Can Playing Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
(MMORPGs) Help Older Adults?
David Kaufman and Fan Zhang
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada
Keywords: Digital Games, Videogames, Older Adults, Seniors, Aging, Social Connectedness, Loneliness.
Abstract: Gerontology researchers have demonstrated that social interaction has profound impacts on the
psychological wellbeing of older adults. This paper addresses the question of whether and how playing
Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) help older adults. We analyzed the
relationships of older adults’ social interactions in Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games
(MMORPGs) to three social-psychological factors (i.e., loneliness, depression and social support). A total
of 176 web surveys were usable from the 222 respondents aged 55 years or more who played World of
Warcraft and were recruited online to complete the survey. It was found that enjoyment of relationships and
quality of guild play had strong impacts on older adults’ social and emotional wellbeing. Specifically,
higher enjoyment of relationships was related to higher social support as well as lower levels of loneliness.
Higher quality of guild play was related to higher levels of social support and lower levels of loneliness and
depression.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Social Interaction and Successful
Aging
The move away from the extended family toward a
more nuclear family (as children have left home),
the loss of a partner, decline of health status,
difficulties with mild cognitive impairment,
retirement from workforce are implicated in the loss
of social contacts, which in turn are expected to
increase the risk of loneliness and depression
(Heylen, 2010; Mirowsky and Ross, 1992).
Loneliness, a lack of social support, and having a
deficit of reliable or frequent contacts with friends or
relatives are closely inter-related (Grey, 2009).
Research has shown many negative health effects of
loneliness and social-isolation, including poor
mental and physical health, memory deficits, sleeps
disturbances and so on (Masi et al., 2011).
Gerontology researchers have demonstrated that
cognitive and social factors are key elements to
enhance older adults’ quality of life. Social
interaction has profound impacts on physical health
and psychological well-being. People who have
close friends and confidants, friendly neighbours,
and supportive co-workers are less likely to
experience sadness, loneliness, low self-esteem, and
problems with eating and sleeping, whereas people
who are socially disconnected are between two and
five times more likely to die from all causes
(Putnam, 2000). As one gets older, people who
maintain close friendship and find other ways to
interact socially have reduced risk of mental health
issues and live longer than those who become
isolated (Singh and Misra, 2009). Eisenberger,
Taylor, Gable, Hilmert and Lieberman’s (2007)
study yielded supportive evidence that individuals
with regular social interaction during 10 days
showed diminished neuroendocrine stress responses
and distress of social separation. Therefore, some of
the social and psychological problems faced by older
adults could be improved by increasing their social
interactions.
1.2 Social Interactions in MMORPGs
Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games
(MMORPGs) have become a leisure activity of older
adults. Yee’s (2006b) study found that the mean age
of the respondents was 26 years, with a range from
11 to 68. Williams, Yee and Caplan (2008) reported
that 12.4% of EverQuest II (a MMORPG) players
527
Kaufman D. and Zhang F..
Can Playing Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) Help Older Adults?.
DOI: 10.5220/0005551405270535
In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (AGEWELL-2015), pages 527-535
ISBN: 978-989-758-107-6
Copyright
c
2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
were in their forties, and 4.8% were fifty and older.
Yee (2008) found that MMORPG players, on
average, spent 22 hours each week in an MMORPG;
players over the age of forty played just as much as
players under the age of twenty.
MMORPGs allow a group of players to play
together no matter where they are physically located.
To enter a game world, players first create a
character from a set of classes and races as digital
representations of themselves. When creating their
character, users play the role of a character living in
the game’s fantasy world. Each character has a
specific set of skills and abilities that define that
character’s role. Nearly all MMORPGs featured a
character progression system in which players earn
“experience points” for their actions and use those
points to reach progressively higher “levels”.
Social interaction is a primary driving force for
players to continue to play MMORPGs, and
contributes a considerable part to the enjoyment of
playing (Yee, 2006a). One difference between
MMORPG and other social networking sites (such
as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) is that
MMORPGs have functional constructs (e.g., unique
attributes of each character and challenging quests
that can’t be addressed by a single player) that
encourage players to group with others and complete
a same quest for mutual benefits. These functional
constructs facilitate some social groups, known as
guilds. A guild is an organized group of players that
regularly play together, and formed to make
collective actions easier and more rewarding, as well
as to form a social atmosphere.
