Article

Death matters: understanding gameworld experiences

Author:

Lisbeth KlastrupAuthors Info & Claims

ACE '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGCHI international conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology

Pages 29 - es

https://doi.org/10.1145/1178823.1178859

Published: 14 June 2006 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the staging and implementation of death and the death penalty in a number of popular MMOG's and relates it to players' general experience of gameworlds. Both game mechanics, as well as writings and stories by designers and players are analysed and discussed. The preliminary study shows that the death penalty is implemented much in the same way across worlds; that death can be both trivial and non-trivial, part of the grind of everyday life, and of the creation of heroes. In whatever function it serves, death however plays an important part in the shaping and emergence of the social culture of a world, and in the individual player's experience of life within it.

References

[1]

Bartle, R.: Designing Virtual Worlds. Indianapolis, New Riders, 2003.]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[2]

Cannadine, D. War and Death, Grief and Mourning in Modern Britain. In., Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death, Whaley J., Ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981.]]

Google Scholar

[3]

Glater, J. 50 first deaths. New York Times Technology Review, March 4th, 2004. http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technology/techreview.html?res=9C05EFDA123FF937A35750C0A9629C8B63]]

Google Scholar

[4]

Kearl, M. Endings - A Sociology of Death and Dying. Oxford University Press, New York, 1989, p. 187--242.]]

Google Scholar

[5]

Klastrup, L. Towards a Poetics of Virtual Worlds -- Multi-User Textuality and the Emergence of Story. Ph.D. thesis, IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 2003/2005.]]

Google Scholar

[6]

Klapp, O. Heroes, Villains, and Fools - the Changing American Character. Prentice-Hall, N.J, 1962]]

Google Scholar

[7]

Meadows, M. Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative. Indianapolis, New Riders Publishing, 2002]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[8]

Mulligan, J. and Patrovsky, B.: Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide. Indianapolis, New Riders Publishing, 2003]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[9]

Rollings, A. & Adams, E.: On Game Design. Indianapolis, New Riders, 2003]]

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[10]

Taylor, T. L. Power Gamers Just Want To Have Fun?: Instrumental Play In A MMOG. In Copier, M. and Raessens, J. (Eds.) Level Up Games Conference Proceedings, Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht, 2003]]

Google Scholar

[11]

Van Gennep, A. The Rites of Passage. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1969]]

Google Scholar

[12]

Williams, D. (in press) A Brief Social History of Game Play. In Vorderer, P & Bryant, J. (Eds.) Playing Computer Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences. Lawrence Erlbaum Mahwah, NJ: Presented in early version at the DIGRA games conference 2005, Vancouver, June 18th 2005]]

Google Scholar

[13]

Yee, N. The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study Of EverQuest. Haverford University. Feb. 23rd, 2001. Available at: www.nickyee.com/eqt/home.html. Access: 30/01/03]]

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Cuerdo MMahajan AMelcer E(2021)Die-r Consequences: Player Experience and the Design of Failure through Respawning Mechanics2021 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CoG52621.2021.9618894(01-08)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG52621.2021.9618894
Cuerdo MMelcer EBernhaupt RMueller FVerweij DAndres JMcGrenere JCockburn AAvellino IGoguey ABjørn PZhao SSamson BKocielnik R(2020)"I'll Be Back": A Taxonomy of Death and Rebirth in Platformer Video GamesExtended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3334480.3382863(1-13)Online publication date: 25-Apr-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3334480.3382863
Servais O(2016)Cérémonies funéraires dans World of Warcraft. Révélateur des sociabilités en ligne ?Frontières10.7202/1040196ar28:2Online publication date: 2016
https://doi.org/10.7202/1040196ar
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Death matters: understanding gameworld experiences
1. Information systems
  1. Information retrieval
  2. Information storage systems

Recommendations

Death and dying in DayZ
IE '13: Proceedings of The 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment: Matters of Life and Death

Avatar death is essentially universal in combat games, and ubiquitous in all other genres; death of a player's materialization in the game space is used to identify the player's failure and temporary removal from play. Yet the possibilities for creating ...
Unraveling the mortal coil: death and stories of play
FDG '18: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

