Games People Play: Identity and Relationships in an Online Role-Playing Game

The following is a study of online relationships and identity formation in Everquest, a multiplayer online role-playing game. Using a phenomenological and reflexive approach, the study seeks to explicate the attractions of this type of online forum, which draws hundreds of thousands of players who spend many hours each week playing the game. Three Everquest players' experiences are considered in light of literature from mainstream psychological, social constructionist, psychodynamic, and cyborg theory, with special focus on the players' reports of the dialogue between player and character, and of the nature of their relationships in Everquest. Subjects participated in a non-directive, qualitative interview and submitted and discussed gameplay logs. Findings challenge the notion that these players' online identities are escapist paradoxes of their offline personae, but highlight the ways in which their ego-ideal colors and limits their online identifications. The participants' ambivalence about the limits of Everquest relationships is also explored, especially such as the Everquest community might be understood as an example of hyperreality structuring the experience of the real. Finally, suggestions for further research in the area are suggested.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Immediate Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Clinical Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2005

Author dc:creator

• Bortle, Jennifer

Contributors dc:contributor

• Russell A. Walsh
• Bruce Fink
• Leswin Laubscher

• Baudrillard
• Everquest
• Lacan
• online community
• online identity
• online relationships

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/342

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dsc.duq.edu:etd-1355