Players join or create guilds for their pragmatic
or social needs. The most common reason to join a
particular guild is to use their membership as a
resource to meet their game goals, such as having
access to the game’s most challenging content and
most rewarding “loot”, high-end content (e.g.,
equipment, weapons, and exciting monsters). Some
players want to play with others who share similar
personality, real-life demographics, or even sense of
humor. Some players see their guildmates as nice,
friendly and useful. In some cases, game friends are
seen as important as real-life friends.
Players form contacts and develop relationships
of trust and accountability based on their characters’
attributions, actions, and the network of affiliations
(Dickey, 2007).When a new group is formed, a chat
channel is automatically created that only group
members can use. This allows players to request
help, strategize on group quests and socialize.
Additionally, they can also interact with other
through person-to-person instant messaging, Voice
over IP (an Internet-based auditory chatting system)
and site forums.
Schiano, Nardi, Debeauvais, Ducheneaut and
Yee (2011) found that the majority of World of
Warcraft (WoW, a popular MMORPG) players play
the game with someone. Cole and Griffiths (2007)
reported that 26.3% of participants played
MMORPGs with family and real-life friends.
Whippey (2011) reported that 82% of participants
who were involved in guild life often had
conversations with their guild mates; 66% often
spend time playing with their guild. It was found in
Williams et al.’s (2006) study that 60% of guild
members used Voice IP systems, and roughly 60%
of interviewees belonged to a social guild in which
the primary goal is social interaction. Yee (2006c)
reported that 39.4% of male players and 53.3% of
female players felt that their MMORPG friends were
comparable or better than their real-life friends. In
Whippey’s (2011) study, 54% of participants felt
that their game friends were comparable to their
real-life friends. Therefore, playing MMORPGs
provides many opportunities to sustain off-line
relationships and develop meaningful and supportive
new relationships.
1.3 Previous Studies Testing the
Social-Psychological Effects of
MMORPGs
Many studies have focused on testing the social-
psychological impacts of playing MMORPGs.
Visser, Antheunis and Schouten (2013) examined
the effects of playing WoW on adolescents’
loneliness. It was found that there was no difference
in the level of loneliness between WoW players and
non-WoW players, and there was also no significant
effect on loneliness of time spent playing WoW.
Kirby, Jones and Copello (2014) explored the
association between average hours playing WoW
per week and psychological wellbeing through a
cross sectional online questionnaire. A negative
correlation between playing time and psychological
wellbeing was revealed. These two studies
correlated self-reported measures of playing time
with measures of psychological wellbeing, but found
conflicting results.
Dupuis and Ramsey (2011) tested a mediated
model in which they examined whether higher social
involvement in MMOPRGs would be associated
with lower levels of depression via engendering a
perception of social support. Game involvement was
measured by a 13-item scale developed by the
researchers. Sample items are “If I had a personal
CSEDU2015-7thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
528
problem that was really bothering me, I would rather
tell my online friends than friends I have in real
life”, and “I have more good friends online than I do
in real life.” It was found that involvement in
MMORPGs was not related to perceived social
support, but a lack of perceived social support is
associated with higher levels of depression. Trepte,
Reinecke and Juechems’s (2012) study found that
online game players’ physical and social proximity
as well as their mutual familiarity influenced
bridging and bonding social capital, and the two
types of social capital were positively associated
with offline social support. Domahidi, Festl and
Quandt’s (2014) study found that there was a
significant impact of social online gaming frequency
(measured by general gaming frequency and the
average duration of a typical social online gaming
session) on the probability of meeting exclusively
online friends, and players with a pronounced
motive to gain social capital and to play in a team
had the highest probability to transform their social
relations from online to offline context. These
studies went beyond the simple measure of playing
time, but social interactions in MMORPGs were
conceptualized differently.
2 RESEARCH QUESTION
It is well established that social interaction is seen as
an important component of successful aging (Ristau,
2011). MMORPGs are a wholly new form of
community, social interaction and social
phenomenon. Playing MMORPGs links people from
all over the world as they engaged in a shared virtual
world and collective play experience. It can maintain
real-life relationships and facilitate new
relationships, and therefore provides more
opportunities to obtain social resources.
