Abstract
Players of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) are accustomed to a transformative culture that appropriates off-line events and personas into virtual-world representations inside of the game. Following this culture, players have transformed an off-line event—the Race for the Cure, to benefit breast cancer charities—into an online event called the Running of the Gnomes with parameters and participation properties appropriate for the virtual world. This transformative event is a disruptive form of civil disobedience including elements of hacktivism. Though the event conforms to the game's culture and rules, the mass collective action of the Running of the Gnomes disrupts the player experience by flooding the game's chat boxes with messages about an off-line concern (breast cancer) and also disrupts the game itself by crashing the server through the sheer volume of player participation. This disruption is embraced as an integral part of the event and is one of the primary causes for the event's success as a fundraising activity.
Highlights
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [0.1] Abstract—Players of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) are accustomed to a transformative culture that appropriates off-line events and personas into virtual-world representations inside of the game
"Video games, as well as gaming and play more broadly conceived and experienced, demand that as both researchers and fans, we explore questions that continue to challenge our preconceptions—and fears—about the ways people use, negotiate, and appropriate technology and media." In this work, I take up Carlson's suggestion and explore the ways that players of World of Warcraft (WoW), a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, have appropriated a famous off-line event and transformed it into an online phenomenon that raises awareness for an important cause through collective action and (h)activism
[1.2] The phenomenon I discuss is the Running of the Gnomes (RotG) event, an ingame charity event hosted by a team of organizers and players of WoW to benefit breast cancer research
Summary
[1.1] Rebecca Carlson (2009) challenged fandom scholars to move beyond concrete creative productions like fan fiction and fan vids by considering digital games as a site of transformative works. [4.14] The fact that the disruption is caused by the sheer number of players and not by any actions that could be classified as hacking is the reason that I have described the event as (h)activism It follows Manion and Goodrum's definition of hacktivism as a form of electronic civil disobedience by not damaging people or property (the servers, overloaded, are often brought back online), being nonviolent (relying on conversations and presence, even when digitally "attacking" the enemy faction), not involving personal profit (the event is entirely motivated by charitable contributions), and being motivated by ethical considerations (preventing breast cancer), as well as by the participants' and organizers' willingness to accept responsibility for its outcomes. The RotG, transforms civil disobedience into a disruption that fits within this particular virtual world
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