Domesticating technology for shared success: collective enactments of World of Warcraft

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we analyse processes of domestication as collective enactments, using online game playing of World of Warcraft as a case. We study how groups of players – guilds – develop practices and sense-making with respect to the technologies they use in their shared endeavours in raids to battle monsters. Previous studies of domestication have mainly focused on single-actor strategies and relatively little attention have been given to the impact of concerns for particular domestication outcomes, for example in competitive situations or with goals related to efficiency. This paper contributes to domestication theory by analysing what we call collective domestication in a performance-oriented setting, to see how domestication may produce compatible outcomes for individuals that need to act together. The paper is based on a one-year participant observation and qualitative interviews with players. Three types of players were identified – hardcore, casual and moderate – representing three rationales of play: a high level of performance, social benefits, or a combination of the first two. In the analysis, we compare how these three types of player groups’ domesticated the game. A main finding is that collective enactments of technology need extensive managerial efforts unless the group share a coherent and uncontested rationale for playing, thus being a moral community.

KEYWORDS:

• Domestication
• online games
• world of warcraft
• management
• collective domestication
• moral community

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Kristine Ask has a PhD in Science and Technology Studies and works as Associate Professor at Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her main research interest is the study of digital games and of the use of social media, including gender issues and on-line harassment. Her most recent publication is “The Value of Calculations: The Coproduction of Theorycraft and Player Practices” (Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society, 2017). [email: [email protected]].

Knut H. Sørensen is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His main research interests include domestication theory, sustainable energy, climate change, responsible research and innovation, and gender, science and technology. Recent publications include Technologies of Inclusion. Gender in the Information Society (with Wendy Faulkner and Els Rommes, 2011), Consumer, client or citizen? How Norwegian local governments domesticate website technology and configure their users (with Lucia Liste, 2015), and Mismatch or misunderstanding? Calculation and qualculation among economists and consumers in their framings of the electricity market (with Margrethe Aune and Åsne Godbolt, 2016) [email: [email protected]].

ORCID

Knut H. Sørensen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0829-3496