Then, the research question is: Are there
relationships between the social interactions in
MMORPGs and various social-emotional benefits
for older adults (i.e., loneliness, depression and
social support)?
3 DEFINITION OF VARIABLES
Before drawing any conclusions about the impacts
of MMORPGs, the underlying variables involved in
older adults’ social interactions in MMORPGs
should be determined (Williams et al., 2006). As
discussed above, previous studies used amount of
game play as the gross measure. Frequent
participation in game play increases the chance of
social interactions but this doesn’t depict the whole
picture of social interactions in MMORPGs. Shen
and Williams (2011) indicated that whether MMO
use were associated with negative or positive
outcomes was very much dependent on the
purposes, contexts, and individual characteristics of
users.
Thus, this study conceptualizes social
interactions in MMORPGs as follows:
(1) Communication Methods.
Communication is the most important aspect of
players’ interactions in MMORPGs (Shen and
Williams, 2011). Nardi and Harris’s (2006) study
found that chatting is a key aspect of socializing in
WoW, which takes place not only when grouping
and fighting, but also when players are soloing or
traveling in WoW.
(2) Network Level. This refers to the position
of players in their social network. It is another key
variable when understanding the outcomes of
MMORPG playing (Williams, 2010). Shen, Monge
and Williams (2012) indicated that the measure of
network level is essentially the same as centrality.
Individuals who are in central position within a
network are usually more accessible than others
(Freeman, 1978/79).
(3) Enjoyment of Relationships. It affects
how much social support players can exchange by
playing together. Game play is constituted not only
by joint in-game activities but also overwhelmingly
by constant conversation about the game and topics
well beyond it, ranging from debates about the
mechanics of the game and intimate personal
problems. Some players trust their game friends and
see them as important as real-life friends, while
others see their game friends as not particularly
important to them (Williams, et al., 2006).
(4) Quality of Guild Play. In MMORPGs,
guild is a place where deep relationship occurs
(Steinkuehler and Williams, 2006). Players in
formally structured guilds tend to have more social
experiences than others (Williams et al., 2006). This
positively affects the quality of their time in the
game. So, quality of guild play determines whether
its impact on social interactions is positive or
negative.
4 METHODS
4.1 Participants
Participants were older adults who were aged 55 and
CanPlayingMassiveMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGames(MMORPGs)HelpOlderAdults?
529
over, English speakers and WoW players. A total of
222 people submitted their surveys, of which 176
provided their demographic information as well as
fully completing the survey. These were the
responses used in the analysis.
Table 1: Participant demographics.
Variable Frequency (%)
Gender
Female 58(32.8%)
Male 119(67.2%)
Age
55-59 111(62.7%)
60-64 37(20.7%)
65+ 29(16.4%)
Relationship
Married 109(61.2%)
Separate/Divorced 37(20.8)
Widowed 9(5.1%)
Never married 23(12.5%)
Living situation
Spouse/Common law 53(42.1%)
Family 33(26.2%)
Others 8(6.3%)
Alone 32(25.4%)
Work situation
Full-time employed 95(53.1%)
Part-time employed 17(9.5%)
Retired 61(34.1%)
Never employed 6(3.4%)
Educational level
Less than high school 9(5.0%)
High school (or
equiv.)
33(18.4%)
Four-year degree 70(39.1%)
Master’s degree 36(20.1%)
Doctoral degree 14(7.8%)
Other 17(9.5%)
The background information about respondents is as
follows. Approximately 33% were female, and 67%
were male. Yee’s (2006b) study found that
MMORPG players are roughly 85% male. Thus,
compared with young adults, there were more
female older MMORPG players.
A significant majority of older gamers (62.7%)
were aged between 55 and 59, while only 20.9%
were between 60 and 64, and 1.2% fall into the 70-
79 age group. The big proportion of older gamers
who were in the age group of 55-59 justifies the use
of “55” as the lower age cut point. More notably,
6.2% of participants are among the oldest players
(those 80 years of age or older).
In terms of relationship status, 61% of
participants were married and 20.8% were separated
or divorced. One fourth of participants (25.4%) lived
alone, while others lived with spouse or common
law partner (42.1%), family (26.2%), or someone
else (6.3%).
