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A Study of Gamer Experience and Virtual World Behaviour

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doi:10.1093/iwc/iwt024

A Study of Gamer Experience and

Virtual World Behaviour
Thomas Chesney1,∗ , Swee-Hoon Chuah1 , Robert Hoffmann1 , Wendy Hui2
and Jeremy Larner1
1 Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, UK
2 Curtin
University of Technology, Perth, Australia
∗Corresponding author: thomas.chesney@nottingham.ac.uk

Downloaded from http://iwc.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Nottingham on July 24, 2013

This paper reports a study which examined the impact of computer game experience on behaviour
observed inside a virtual world. A social networking world was used, which was owned and run by the
research team and a dataset capturing the behaviour of 195 subjects was extracted from the world’s
event logs. Four broad areas were analysed: communication, movement, avatar creation and world
customization. Highly significant differences were found in text communication. Less significant
differences were found in movement and avatar creation, and none were found in the customization
of the world.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

• Differences in behaviour between computer gamers and non-gamers in a novel social networking virtual
world are examined.
• The world is controlled by the research team and the team therefore have access to its detailed event logs.
• A range of virtual world telemetrics are examined using both quantitative and qualitative methods.
• Difference between gamers and non-gamers were found in chat, avatar movement and avatar creation.

Keywords: user studies, social media, massively multiplayer online

Editorial Board Member: Paul Cairns
Received 10 December 2012; Revised 6 March 2013; Accepted 11 March 2013

1. INTRODUCTION
A virtual world is a persistent computer-mediated environment
in which many users can synchronously interact (Bell, 2008).
The past decade has seen much research interest in virtual
worlds (Wasko et al., 2011). Their genesis lies in computer
games (Messinger et al., 2008b; Schroeder, 1997) and the most
popular worlds are still games. World of Warcraft, EVE Online
and Ultima Online are good examples and each features a 3D
interface with users represented as avatars (Fig. 1)1 .
Not all virtual worlds have as sophisticated interfaces as
these. Maplestory uses a relatively primitive sideways scrolling
interface and Mafia Wars which is also arguably a virtual
world has a largely text-based interface. In each case, however,
the interface used can be traced back to a game: World of
Warcraft to Doom and Tomb Raider; Ultima Online to Gauntlet
and the original Ultima; EVE Online to Elite; Maplestory to
1 For information about the worlds and games mentioned see Appendix A.
platform games such as Sonic the Hedgehog; and Mafia Wars
to management simulations such as Football Manager. Even
early text-based virtual worlds such as MUD used a style of
interaction that was based on games such as Colossal Cave
Adventure.
However, not all virtual worlds are games. Second Life as a
whole is difficult to classify as a game (Schultze and Rennecker,
2007) and is better described as an ‘arena of creativity’(Chesney
et al., 2009) or a ‘virtual “place” rather than a game’ (Turkle,
2011), a place where sometimes work, rather than play, gets
done (Terdiman, 2007). Slater et al. (2000) provide a concise
discussion of how virtual worlds are useful for collaborative
work and have advantages over technologies such as video
conferencing. In addition, some in the IT industry think that
the skills needed to manage virtual worlds are inherently useful
in the real business world (see, for instance, Chodos, 2009;
Driver and Jackson, 2008; Kirkpatrick, 2007) and that ‘serious
games’ have a role in training (Bohannon, 2010) and education

