise or new approaches to “established” research topics;
having a severe urgency with regard to availability of, or access to data, facilities or specialized equipment, including quick-response research on natural or anthropogenic disasters and similar unanticipated events; or
efforts of similar character likely to catalyze rapid and innovative advances.
Investigators are strongly encouraged to contact the NSF program(s) most germane to the proposal topic before submitting an SGER proposal. This will facilitate determining whether the proposed work meets the guidelines described above and availability and appropriateness for SGER funding, or whether the work is more appropriate for submission as a fully reviewed proposal. The project description must be brief (no more than two to five pages) and include clear statements as to why the proposed research should be considered particularly exploratory and high risk, the nature and significance of its potential impact on the field, and why an SGER grant would be a suitable means of supporting the work.
Brief biographical information is required for the PI and co-PI(s) only, and must list no more than five significant publications or other research products. The box for “Small Grant for Exploratory Research” must be checked on the proposal Cover Sheet.
These proposals will be subject to internal NSF merit review only. Renewed funding of SGER awards may be requested only through submission of a non-SGER proposal that will be subject to full merit review. The maximum SGER award amount will not exceed $200,000. Although the maximum award amount is $200,000, the award amount usually will be substantially less than a given program’s average award amount. The project’s duration will normally be one year, but may be up to two years.
At the discretion of the Program Officer, and with the concurrence of the Division Director, a small fraction of especially promising SGER awards may be extended for a period of six additional months and supplemented with up to $50,000 in additional funding. The SGER award extensions will be possible for awards of two-year initial duration as well as for those of shorter initial duration. Requests for extensions must be submitted one to two months before the expiration date of the initial award. A project report and outline of proposed research, not to exceed five pages, must be included.
— akm Sep 17, 07:53 PM #
Welp, I think my teachable moment here is that I should stop reading these damn CHE blogs and work on grants. Snarkiness and pithy comments don’t count towards tenure.
Congrats B.N. I sincerely wanna be like you and get something that I think is cool and novel funded. Peace out.
— Anton Sep 17, 11:27 PM #
I’m struck by the comments questioning whether this is “serious science.” The emergence of of MMORPGs is a social phenomenon that seems to be below the radar for many academics—and beneath their notice to many others. No one knows how many people play them but between WOW, EVE, Everquest, etc, the numbers are at least over 11 million and may be much higher. WOW is played all over the world, which indicates it appeals equally to substantially different cultures. Contrary to what many believe, the games are not limited in their appeal to teenagers but include many adult players. The games also include substantial social interaction, which has been the subject of serious study for some years—indicating that the fears that computers would result in isolated individuals dropping out of social interaction appear to be overstated but rather that such action is being expressed in a remediated fashion.
Give all of the above, it would appear that social scientists should be investigating the phenomenon. The negative response by so many commenters here indicates why the NSF grant is for a “high risk” study.
— EWA Sep 18, 09:42 AM #
It is still a wasteful spending nonetheless.
— Notna Sep 20, 11:53 PM #
I may not know much about the software of the game but WoW is a fun albeit addictive game…while their have been some incedences where people play so much at a time they die at the keyboard thats very few…plus you get to meet new people and interact with people possibly half a world away…personally i dont see why we need to study this thing just let them play
— Saint Sep 23, 10:59 AM #
In addition to my last comment I must say its good to see taxpayers money going toward such a GREAT cause….
— Saint Sep 25, 10:38 AM #