More than half of the participants (53.1%) were
full-time employed and 9.5% were part-time
employed.
For the highest level of education, 39.1% of
participants had completed a four-year degree,
20.1% completed a master’s degree and 7.8% had a
doctoral degree.
Regarding gameplay patters, 40% of participants
play WoW seven days per week on average, 12.2%
play 6 days per week and an identical 12.2% play 5
days per week. Fully 41% of participants spend 2 or
3 hours per day on average playing WoW, and
28.4% play 4 to 5 hours per day, while some 22%
play more than 6 hours per day. Taken together,
65% of participants play WoW at least 5 days per
week, and on average 92% spend 3 or 4 hours per
day playing WoW, which equals the working hours
of a part-time job.
Surprisingly, a substantial majority of
participants already were at the high end of the
game. The highest level of approximate 84.2% of
participants’ main character (a main character is the
one participants play most often if they play several
characters.) is 80 and higher. (In 2014, the maximum
level was 90).
4.2 Description of the Game
WoW was selected as the intervention tool in this
study. On the one hand, with different types of
games, it is unrealistic to assume that all games have
uniform effects (Shen and Williams, 2011;
Williams, 2010). Therefore, examining all
MMORPGs rather than just one game will hinder
the generalizability of the results. On the other hand,
WoW is the most popular MMORPGs (the current
North American MMORPG leader), currently
having more than 10 million subscribers.
One genre of game that provides many
opportunities for social interactions is the Massive
Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
(MMORPG). Massive refers to the fact that millions
of players play these online games; multiplayer
CSEDU2015-7thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
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identifies the fact that a very large number of players
play simultaneously in the same online world,
interacting with each other; Online indicates that the
players need to be connected to the Internet while
they play; Role-Playing, in general, refers to player
who play the role of a unique character and interact
with other players by using an “avatar”, which is a
humanoid graphical representation of the player in
the game world.
To enter a game world, players first create a
character from a set of classes and races as digital
representations of themselves. When creating their
character, users play the role of a character living in
the game’s fantasy world. Each character has a
specific set of skills and abilities that define that
character’s role. For example, in World of Warcraft
mages are powerful spell casters who use magic to
inflict damage on their enemies from afar but are
very vulnerable to attacks. These traits define the
role of the mage: hang back, do a ton of damage, and
hope to kill the monsters before they reach the
player. Players also have the option of choosing their
sex and adding various adornments to enhance their
characters appearance as they progress in the game,
such as hair color, clothing, armor, etc. Due to these
characteristics, MMORPGs are anonymous
environments in which players have many
opportunities to experiment with different online
identities. In contrast to other genres of games,
MMORPGs do not have storylines. A MMORPG
community is as dynamic and complex as the real
world. A typical group requires players to fulfil a
number of roles, which are summarized as kill,
irritate, and preserve (Barnett and Coulson, 2010). A
good group needs an appropriate balance of all three
roles and successful team cooperation and
coordination in order to stand a realistic chance of
success. Players may invest hundreds of hours
advancing their character and interacting in the
virtual environment, and thus players often feel an
emotional proximity to their character. In
MMORPGs, players begin the game as low-level
member. During gameplay, the development of the
player’s character is the primary goal. Nearly all
MMORPGs feature a character progression system
in which players earn “experience points” for their
actions and use those points to reach progressively
higher “levels”. Over the course of a character’s life,
the character will brave thousands of quests while
exploring the game environment, learn new and
powerful abilities, and find hundreds of powerful
weapons and more. In other words, the character
progresses and gets stronger as the player gain
experience, new skills, and more powerful items and
equipment. MMORPGs do not have an ending or
finishing time. Even after achieving the highest
level, players may still remain in the game world to
complete more challenges or participate in the social
communities of which they have been part.
4.3 Survey Design
The final survey consisted of three sections. The first
section focussed on playing patterns (i.e., amount of
game play and level of main character) and social
motivation for playing MMORPGs. Social
motivation was measured using the Online Gaming
Motivations Scale (Yee, Ducheneaut, and Nelson,
2012). Its reliability is .77. The second section asked
questions about older adults’ social interactions
within WoW. It included four measurements:
(1) Communication methods was measured by
asking how frequently older adults communicate
with others via public chat, group chat, private chat,
in game voice chat, social media and face-to-face
meeting. Participants were asked to indicate on a 5-
point scale (1=Never, 5=All the time) the frequency
of using these communication tools.