Interacting with Computers, 2013

2 Thomas Chesney et al.
Figure 1. A typical virtual world scene.
(deNoyelles and Seo, 2012). Both Schultze and Orlikowski
(2010) and Chesney et al. (2009) list examples of virtual worlds
used for work rather than play. Jung and Kang (2010) distinguish
gaming worlds from social worlds noting different motivations
of use for each.
With the interest in the use of virtual worlds for social
networking, education and commerce, and given their game
heritage, it is therefore interesting to ask how computer game
experience influences behaviour in a virtual world, which is
used for collaboration rather than play. This paper examines
this question, reporting behaviours observed in 195 subjects, a
mixture of gamers and non-gamers, in a world that is new to all
of them.
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Gaming experience (time spent playing computer games) is
quite distinct from gaming expertise (being good at a computer
game). Taylor et al. (2011), for instance, see gaming expertise
as a construct made up of investment in the game, skill in the
game, mastery in the social language of gaming and knowledge
of the game. However, we define computer gamer in terms
of experience rather than expertise. A gamer in this study is
someone who plays computer games frequently and perceives
themselves as a gamer but who is not necessarily an expert (e.g.
can achieve a top score) in a game. Our classification of gamer
uses an ordinal scale with three levels: non-gamer, gamer and
frequent gamer, with a self-reported distinction between gamer
and frequent gamer based on time spent playing.
Therefore ‘computer gamer’ here includes players of multi-
player games, first person perspective games, platform games
and puzzle games. In all but games which have the simplest
interfaces, such as an electronic crossword puzzle or a Sudoko
game, a computer gamer will have experience of navigating
and manipulating game elements on a computer screen. This
Interacting with Computers, 2013
might influence their ability to navigate around and interact in a
virtual world. In fact, when playing a computer game it is clear
that a gamer experienced in that game will behave differently
from a non-gamer. We take this statement as self-evident,
although it has been demonstrated experimentally (Hong and
Liu, 2003): when playing against an opponent of a certain skill,
an experienced player will behave in such a way that they tend
to win, a new player will tend to lose.
However, it might be expected that differences would also
be evident in an unfamiliar virtual environment even when the
purpose of use is not play. Theoretically such differences might
arise due to the interface’s game heritage. The theory behind this
work can therefore be summarized succinctly: virtual worlds
are no longer used solely for gaming (Verhagen et al., 2012)
and are therefore populated by both gamers and non-gamers;
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virtual world interfaces are inspired by game interfaces; this
means we might expect that those familiar with computer games
will behave differently in virtual worlds from those unfamiliar
with games. This is the hypothesis which is tested. Ang et al.
(2007, p. 167) concisely explain why gamers and non-gamers
might behave differently: ‘Whilst playing MMORPGs, users
are required to multi-task. Most significantly, players must learn
to deal with the social dynamics around the game in addition
to having to interact with the virtual space and game objects
which are usually defined by the complicated game mechanics.
This may cause cognitive overloads which can hinder the
performance especially of beginner players’.
Schrader and McCreery (2008) find that subjects’ levels of
computer gaming expertise does indeed relate to behaviours,
strategies, and skills exhibited within a virtual world. Other
literature on this, which is reviewed next, is limited and does
not always relate explicitly to computer gamers interacting in
social networking virtual worlds. However, taken together, it
does tend to suggest that differences in behaviour might be
expected in four broad areas of virtual world interaction: avatar
creation, communication, movement and world customization.
Each is an important part of virtual world use (Taylor, 2002) and
each is readily observed in a virtual world (unlike, for instance,
behaviour relating to the setup of a user’s computer such as the
distance they keep their virtual camera from their avatar; such
behaviour is not considered here). It is in these four areas that
we test our hypothesis.
2.1. Avatar
The avatar is fundamental to virtual worlds and modern
avatars exhibit an impressive range of characteristics and
behaviours. Users are embodied through their avatar (Benford
et al., 1995), a self-representation which gives a mechanism
for communicating and interacting with other users, and for
navigating the world. The sense of presence users feel in the
world tends to increase with avatar realism (Slater and Steed,
2009) and even basic avatars (in a graphical sense) have social
significance (Slater et al., 2000). The design goal is to make
 A Study of Gamer Experience and Virtual World Behaviour
users feel as if they are inhabiting a body rather than just
operating an animated figure (Slater et al., 2000).
Thus the avatar is key to online identity (Taylor, 2003). A
user’s avatar influences how others perceive them (Donath,
2007; Nowak and Rauh, 2008) and users prefer to have control
over their avatar’s appearance (Messinger et al., 2008a). For
this reason, virtual world designers often give users a high
degree of control over their ability to customize their avatar.
The relationship between user and avatar is complex and has
been approached by researchers in a number of ways. Both
Messinger et al. (2008a) and Bessière et al. (2007) find that
some users customize their avatars to bear similarity to their
real selves. Other users experiment with a range of avatar
looks (Taylor, 2002). Yee and Bailenson (2007) demonstrate
that avatar appearance has an impact on how people behave
in world. Ducheneaut et al. (2009) study the choices subjects
make when creating their avatar and find the effort they put in, in
terms of time spent, depends heavily on the virtual world. They
find no difference between effort put into creating an avatar for
World of Warcraft and Maplestory, but find Second Life users
put a significantly larger amount of effort into their avatars.
Trepte et al. (2009) report that avatars are chosen by gamers
so that they can be used (1) to master the game and (2) to be a
character players can identify with.
When considering what this means to gamer/non-gamer
differences, it might be thought that gamers will tend to have
experience of avatar creation/customization, and of their self-
presentation preferences inside a virtual world, knowledge
that non-gamers will tend not to have. We would therefore
expect avatar customization to be determined in part by gamer
experience. Little has been written on this. One study finds
that all types of gamer (casual gamer, social gamer and heavy
gamer) do not differ in their emphasis on avatar appearance
and customization. Although interesting, it should be noted that
casual gamer does not equate with non-gamer.
Avatars are also used as a communication tool. They give
virtual world users a continual awareness of others in their
