Massively Multiplayer 1 Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games: The Glocal Context of Local Universalism

The Internet (Net) has irrevocable altered the context of social behavior in large parts of the world and in selected parts of societies. The Net makes it possible for “niche” groups of all sorts to engage in complex global social interactions outside the local context. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) are one of the most distinctive forms of this new behavior, with tens of millions of players around the world. In this paper, Global Civil Society and Cyborg Society theories are used to analyze and explain the social structure and social interactions within and surrounding MMOs, the effects of MMOs, and the local to global (glocal) nature of MMOs. Data was obtained through research interviews with a small, purposive sample of veteran and committed players. Described are the physical and social organization of several major games, the operation of norms and values, and the experience of engaging non-local players. It was found that: (1) MMOs are very much a part of the Global Civil Society, which provides the broader context in which these games can occur; (2) MMOs are glocal because the games link the individual player in his/her local place to the global game system; (3) MMOs are a Cyborg Society with a new, international division of labor, social human-machine interactions, and a new collective consciousness that does not recognize the absolute distinction between humans and machines; (4) the combat basis of most MMOs led to the proposal of a new theory, the War Society: a restricted division of labor and a distinctive collective consciousness dominated by an intense “compete to survive” perspective, yet which also emphasizes the group over the individual.