Game Features and Trust Belief Formation: A Study in an MMORPG
Open Access
- Author:
- Lothian, Jeremy Michael
- Graduate Program:
- Information Sciences and Technology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 12, 2015
- Committee Members:
- Andrea H Tapia, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Andrea H Tapia, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Gerald Santoro, Committee Member
Alison Alene Carr Chellman, Committee Member
Erika S Poole, Committee Member
Barton Keller Pursel, Special Member - Keywords:
- Games
MMORPG
Trust
MMO
Cognitive Trust
Swift Trust
Video Games
World of Warcraft
Behavioral Economics - Abstract:
- Today’s video games are not simply isolated entertainment to be consumed, but designed human experiences that provide for a rich set of behaviors in naturalistic settings. Despite this, it is uncommon for the use of social science theory to be a primary element of game design. One particularly interesting element of social behavior that could be applied to game design is trust. But, as part of a complex social process, trust has been difficult to both design and study. This research considered and extended a cognitive model of trust and used it to explore and evaluate how features in the massively multiplayer role playing games (MMORPG) World of Warcraft (WoW) effected the formation of trust beliefs. Qualitative analytic induction was used to evaluate data and assess changes in the trust theory. The research illustrated a significant correlation between game features and how players develop trust towards each other. During analysis, an additional factor – trust belief formation delegation – was discovered in the form of reputation, group identity, and telepresence. Additionally, the analysis contributed to extensions in the use and understanding of adaptive structuration theory, temporal motivation theory, and swift trust. This new knowledge bridges the areas of game design and other social science research, emphasizing the use of games as a research medium for socially complex behavior. Additionally, it has the potential to provide industry with a predictive mechanism that can be considered while designing game features and additionally facilitates player discussion with developers to address perceived negligence in design. These results were used to create design guidelines for video game designers to support trust formation using game features. Two examples of game features that follow these guidelines were provided – the first as an alteration of an existing game feature in WoW, and the second as the design of a new feature for role playing games. Additionally, these guidelines were reconstructed in a context agnostic manner to create general guidelines for managing distributed teams.