shared space which on its own can be a powerful communication
tool. For instance, a semi-circle of avatars around another
confers some sense of importance to, or attention on, the central
figure (Benford et al., 1995). In addition, avatar gestures such as
pointing, yawning and smiling are used to communicate. Much
virtual world communication however is still chat-based.
2.2. Communication
Gamer chat, whether text or voice, is a confusing array of
abbreviations and jargon that is often incomprehensible to
outsiders (Turkle, 1995). In a discourse analysis of chat in
the virtual world Lineage, Steinkuehler (2004) shows that this
jargon-filled chat in fact serves the same range and complexity
as offline language, but looks the way it does due to the
tight constraints of the game’s chat window. The need to
Interacting with Computers, 2013
3
communicate quickly by typed text also necessitates it being
abbreviated.
Stepping away from one particular game’s or community’s
jargon to a world that is new to all participants—as the world
used here is—where such jargon does not yet exist, will an
experienced gamer’s chat still differ from that of non-gamers?
This question has not been fully examined before, but two
papers have touched upon it and both suggest that there will
be differences. Huffaker et al. (2009) study a number of gamer
types finding that those whose avatars have the highest ‘game
level’ send and receive more communication than others. Those
who perform most efficiently at the game show no difference
in communication behavior from other players. In the second
paper, Jackson et al. (1999) study school children interacting
in pairs using voice chat in a virtual environment and find that
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pairs of novices were less communicative than pairs of experts.
User gender made a difference, with pairs of female experts
communicating the most, although how ‘expert’ and ‘novice’
were defined is unclear.
2.3. Movement
Another important part of virtual world interaction is movement
and navigation through the world. In considering movement
and navigation, it might be expected that someone who had
played a computer game would be ‘better’ at it than someone
who had not. The novice might be expected to explore less,
to bump into walls and to become stuck in corners. However,
given the ubiquity of human–computer interaction, it could
be that such differences are less pronounced than they once
were, with many non-gamers being very comfortable with
using mouse and keyboard and tracking movement on a
monitor. At least one paper has found that players can be
classified by their avatar’s actions including movement and
that these classifications include experienced and inexperienced
players (Matsumoto and Thawonmas, 2004). In other words,
experienced and inexperienced users do differ somehow in
their movement. The analysis used data-mining techniques and
how users differed was not reported. In fact, little has been
written on this. Jackson et al. (1999) found among school
children that expert users tend to involve themselves in more
action, that is they do more, than novices. Both Richardson
and Powers (2011) and Frey et al. (2007) find differences in
navigation performance between those with different levels
of experience. Related to movement is spatial proximity
among avatars. Striking differences in avatar distribution have
been observed (Lomanowska and Guitton, 2012) but the
relationship of this to gamer experience has not been examined
before.
2.4. World customization
Another important feature in the formation of virtual worlds
is the ability of individuals to customize their own space
4 Thomas Chesney et al.
Figure 2. Places/Sherwood; the text chat interface can be seen in the
bottom left.
Figure 3. The avatar creation interface.
(Schroeder et al., 2001). This customization plays a part in
how the online community develops. With an object creation
interface as complex as a world such as, for example, Second
Life (see Weber et al., 2007), it is understandable—and clearly
observed in the world—that new user’s creations differ vastly
from those of experienced users, in that they tend to be less
impressive. However, questions on time and effort spent in
customizing an environment between gamers and non-gamers
have not been examined before.
3. THE WORLD
The world used in this study, called Places/Sherwood (Fig. 2),
was developed by software developer Multiverse (which has
since ceased trading). An instance of the world was created
Interacting with Computers, 2013
for a larger research project (Dieterle and Murray, 2010) of
which this study is a part. The research team had control of
the world and could access all the event logs, which meant
data on avatar behaviour could be easily extracted. Similar
in appearance to Second Life, the world is not a game but is
intended as a social networking space. The world’s asthetic is
modern day New York. It allows for text chat between avatars
and a range of avatar gestures but no audio. The main area
is a recreation of Times Square which avatars can explore
by walking (no running, jumping or flying). It features avatar
customization (Fig. 3) in terms of name, gender, body size
and shape, clothing, tattoos and jewellery. Each avatar has an
apartment with a bedroom, living room and hallway that can be
customized (Fig. 4) by putting up posters (photos from flickr)
and changing the style and colour of the walls and furniture. The
Downloaded from http://iwc.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Nottingham on July 24, 2013
world features an integrated help system to explain its features
to users.
4. METHOD
Subjects were asked to complete a demographics questionnaire
and then attend 1 of 20 experiment sessions in a computer
laboratory. The sessions involved between 8 and 12 subjects
positioned so that they could not clearly see each other’s
screens. Interaction with each other in the real world was
not allowed but in the virtual world it was encouraged.
Subjects stayed in the world for no less than 90 min. No
real world announcements were made after subjects were
logged in although two researchers were in-world and made
announcements from there. Socialization was encouraged with
an ice-breaker game led by the in-world researchers. The
experiment took place at two physical locations, in the UK
and in Dubai. Subjects were paid 5GBP (or the UAE dirham
equivalent) for attending. A dataset of 195 subjects was created.
4.1. Subject demographics
Subjects were drawn from one population: those about
to leave higher education and enter work. Using standard
recruitment procedures from experimental economics and
applied psychology (Kagel and Roth, 1995), we contacted
representative groups from this population and invited them
to take part. Those that agreed were randomly assigned to a
session. We did not design the recruitment procedure to achieve
equal or target levels of gamers and non-gamers. Only post-
recruitment did we determine by the questionnaire responses
who was a gamer and who was not.
Computer game experience was measured by two survey
questions giving three levels of experience: non-gamer (n = 49,
25%), gamer (n = 83, 43%) and frequent gamer (n = 63, 32%)
giving total n = 195. The two questions were:
(1) Do you play video games? [Yes/No]
 A Study of Gamer Experience and Virtual World Behaviour 5