The current conversation on death in digital games focuses on the split between screen death and narrative death. At the same time, players telling stories about games often have nuanced conversations regarding the term. The result is a discussion ...
“I Hope There Are Beasties in the Next One”: Positivity Through Interaction in Death-Themed Digital Games
HCI in Games
Abstract
Death is prevalent if not near-ubiquitous in digital games. It is the most common failure state for player characters, often serves as a metaphor for growth and change, and functions as a core gameplay mechanic in numerous critically acclaimed ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ACE '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGCHI international conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology

June 2006

572 pages

ISBN:1595933808

DOI:10.1145/1178823

General Chairs:
Hiroshi Ishii
Tangible Media Group, MIT Media Laboratory
,
Newton Lee
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Disney Online, Woodbury University, and Bell Labs
,
Stephane Natkin
CNAM Paris, CEDRIC
,
Katsuhide Tsushima
Osaka Electro-Communication University, Japan

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 14 June 2006

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

ACE2006

Sponsor:

SIGCHI

ACE2006: International Conference in Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology

June 14 - 16, 2006

California, Hollywood, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 36 of 90 submissions, 40%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

11
Total Citations
View Citations
855
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)17
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 01 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Cuerdo MMahajan AMelcer E(2021)Die-r Consequences: Player Experience and the Design of Failure through Respawning Mechanics2021 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CoG52621.2021.9618894(01-08)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG52621.2021.9618894
Cuerdo MMelcer EBernhaupt RMueller FVerweij DAndres JMcGrenere JCockburn AAvellino IGoguey ABjørn PZhao SSamson BKocielnik R(2020)"I'll Be Back": A Taxonomy of Death and Rebirth in Platformer Video GamesExtended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3334480.3382863(1-13)Online publication date: 25-Apr-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3334480.3382863
Servais O(2016)Cérémonies funéraires dans World of Warcraft. Révélateur des sociabilités en ligne ?Frontières10.7202/1040196ar28:2Online publication date: 2016
https://doi.org/10.7202/1040196ar
Servais O(2015)Funerals in the ‘World of Warcraft’: Religion, polemic, and styles of play in a videogame universeSocial Compass10.1177/003776861558784062:3(362-378)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2015
https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768615587840
Rasche PMertens ASchlick CChoe P(2015)The Effect of Tactile Feedback on Mental Workload During the Interaction with a SmartphoneCross-Cultural Design Methods, Practice and Impact10.1007/978-3-319-20907-4_18(198-208)Online publication date: 19-Jul-2015
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20907-4_18
Copcic AMcKenzie SHobbs M(2013)Permadeath: A review of literature2013 IEEE International Games Innovation Conference (IGIC)10.1109/IGIC.2013.6659156(40-47)Online publication date: Sep-2013
https://doi.org/10.1109/IGIC.2013.6659156
Bainbridge WBainbridge W(2011)Anarchy OnlineThe Virtual Future10.1007/978-0-85729-904-8_4(55-72)Online publication date: 27-Jul-2011
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-904-8_4
Klastrup L(2010)Understanding Online (Game)worldsInternational Handbook of Internet Research10.1007/978-1-4020-9789-8_19(309-323)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2010
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9789-8_19
Bainbridge W(2009)Online Multiplayer GamesSynthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services10.2200/S00232ED1V01Y200912ICR0131:1(1-113)Online publication date: Jan-2009
https://doi.org/10.2200/S00232ED1V01Y200912ICR013
McArthur VKapralos BKatchabaw MRajnovich J(2008)World of Warcraft as a ludic cyborgProceedings of the 2008 Conference on Future Play: Research, Play, Share10.1145/1496984.1497046(264-265)Online publication date: 3-Nov-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1496984.1497046
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Death and dying in DayZ

Unraveling the mortal coil: death and stories of play

“I Hope There Are Beasties in the Next One”: Positivity Through Interaction in Death-Themed Digital Games

Comments

Information

Published In

Sponsors

Publisher

Publication History

Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Conference

Acceptance Rates

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Login options

Full Access

View options

PDF

eReader

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media

Affiliations