(2) Network level was measured by asking
how frequently older adults play with family, real-
life friends, game friends and other players.
Respondents were asked to indicate on a 5-point
scale (1=Never, 5=All the time) the frequency of
playing with these persons.
(3) Enjoyment of relationships was measured
by the strength of relationship with family, real-life
friends and game friends. Respondents were asked
to indicate on a 5-point scale (1=Strongly disagree,
5=Strongly agree) to what extent they agree with
these statements: (a) Playing with family members
makes me feel closer to them; (b) Playing with real-
life friends makes me feel closer to them; (c) I trust
my game friends; (d) My game friends are as
important to me as my real-life friends. They were
also asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (1=Never,
5=All the time) how often they engage in these
actions: (a) Talk about WoW with my family;(b)
Talk about WoW with my real-life friends; (c) Share
my personal problems with game friends. These
statements were identified as deep relationships by
Steinkuehler and Williams (2006) and Williams et
al.’s (2006) study.
(4) Quality of guild play was measured by
time of guild play and satisfaction with guild play.
Satisfaction with guild play was measured by asking
respondents to indicate how satisfied they are with
the organization of the guild, guild leadership and
guild members with “1” referring to “Very
CanPlayingMassiveMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGames(MMORPGs)HelpOlderAdults?
531
dissatisfied” and “5” referring to “Very satisfied”.
The third section consists of the three socio-
psychological measures:
(1) Loneliness. This was assessed with the
short-form of the UCLA Loneliness scale (ULS-8;
Hays and DiMatteo, 1987). UCLA Loneliness scale
is an instrument indexing the frequency of an
individual’s feelings of loneliness and lack of
companionship. Participants rated each item on a
scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly
agree) with higher scores indicating lower levels of
loneliness. The reliability is .88.
(2) Depression. This was measured by the 10-
item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression
scale (CES-D; Mirowsky and Ross, 1992). CES-D is
designed to assess the current level of depression,
and is one the most commonly used in a normal, as
opposed to a pathological, population. It is rated on a
5-point scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5
(Strongly agree) with higher scores indicating lower
levels of depression. Its reliability is .86.
(3) Social support. This was measured by the
Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support
(MSPSS; Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, and Farley, 1988).
The MSPSS measures how one perceives their social
support system, including an individual’s sources of
social support (e.g., family, friends and significant
other). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert-scale
ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly
agree). Higher scores indicate higher levels of
perceived social support. Its reliability is .93.
Invitation messages including the URL to the
Web survey were posted on eight WoW player
forums.
4.4 Data Analysis
The purpose of this research was to examine the
associations of some social-psychological benefits
with older adults’ social interactions in MMORPGs.
As discussed above, amount of game play is an
important factor (but not the only one) that affects
the level of psychological wellbeing. Also, game
play will likely be more social for some than for
others (Bartle, 2004). So, controlling for amount of
game play and social motivation, a series of two-
stage hierarchical regression analyses were
performed, using each of the social-psychological
measures as outcome variable, and the factors in
each component of social interactions in MMORPGs
as independent variables. Then, to compare the
effect size of each component of social interactions
on each outcome measure (e.g., which one of the
four components of social interactions in
MMORPGs generated the biggest effect size on
loneliness?), Cohen’s f
2
of each individual
hierarchical regression analyses was computed. By
convention, effect sizes of .02, .15 and .35 are
termed small, medium, and large, respectively
(Cohen, 1988). Data analysis was carried out using
IBM Statistics SPSS 22.0. In terms of the many
multiple regression used, all regression analyses
were carried out with an alpha level of .01.
5 RESULTS
5.1 Playing Time
No significant differences in playing time were
found in terms of relationship status (F (3, 174) =
.723, p =.539), living situation (F (3, 122) = 1.014, p
= .389) and work situation (F (3, 175) = 1.138, p =
.335).