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Figure 4. Avatar apartments; on the left the avatar is about to change the appearance of her sofa; on the right the avatar is about to search flickr for
a photo to put up as a poster.

Table 1. Subject demographics (3) avatar design and (4) choices made to customize the world.
In the following analyses, based on gender differences found in
Non-gamers Gamers Frequent gamers
existing literature (Taylor, 2008), we control for the gender of
n (total) 49 83 63 the user and their avatar. To avoid problems with collinearity
n (UK) 41 52 28 we control for avatar gender with a dummy variable, ‘gender-
n (Dubai) 8 31 35 match’, which indicates whether user and avatar gender are the
% Male 24.5 48 79 same or different. To check for a potential problem of statisti-
Mean (SD) age 20.6 (1.9) 21.1 (3.5) 20.6 (2.0) cal non-independence caused by the data collection happening
Mean (SD) 3.6 (3.5) 10.5 (7.9) in sessions of 8–12 subjects (which might influence partici-
hours play pant behaviour through particular group dynamics and social
per week context), the analyses were repeated using a generalized linear
mixed model to test whether the session had an effect. The find-
ings showed that it did not, and it is the ordinary least squares
Table 2. Reasons given for not playing computer games, and regression results that are reported in the tables here. Our results
the percentage they appeared in the list of reasons given were also unaffected by the location of subjects, Dubai and UK.
Reason %
Lack of time 31
Uninterested 53 5. ANALYSES AND RESULTS
Computer games are addictive/harmful 10 5.1. Communication
Lack of access to games 6
About 1 MB of text chat data were collected featuring
approximately 7500 messages2 . Features of the text and
the message content were analysed using quantitative and
(2) Do you consider yourself a gamer (someone who plays qualitative methods, respectively.
video games frequently)? [Yes/No]

Table 1 presents information about the sample. Most (n =
167) were not users of virtual worlds. Subjects had experience
of a range of games with frequent gamers listing on average
three games that they play the most. The most common games
listed were third person action/adventure games (which have
very similar interfaces to that shown in Fig. 1). Table 2 lists the
reasons given by the non-gamers for why they do not play.
Analyses were conducted in the four areas: (1) communica-
tion, (2) avatar movement, and environment choices including
5.1.1. Chat features analysis.
A quantative analysis was carried out by Wang et al. (2011) to
develop algorithms to automatically detect speaker attributes.
Their analysis used the current dataset as test data and we are
able to draw upon their results. The analysis examined a range
of metrics which were extracted from the chat logs such as
2A message is defined as the text that is sent when the user finishes typing
and presses enter. It does not necessarily equate to a sentence although almost
all messages were single sentences.

