Observations & Experiences with World of Warcraft

There’s something that ‘s begun to absolutely fascinate me recently that I need to explore a bit on paper because I’m having trouble identifying why it is the way it is.

“Daddy, what are you playing?”

As I’ve said before, some time ago my 5-year old daughter wandered in to my office while I was playing World of Warcraft and cautiously asked what I was doing.  At the time I tried to do something along the lines of obscure the screen and block what I was doing out of fear it would immediately turn her to stone or some such thing.  But something about the game captured her attention and she just wouldn’t let up about it.

So somewhere along the line – and against my better judgement – I let her sit on my lap and we had a bit of a play together, thinking it would be a passing phase and she’d lose interest fairly quickly.  That hasn’t happened – not even remotely.

In fact the depth of engagement and retention of information that I’m observing in her is astounding to me, and I’m trying to think through the implications of it all.

Gaming Literacies

She rattles of the names of regions with a degree of literacy that is a bit frightening at times.  For example, “Can we fly over the Burning Steppes? I want to see the monsters there, but I know we can’t go there yet because we’re too low a level.  You need to be at least level 50 to go there, you know.” Or when describing our escapades to my wife, “I have two characters, one warrior who is level 2 and can use a Battle Shout (mimics Battle Shout), and another character who is a Paladin and is level 6.  They’re both pretty wimpy though, so we play Daddy’s Paladin because he’s level 32 and very powerful.”

She knows the keyboard shortcuts to bring up the map, the inventory, how to jump and how to cast certain spells.  I never explicitly showed these to her, she just learned them – and she’s learned when to apply them at the right time.

In terms of the emergence of any tangible, wider learning outcomes from all this, there are the immediate gaming literacies, and retention of information with things like region names, locations, classes, professions, factions, etcetera – but since our initial discussion on the wider implications or parallels that the game has for real life – for example why we wouldn’t hit people in real life, why people fight, why they are wars, similar social structures and indigenous cultures, etcetera – we haven’t had any really in depth conversations about it.  So we seem to have hit a bit of a plateau of sorts in that respect.

Personal Meaning and Significance

I suppose in contemplating what all this means to her, and why she is so engaged with it, I should probably begin with what it means to me.  For example, I enjoy WoW because it’s a highly immersive environment that is different and unique from the world I life and work in day to day.  Adding to this a fantasy element in which people are able to do and become things that do not exist in real life; go places that do not exist; and engage in activities that you could not do in real life – all combine to produce an experience in which the player is able to live life as a different person.

There is also the sense of adopting a different persona, of creating and molding that character to be whatever you like – very much like you or nothing like you whatsoever.

Observations

In my daughter’s case I’ve noticed some interesting habits.  She prefers we play my character as opposed to hers, because she likes the fact I’m a higher level and “more powerful” and that I don’t die as much.  In fact she finds it highly disturbing when we do die, or when we get attacked by monsters – and it’s not uncommon for us to log out or turn off the game when we are overpowered by a group of people.

She does occasionally like battling with others, and especially casting spells; but her overall enjoyment of the game doesn’t really arise from that specifically.  In fact she doesn’t really like the fighting aspect of the game much at all and most times prefers we avoid it all together.

She likes taking control of the character sometimes – either using the mouse or the keyboard – but will only do it when it’s safe and there are no threats around.  As soon as a monster is even remotely within sight she wants me to take over, and regularly tells me to steer way clear of the monsters.  So there is an acute comfort zone for her.

Interestingly when I point out that much of the game does involve fighting or being attacked, and that we might perhaps play something else instead, she always refuses and wants to keep playing WoW.  I’m really interested in finding out why this is the case.

Social Elements

One of the recurring requests that she does make is to go talk to people, in fact this social element is more of a recurring theme than anything else.  She understands that the world features players that are computer generated and controlled, but that there are also characters being played by real people – and these people are all over the world.  So she likes us to approach others and actually engage with them in conversation.

Minimal Translation to Real Life

One thing I’ve found interesting, is the fact that our engagement with World of Warcraft has not translated in the least to any real changes in her behaviour in real life.  No additional swordplay or resorting to violence; no noticeable references to the game aside from the occasional conversation; no appearance of in-world characters or scenes in her drawings, artwork or craft projects – only requests to play in the evening after dinner.  It’s as if there is a clear distinction and delineation for her between what we do on the computer, and what we do off of it.

Having said that, she is and always has always been a creative, uninhibited soul who relishes and thrives in imaginary role play. So almost certainly this world plays to her personality and passion for fantasy and may in fact be inspiring her in some way – but as of yet I’ve not seen any identifiable instances of this.

Looking for Learning Opportunities

I’m really hoping the depth of her engagement with World of Warcraft will translate to some opportunities for learning above and beyond elements specific to the game.  I guess this is up to me though, and I think that’s really key to remember.  Part of unschooling is to identify opportunities in day to day activities where we can “strew” ideas or concepts – that is, place them casually into conversation in the hopes of stirring up discussion on the matter.  You don’t force learning in unschooling, you try and facilitate it.

Regardless, playing this together with her has been a really nice way to bond and spend time together in a shared activity that we both seem to truly enjoy. And since I’ve yet to see a single adverse impact of this exposure in the last couple of weeks I see no reason why we can’t continue to enjoy ourselves.