January 2, 2003
About Me
I was born and grew up in Hong Kong. Both my parents had been in the US for college before moving back to Hong Kong, so I grew up bilingual in Cantonese and English. When I was 14, I went to Choate, a boarding school in Conneticut.
Then I went to Haverford College, a small liberal arts college outside of Philadelphia. It was in my sophomore year (1998-1999) that I took a required methodology course with Prof. Doug Davis where I learned the basics of conducting online survey research and made my first webpage. In the beginning of my junior year, a pair of seniors were carrying out research in exploring whether players of different game genres have different personalities. They chose Quake, StarCraft and EverQuest as the exemplar of 3 genres. At that time, none of us had ever played EQ, so we went and got a copy to try it out. I was the only one who got hooked.
So in the spring of my junior year, I took an independent study with Doug Davis to apply my skills in an area I was interested in - immersive online environments. At that time, there was a paucity of quantitative data related to MMORPGs. Under Prof. Davis’ guidance, I defined my research goals and collected narratives and demographic data from around 1000 EverQuest players through online surveys which I created, publicized, processed and analyzed statistically. Apart from the demographics, I also gathered qualitative data relating to the appeal of the environment, the in-game relationships that users developed, and gender dynamics.
For my senior thesis the following year (2000-2001), I continued my research in EverQuest by using my earlier findings to guide and structure a more quantitative project. I was interested in how age, gender, personality and play frequency interacted with a variety of issues – such as gender-bending, relationship formation, and in-game dynamics. I also collected data on the experience of playing the game with a real-life romantic partner, or playing with a child or parent, as well as exploring how individuals project or idealize their personalities onto their virtual personas and what they might learn from their online experiences.
Over the course of the year, I collected over 20,000 surveys from about 4,000 individual respondents. I also developed and refined my methodology to be able to efficiently publicize my surveys, process large data files using spreadsheet, database and statistical software, and accumulate a growing respondent base. Early on, I realized the value of a sustained respondent base because I could collate data from an individual’s past and future surveys, thereby allowing me to ask more complex questions, as well as obtain rich profiles of individual users.
I also learned the importance of publicizing the findings of my research online. My research has been cited in the Washington Post, CBS, TechWeek, CNET, the Associated Press, Nature.com, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal among other news outlets.
The work presented here has also been used as course reading at academic institutions, such as Stanford (History of Computer Game Design), UC Berkeley (Research Topics in HCI), U. of Washington (Intro. To New Media), U. Mass (Social Issues in Computing), Loyola New Orleans (Interactive Media), and Haverford College (Foundations of Personality).
After college, I worked for about 2 years in a Tech R&D group in Chicago (2001-2003). I am currently in a PhD program at Stanford in the Communication Department where I am doing research in immersive virtual reality in addition to online games.
General FAQ
What is your motivation for carrying out this research?
Currently, the research presented here is not part of any commercial venture, nor am I receiving funding for this research from any commercial source.
This research is being carried out as an extension of my personal and academic interests. I am motivated by the ease with which I can survey and analyze data in a fascinating area that has a paucity of empirical data. The presentations also help me build upon and apply my tech skills.
You can reach me at contact@nickyee.com
How do I cite articles in "The Daedalus Project"?
Each article has its own perma-link, and includes the word "archives" in the URL. So for example, http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000192.php
The perma-link should be used in all citations when referencing specific articles. The general form of the citation should be:
"<Article Name>"
from "The Daedalus Project"
by Nick Yee
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/<perma-link>.php
If you are citing more than two articles, feel free to cite the site as a whole:
"The Daedalus Project" by Nick Yee, available at:
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus
What is the general methodology used?
Links to online surveys are publicized on main portals catering to specific games. Respondents from past surveys are also notified of the available surveys. Most surveys are multiple choice and consist of 30-50 questions, and usually take about 5-10 minutes to complete. Approximately 2000-4000 respondents participate in each survey phase. While self-selected surveys have certain weaknesses, I think that many common critiques of The Daedalus Project are overstated.
January 1, 2003
How Much Would You Sell Your Account For?
About one-third of players answered that they would not be willing to sell their accounts.
Further analysis showed that female players are significantly less likely to be willing to sell their accounts. Perhaps this is because selling the account means losing the social relationships that a player has formed, and these relationships are more important to female players than male players.