Interacting with Computers, 2013

6 Thomas Chesney et al.

quality of syntax, message length and use of extreme words
such as ‘best’, ‘greatest’ and ‘super’. (Note that messages not
written in English—a minority of about 30 messages from the
sessions in Dubai—were ignored although they were translated
by a professional paid translator and included in the qualitative
analysis reported in Section 5.1.2.)
Results show that the number of messages, the average
number of characters per message, the average number of
messages that address someone (such as ‘come on John’),
the percentage of messages that were statements rather than
questions, were all significantly related to gamer experience
(Table 3).
Table 3. Quantitative chat analysis, n = 170 (the lower n is
Result 1. Experienced gamers write more sentences, and
longer sentences than less experienced gamers, more of what
they write are statements rather than questions, and they address
other users by avatar name more frequently.
5.1.2. Chat content analysis.
All chat was qualitatively analysed using content analysis where
messages were coded into one of six categories and then
into one of a number of sub-categories. Content analysis is a
useful technique to summarize and describe large qualitative
data sets (Neuendorf, 2002). An inductive content analysis
was employed, deriving the categories directly from the data.
The data were coded according to the guidelines provided
by Elo and Kyngas (2008). The messages were read and re-
read in order to become familiar with the content. During

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because 25 users did not generate enough chat to be used in this the initial readings, a process of open coding was applied,
analysis) where all interesting concepts found within the data were noted
Coefficient SE t-value P -value and categories were freely generated. In the next stage, the
Number of messages categories were grouped into broader, higher-order categories
Gamer 13.75 3.55 3.88 0.000∗∗∗ and sub-categories. Finally, all categories and sub-categories
usergender 5.83 5.24 1.11 0.268 were assigned a clear label and a description. Once the coding
gendermatch 6.93 8.16 0.85 0.396 frame was established, all messages were read again and coded
vwuser 13.29 6.71 1.98 0.049∗ accordingly.
Adjusted R 2 0.16 Code classifications were made independently by one
researcher who was not involved in the data collection and a
Percentage of person addressing messages sub-set (500 messages, which is roughly 7% of the total) of the
Gamer 0.02 0.01 1.79 0.075† chat was independently classified by a second researcher (one
usergender 0.01 0.01 0.37 0.712 of the authors). When the classifications of each sentence were
gendermatch 0.04 0.02 1.77 0.079† examined for inter-rater reliability, there was 76.7% agreement
vwuser −0.01 0.02 −0.76 0.449 between the two. The agreement expected by chance was 7.6%
Adjusted R 2 0.03 and Cohen’s kappa was calculated to be 0.748, which indicates
Percentage of statements a good level of agreement (Landis and Koch, 1977).
Gamer 0.03 0.02 1.69 0.093† Six main categories made up of 17 subcategories were found.
usergender 0.04 0.02 1.90 0.059† The main six were:
gendermatch 0.03 0.04 0.75 0.456
(1) Providing help
vwuser −0.03 0.03 −1.16 0.247
(2) Asking for help
Adjusted R 2 0.06
(3) Follower/leader traits
Percentage of questions (4) Viewpoint (whether text about an avatar/user was
Gamer −0.02 0.01 −1.56 0.121 written in the first or third person, or whether references
usergender −0.04 0.02 −2.24 0.027∗ were made to the real world)
gendermatch −0.01 0.03 −0.49 0.628 (5) Attitude to others
vwuser 0.03 0.02 1.31 0.193 (6) Aggression
Adjusted R 2 0.07
The percentage of a subject’s messages that were coded in
Average message length in characters
each category was regressed as before. No differences between
Gamer 1.33 0.55 2.42 0.017∗
gamers and non-gamers were found in terms of asking for or
usergender −1.16 0.80 −1.44 0.151
providing help, and no difference was found in the personal
gendermatch −0.35 1.26 −0.28 0.783
remarks made about others. Gamers chat more as leaders
vwuser −1.61 0.99 −1.63 0.105
than non-gamers, and refer more to the real world than
Adjusted R 2 0.02
non-gamers (Table 4). ‘Chatting as a leader’ is instances of
∗∗∗ Significance at 0.001 level. statements or questions indicating the speaker’s willingness
∗∗ Significance at 0.01 level. to lead, making suggestions of group activities, influencing or
∗ Significance at 0.05 level.
encouraging others’ behaviours, taking control of group/other
†significance at 0.1 level. players activities and giving instructions. Examples include:

