580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104
Key research themes
1. How do social interactions and community dynamics shape player experiences and team cohesion in MOBA and MMORPG games?
This research area focuses on understanding the multifaceted social interactions within large-scale online multiplayer games, especially MMORPGs and MOBA games, with a view to elucidating how player relationships, team coordination, and community culture enhance gameplay enjoyment, facilitate player learning and skill development, and influence both positive and negative social phenomena such as teamwork, addiction, and toxicity. It matters because social dynamics are a core driver of player retention, satisfaction, and game success, while also impacting mental well-being and community sustainability.
Key finding: This study with 912 MMORPG players across 45 countries demonstrates that MMORPGs are highly social environments fostering strong friendships and emotional bonds, often extending into real life, due to cooperative gameplay... Read more
Key finding: Through mixed qualitative and quantitative methods analyzing Star Wars Galaxies, this work reveals varied patterns of player-to-player interactions and confirms that MMORPG design features deliberately promote inter-player... Read more
Key finding: This qualitative study of Mobile Legends players in a competitive community illustrates how cohesiveness emerges as a symbolic force through shared norms, mutual support, and coordinated team effort within squads and guilds.... Read more
Key finding: Using qualitative data from Mobile Legends players, this study finds that Islamic values such as patience, tolerance, cooperation, and mutual respect manifest in online interactions, fostering strengthened brotherhood and... Read more
Key finding: Surveying over 7,000 MMORPG players, this paper confirms that social aspects are often the most important motivators for play. It reveals that MMORPGs foster significant friendships, emotional investment, gender swapping, and... Read more
2. What are the psychological and cognitive impacts of MOBA and MMORPG gameplay on players, including motivational frameworks and mental well-being?
This theme addresses the psychological underpinnings and effects of engaging with MOBAs and MMORPGs, focusing on player motivations, cognitive skill correlations, mental health implications, motivations for teamwork and mastery, as well as the dual nature of gameplay in producing both wellness and distress. Understanding these impacts informs better game design, player support, and mental health interventions tailored to gaming contexts.
Key finding: Drawing on mixed qualitative and quantitative methodologies with World of Warcraft players, this study extends Yee's 3-factor model (Achievement, Social, Immersion) by linking these motivations to both positive (well-being,... Read more
Key finding: By developing a player behavior classification tool from detailed gameplay data collected in Minecraft, this work advances methods to quantify high-level player behaviours and their interaction with environmental and social... Read more
Key finding: This study demonstrates the validity of collecting cognitive and gaming expertise data at an international MOBA tournament, finding a significant association between gaming experience and faster spatial long-term memory... Read more
Key finding: Through a global web-based survey of 368 teenagers, this study finds professional esports players report significantly lower psychological well-being than amateur or non-working peers. It highlights that extensive gameplay... Read more
Key finding: Using a mixed-methods approach, this pioneering investigation reveals that MOBA games stimulate less immersion and presence but invoke higher challenge and frustration compared to other genres. Despite this, MOBA players... Read more
3. How do colonialism, wealth accumulation, and toxic behavior manifest and influence player experience in MMORPGs and MOBAs?
This theme investigates socio-cultural and interactional dynamics embedded within MMORPGs and MOBAs, focusing on how historical colonial narratives are reproduced in game mechanics and player behavior, how wealth and status are accumulated and symbolized, and how toxic behaviors arise from game-specific events, shaping player interactions and community health. Exploring these factors sheds light on the broader socio-political and micro-sociological processes occurring within virtual gaming worlds.
Key finding: This cultural analysis historicizes Runescape's in-game societies and reveals that player advancement mirrors virtual performances of European-style colonialism, with exploitative archaeology, colonial cartography, imperial... Read more
Key finding: Through an ethnographic lens on WoW, this study applies archaeological theories of aggrandizement and containment to demonstrate how players marshal social and economic capital both in-game and offline to accumulate prestige... Read more
Key finding: Employing Erving Goffman’s situational analysis, this study examines recorded toxic encounters triggered by player death events in League of Legends. It identifies that micro-sociological patterns and interactional rituals... Read more
Key finding: Through thematic qualitative ethnography across multiple role-playing modalities, this study identifies unique and general social conflict sources such as creative agenda clashes, power differentials, and emotional bleed... Read more
Key finding: This technical study compares seven clustering algorithms on limited open data from Final Fantasy XIV, a popular MMOG, to identify player behavioral profiles under data constraints. It highlights the methodological challenges... Read more