Uniqueness of Experience and Virtual Playworlds: Playing Is Not Just for Fun

Abstract

Social interactions within virtual communities are often described solely as being online experiences. Such descriptions are limited, for they fail to reference life external to the screen. The terms virtual and real have a negative connotation for many people and can even be interpreted to mean that something is “false” or “inauthentic.” Research on postmodern lifestyles has questioned the relation between different dimensions of experience. This article seeks to describe how, in an online role-playing games community, the two dimensions—the real and the virtual—are interrelated and contribute to the construction of a unique, integrated personal experience that exists in the tension between everyday life and the computer world.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the EU project “Fe-ConE: Framework for e-learning Contents Evaluation.” We thank Roberto Baiocco for his support in the design and analysis of the quantitive part of the questionnaire, as well as Maria Caterina Pugliese and Andrea Ruzza for their work on data collection and analysis. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

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