Interacting with Computers, 2013

 A Study of Gamer Experience and Virtual World Behaviour 7

Table 4. Qualitative chat analysis, n = 195 Table 6. Movement analysis, n = 195

Coefficient SE t-value p-value Coefficient SE t-value p-value
Leader traits Total key presses
gamer 1.08 0.27 3.95 0.000∗∗∗ gamer 7.57 49.26 0.15 0.878
usergender 0.26 0.40 0.64 0.523 usergender 152.04 74.74 2.03 0.044∗
gendermatch 0.85 0.61 1.40 0.165 gendermatch −54.78 105.34 −0.52 0.604
vwuser −0.18 0.50 −0.35 0.726 Adjusted R 2 0.02
adjusted R 2 0.12 Turn left
Real world references gamer −0.88 15.76 −0.06 0.955
gamer 0.78 0.24 3.20 0.002∗∗ usergender 83.07 23.91 3.48 0.001∗∗∗
usergender 0.10 0.36 0.29 0.775 gendermatch −2.33 33.69 −0.06 0.945
gendermatch 0.03 0.54 0.05 0.962 Adjusted R 2 0.07
vwuser 0.96 0.45 2.14 0.03∗ Turn right
adjusted R 2 0.11 gamer 2.851 17.040 0.167 0.867

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∗∗∗ Significance at 0.001 level. usergender 88.968 25.851 3.442 0.001∗∗∗
∗∗ Significance at 0.01 level. gendermatch −6.039 36.435 −0.166 0.869
∗ Significance at 0.05 level. Adjusted R 2 0.07005
†Significance at 0.1 level. Strafe left
gamer 1.23 0.73 1.69 0.093†
Table 5. Results of the qualitative chat analysis showing usergender 1.02 1.10 0.92 0.360
the number and percentage of messages in each of two gendermatch 1.16 1.61 0.72 0.470
subcategories (leader traits and references to the real world) Adjusted R 2 0.02
∗∗∗ Significance at 0.001 level.
Category Non-gamer Gamer Frequent gamer
∗∗ Significance at 0.01 level.
Leader 0.81 (1.12) 1.99 (2.39) 3.33 (3.41)
∗ Significance at 0.05 level.
0.03 (0.04) 0.06 (0.07) 0.06 (0.06)
Real world 0.19 (0.49) 0.72 (1.58) 1.88 (3.22) †Significance at 0.1 level.
0.01 (0.02) 0.02 (0.03) 0.03 (0.05)
The upper row is the mean (SD) number of messages in each
subcategory; the lower row is the mean (SD) percentage of
Taking key presses first, note that more than one key can
messages in each subcategory
produce the same movement, for instance, W and the Up Arrow
do the same thing, so we counted moves produced rather than
presses of a particular key. The moves available to be examined
were forward, backward, left, right, strafe left and strafe
‘Lets do this, guys!’, ‘daisy and dan…walk towards me’, right. We found gamer experience was correlated with strafe
‘nona come here’. References to ‘real world’ is commenting movements (r = 0.16, p = 0.02 for strafe left movements).
on the computer and its use, for example, by mentioning the When regressed with user gender we found the relationship held
keyboard or computer screen, the laboratory or other players at the 10% level of significance and incidentally also found big
in reality. Examples include ‘my computer screen IS dirty!’, differences in the movement behaviour of males and females
‘im hungry…’, ‘I’m getting cold’. Table 5 gives summary (Table 6), a finding that has been observed before (see Martens
information about these two sub-categories. and Antonenko, 2012).
A range of proximity measures were considered: the average
Result 2. The content of gamers’chat is largely indistinguish-
distance between an avatar and the next closest avatar; the next
able from that of non-gamers, but gamers are more likely to chat
closest male and female avatar; the next closest three avatars;
as leaders and to refer to the real world more.
and the next closest three male and three female avatars. The
total distance and the average speed of movement were also
analysed. No differences were found in the proximity gamers
5.2. Movement and non-gamers kept between themselves and other avatars
(although as before differences in user gender were found).
A substantial dataset on avatar movement was collected. The
current analysis considers the number of times each subject
pressed a key on the keyboard to move their avatar, what Result 3. Some differences were observed in the movement
movement the key produced, the distance subjects moved in behaviour of those with different levels of game experience but
the world and the proximity they kept to other avatars. these were not pronounced.