The average amount that players from different games were willing to sell their account at is presented below. This amount is probably directly correlated to the attachment a player has to that game.
Will You Switch To A New Game?
Players were asked whether they were looking forward to switching to an upcoming MMORPG, and the following graph shows how players from 5 current MMORPGs answered. The loyalty of UO and EQ players is quite impressive in contrast with players from DAOC, AO and AC.
Because socialization is more important to female players than to male players, as demonstrated in “Men are from Ogguk. Women are from Kelethin”, it would be expected that female players are less likely to want to switch to a new game when compared with male gamers. This is because the existing social networks would be broken if a player switches to a new game.
Players were asked to type in the game they were looking forward to trying out, and Star Wars Galaxies came out as the most frequently listed.
Another interesting finding was that players who are anticipating the 3 main games had different average ages.
Gender and Age Distribution
In an earlier essay titled “Men are from Ogguk. Women are from Kelethin”, I argued that male and female MMORPG players have very different motivations and reasons for playing.
The graph above plotting gender against age highlights another very important gender difference. Male players tend to be between 12 and 28, while female players tend to be between 23 and 40. Rather than categorizing MMORPG players as male and female players, it perhaps makes more sense to think of the two main groups as younger male players and older female players.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
While most people might think that people are more likely to lie and misbehave online, the opposite is probably more true. As the following graph shows, about one-third of players feel that they act more benevolent online than they do in real-life.
It is also the case that about one-third of players feel they are more aggressive and initiative online.
The internet does indeed allow people to feel less inhibited, but as this pair of graphs suggest, the internet doesn’t turn people into pathological liars and thieves, but rather, courageous knights and brave warriors whose motives are benevolent.
Most Important Aspect Of Game
Female players are more likely than male players to choose “Making Friends” as the most important aspect of the game. 50% of female players (N=385) chose it as the most important aspect, compared with 32% of male players (N=2459).
As the following graph shows, most players have made some good friends online.
These findings underscore the importance of thinking of MMORPGs as an environment where relationships form and social networks are created, rather than just a hack-and-slash playground.
This also goes along well with the finding in “Facets” that the desire to form relationships online, as opposed to other factors (such as achievement, or role-play), is the best predictor of attachment to a game, as measured by hours played per week.
Welcome to The Daedalus Project
Motivation for The Daedalus Project
It's hard to believe that I've been doing these online surveys and presenting the findings for almost 3 years now. Over the course of the past 3 years, I have surveyed over 25,000 MMORPG players, and covered issues ranging from demographics to gender and personality differences, from motivation to addiction, from gender-bending to how these virtual worlds can help people grow.
I see "The Daedalus Project" as a way to present findings in a more direct and accessible format. Instead of a full-length presentation with introduction and discussion, the entries at "The Daedalus Project" are short, concise and to-the-point. "The Daedalus Project" isn't a replacement for the fuller presentations, but instead, it provides a channel for me to publish findings that don’t fit directly into those presentations.
The weblog format allows me to quickly update the information here, and it is all automatically archived, and searchable. Furthermore, readers can make full use of the commenting and trackback features.
I’m also interested in trying to build a more dynamic community around this research, both to facilitate respondent rate when I run surveys, as well as to be tied closer to the player community.
How Do I Subscribe?
The subscription mailing list to "The Daedalus Project" is the same one as the "Online MMORPG Study list", so there is no separate list to subscribe to if you are already on the "Online MMORPG Study" list. I’m hoping that I can put out a new issue every month.
How You Can Help
You can help my research by telling your MMORPG friends and guildmates about this site. If you are part of a message board or forum community, please consider posting a link to either the HUB or The Daedalus Project.
I am interested in your other available presentations on the HUB. But there's so much. Where do I start?
If you are not an MMORPG player, I would recommend starting with Mosaic, which discusses how the virtual lives and identities of players affect their real lives and identities.
If you are interested in demographic information, I would recommend this page at The Norrathian Scrolls which focuses on EQ players, and this page in Codename Blue which includes players from 5 MMORPGs.
If you are interested in learning about addiction, I would recommend the full presentation Ariadne, and these pages at The Norrathian Scrolls (narratives and essay).
If you are interested in learning about the different motivations for why people play, I would recommend the Facets study.
If you are interested in how men and women play the game differently, I would begin with this essay.