Interacting with Computers, 2013

8 Thomas Chesney et al.

5.3. Avatar design Table 11. Effort expended on avatar creation in terms of overall
effort and effect spent on choosing a top, n = 195
The avatar choices that all Places/Sherwood users must make
are gender, skin colour and clothing. Starting with gender, Coefficient SE t-value p-value
Table 7 shows the choices that subjects made. Table 8 shows Overall effort
the number of subjects who swapped gender, broken down by gamer 4.16 3.66 1.14 0.257
gamer experience. Using a χ 2 -test, no difference was found usergender −19.91 5.40 −3.69 0.000∗∗∗
between gamers and non-gamers (χ 2 = 0.02, p = 0.99). gendermatch −2.12 8.41 −0.25 0.801
Looking at skin colour, nine choices were available for vwuser 2.41 6.91 0.35 0.728
avatars. These represent ordinal data ranging from 1 (pale) to 9 Adjusted R 2 0.06
(dark). Table 9 shows the contingency table for the skin colour Choice of top
choices made against gamer experience. These nine skin colours gamer 1.72 0.88 1.96 0.051†
were merged into two categories, pale and dark with choices usergender −14.13 1.29 −10.93 0.000∗∗∗
1–6 being pale and 7–9 being dark (Table 10). Two observers gendermatch −0.60 2.01 −0.30 0.766
independently made this classification and agreed on this split. vwuser 2.14 1.66 1.29 0.199
Adjusted R 2 0.43

Downloaded from http://iwc.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Nottingham on July 24, 2013

A χ 2 -test revealed no difference in avatar skin colour choice
∗∗∗ Significance
between gamer experience level (χ 2 = 1.77, p = 0.41). at 0.001 level.
∗∗ Significance
A crude measure of the effort that subjects put into their avatar at 0.01 level.
∗ Significance at 0.05 level.
creation was then created as follows. Each avatar characteristic
†Significance at 0.1 level.

Table 7. Gender of users and their avatars

Avatar
(body shape, clothing, etc.) was in a menu with up to 48
Male Female potential choices per characteristic. The measure used assumed
User Male 91 12 that higher menu items meant higher effort put into the creation.
Female 9 86 For instance a subject choosing item 40 was assumed to have
put more effort into their avatar than someone who chose item
5, as the first subject scrolled through more options to make
Table 8. Gender matches their choice. This measure is crude because it discounts the
possibility of a subject looking at a large number of options,
Match Mismatch
then navigating back to the first (the options had to be scrolled
Non-gamer 44 5
through in order—there was no short cut to jump to a particular
Gamer 74 9
one). The resulting measure was regressed as before. Overall
Frequent gamer 56 7
effort was not affected by gamer experience although effort in
‘getting dressed’ (choosing a top) was (Table 11).
Table 9. Counts of skin colour codes chosen by subjects for each This all suggests:
level of gamer experience
Result 4. No evidence has been found that experienced
Avatar
gamers are more or less likely than non-gamers to swap gender
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 in their avatar choice or to choose a particular skin colour
Non-gamer 1 4 3 10 18 1 8 4 0 for their avatar; there is weak evidence to suggest experienced
Gamer 1 6 2 17 30 12 12 2 1 gamers put more effort into their avatar appearance than non-
Frequent gamer 1 1 3 12 13 16 13 1 3 gamers.

Table 10. Counts of dark and pale skin colours chosen 5.4. World customization
by subjects for each level of gamer experience
Each user had a private apartment which they could customize
Avatar
(Fig. 4) by changing the style of the furniture and wallpaper,
Pale Dark and by putting up pictures, with the images taken from flickr.
Non-gamer 37 12 The number of changes each subject made to their apartment
Gamer 68 15 (excluding pictures), and the number of pictures they put up,
Frequent gamer 46 17 were regressed as before and were not found to be related to
gamer experience.

Interacting with Computers, 2013

 A Study of Gamer Experience and Virtual World Behaviour
6. DISCUSSION
This project sent a pool of subjects with a range of gaming
experience into a virtual world that none of them had used
before. The world was a social networking space, of the sort
used for business meetings, training, collaboration and serious
games, as described in Section 1. This paper examined the
hypothesis that gamers behave differently in such a virtual world
than non-gamers. This is the first time that this research question
has been addressed. The literature summarized in Section 2
suggested that the behaviours examined could all theoretically
have been influenced by gamer experience, but only some
differences were found. Big differences were found in chat.
Much less distinct differences were found in movement and
avatar creation, and none were found in the customization of
the world. This is an interesting finding and suggests many
additional research questions which could be explored.
The quantitative chat analysis found that experienced gamers
write more chat but not qualitatively different chat. The longer
sentences might be a function of experienced users’ comfort in
using in-game text chat, or it could be that non-gamers had to
spend more effort focusing on other aspects of the world (such
as navigation) meaning they were less able to attend to chatting.
Customizing the world (such as decorating an apartment) is not
a feature found in many computer games and this may account
for the lack of difference here. Some evidence was found which
suggested experienced gamers put more effort into their avatar
appearance than non-gamers but this was not strong and relied
on a crude metric. We found evidence that gamers will tend to
take on leadership roles, and communicate about the real world
more than non-gamers.
Note that, if a number of statistical significance tests are
carried out, some are likely to give significant results even
if all null hypotheses are true (Cumming, 2011). To deal
with this we examined our results again after a Bonferroni
correction was made to the P-value considered significant, and
our strongest results on chat (Results 1 and 2) still hold. As
for the other results, we report them as interesting findings
which future research can develop a comprehensive theoretical
model of virtual world behaviour around. This is in line with,
for instance, Rothman (1990) who presents strong arguments
that any correction risks missing important findings and that a
large number of tests is acceptable if any statistically significant
result is regarded as an interesting possibility needing further
investigation, rather than an established finding.
Our findings have implications on the use of social
networking virtual worlds in contexts where users have a variety
of backgrounds. The research highlights that there will be
differences in behaviour based on the experience that such
users have of computer games. It may be that such differences
will disappear over time and future work should examine this.
That not all theoretically predicted differences were found
also suggests avenues for further work. Possibilities include
repeating the data collection and analyses in different worlds
Interacting with Computers, 2013
9
and additional examinations of gamer chat to determine why
more real world references are made – is this because they
do not need to be as focused on the virtual world than non-
gamers, or are they more aware of their physical surroundings?
Further investigation should also examine what specifically it is
about playing computer games that leads to these differences. In
addition, if gamers chat more as leaders, does that mean gamers
will make better team leaders in virtual worlds? An analysis of
differences found between users of different ages would also
be useful. These are topical questions, especially given the the
literature reviewed in Section 2 that suggests virtual worlds have
a role to play in training. Lastly, further work could also re-
examine gamer/non-gamer clothing choices to confirm or refute
the findings reported here.
Downloaded from http://iwc.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Nottingham on July 24, 2013
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research formed part of the VERUS project which was led
by John Murray at SRI International. The authors thank Don
Arns, Steve Benford, John Byrnes, Kyle Leveque, Immanuel
Moonesar, Said Muhammad, Allister Smeeton, Wen Wang
and the University of Wollongong, Dubai for their help, and
acknowledge research assistance from Natasha Ambigaibalan,
Kasia Campbell and Lu Dong.
FUNDING
This project was funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Lab
under contract number FA8650-10-C-7009.
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APPENDIX A. GAMES GLOSSARY
(i) Colossal Cave Adventure. Designed by Will Crowther
and one of the first games to be available over Arpanet
(Hafner and Lyon, 1996), Colossal Cave Adventure was
the first text based adventure game.
(ii) Doom. Developed by id Software, Doom used
pioneering immersive 3D graphics and popularized
the first person shooter genre of games. See Donovan
(2010).
(iii) Elite. A single player trading game set in space and
released in 1984 known to have directly influenced the
MMOG Eve Online (Rossignol, 2005).
Interacting with Computers, 2013
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(iv) EVE Online. A virtual world with a science fiction
setting. Until recently users have been represented
by a spaceship rather than a humanoid avatar. See:
www.eveonline.com
(v) Everquest. A virtual world with a high fantasy setting.
See: www.everquest.com
(vi) Football Manager. A soccer management game released
in 1982. The soccer games themselves were not played
by the user who focussed solely on the management
(player choices etc.) of their team.
(vii) Gauntlet. An arcade game from Atari with a fantasy
theme. Essentially a virtual world with only 4 players,
the game never ended and the players’ goal was to keep
playing for as long as possible. Considered a classic
game, it is still popular can has been ported to several
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modern platforms. See Donovan (2010).
(viii) Lineage. A Korean virtual world game with a medieval
fantasy setting.
(ix) Mafia Wars. A multiplayer social network game created
by Zynga. See: www.mafiawars.com
(x) Maplestory. A free virtual world developed by South
Korean company Wizet with a low fantasy setting. See:
maplestory.nexon.net
(xi) MUD. The original MUD or Multi-User Dungeon was
a multiplayer real-time virtual world described in text
and was heavily influenced by Colossal Cave Adventure
(Donovan, 2010).
(xii) Second Life. A general purpose virtual world developed
by Linden Lab. See: www.secondlife.com
(xiii) Sonic the Hedgehog. A platform game developed by
Sega.
(xiv) Sudoko. A combinatorial number-placement puzzle.
(xv) Tomb Raider. An influential action-adventure video
game developed by Core Design which used an
innovative 3D third person perspective.
(xvi) Ultima Online. A virtual world game with a high fantasy
setting. See: www.uoherald.com
(xvii) World of Warcraft. A virtual world game with a high
fantasy setting developed by Blizzard. See: www.world
ofwarcraft.com