5.2 Associations among Variables
Because of the small percentage of participants in
age groups 65-69, 70-74, 75-79 and 80+, these were
combined as 65+. A one-way analysis of variance
(ANOVA) revealed that the three age groups (i.e.,
55-59, 59-64, and 65+) differed significantly from
each other in the time they spent playing WoW (F
(2, 174) = 5.600, p = .004). A Bonferroni post hoc
test indicated that the age group 65+ (M = 3.31, SD
= 1.198) played significantly more than the age
group 55-59 (M = 2.59, SD = 1.030, p = .004) and
the age group 59-64(M = 2.62, SD = .953, p = .026).
In view of the participants` education, the
ANOVA analysis indicated that playing time also
differed significantly (F (5, 173) = 2.583, p = .028).
A Bonferroni post hoc test revealed that the less than
high school group (M =3.78, SD = 1.563) spent
significantly more time playing games than did the
high school group (M = 2.61, SD = .933, p = .050),
4-year degree group (M = 2.60, SD = .954, p = .026),
and master`s degree group (M = 2.61, SD = 1.050, p
= .048).
5.3 Predictors of Outcome Variables
For depression and social support, the amount of
game-play and social motivation were significant
predictors. The amount of game-play was negatively
associated with depression (p = .005), i.e., more
play was associated with lower depression.
Reduction in loneliness was mostly predicted by
playing with family. Regarding the results of
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532
enjoyment of relationships, this was mostly
predicted by playing with real-life friends.
When the four variables for quality of guild play
were entered to the model, all of these variables
were statistically significant predictors of loneliness,
depression and social support. Loneliness was
mostly predicted by satisfaction with guild mates.
Depression was predicted from quality of guild play.
Similar to loneliness, it was mostly predicted by
satisfaction with guild mates.. For social support,
this was mostly due to satisfaction with guild
leadership.
Table 1 presents Cohen’s effect size (f
2
) for all
outcome measures. The biggest effect sizes for
loneliness, depression, and social support were all
associated with quality of guild play. The biggest
effect sizes for loneliness (f
2
= .156) and depression
(f
2
= .156) were identical, and their magnitude is
medium. The magnitude of the biggest effect size for
social support (f
2
= .202) is medium to large. What’s
more, communication methods and network level
generated smaller effects sizes for loneliness,
depression and social support compared with the
effects sizes generated by enjoyment of relationships
and quality of guild play. The magnitudes of the
effect sizes generated by communication methods
and network level were small.
Table 2: Cohen’s effect size for outcome measures.
Mea-
sure*
Communi-
cation
Methods
Net-
work
Level
Guild
Leader-
ship
Quality
of
Guild
Play
L .015 .067 .114 .156
D .049 .037 .060 .156
Ss .004 .057 .191 .202
*L: Loneliness; D: Depression; Ss: Social support
6 DISCUSSION
Instead of using the gross measure of playing time as
to quantify MMORPG use, this study categorized
social interactions into four components:
communication methods, network level, enjoyment
of relationships and quality of guild play, and
analyzed how these were associated with loneliness,
depression and social support. It is found that
network level was negatively associated with
loneliness; higher levels of enjoyment of
relationships were related to higher levels of social
support and lower levels of loneliness; higher levels
of quality of guild play were related to higher levels
of social support and lower levels of loneliness and
depression.
In addition, the biggest effect sizes for
loneliness, depression and social support were all
generated by quality of guild play. Loneliness and
depression were mostly predicted by satisfaction
with guild mates and social support was predicted by
satisfaction with leadership. This phenomenon could
be the result of the membership of guilds. Due to the
in-game mechanism (for example, guild members
need to coordinate with each other in order to
achieve the task), guild members tend to have
similar values and play styles. As a result of this
collective identity, trust and friendship is more likely
to be developed among guild members through
repeated collaboration in groups and raids (Shen,
2014). Shen’s (2014) study found that guild
membership is positively related to players’ level of
sociability. Guild players were more likely than non-
guild players to participate in social activities such
as chat, trade and collective quests. Loneliness,
depression and social support are related to the
benefits/support/resources existing in interpersonal
contact of social networks. Participation in guild
activities provides older adults many opportunities
for informal sociability, and thus could be an
important source of interpersonal relationships and
social support.
Communication methods and network level
generated smaller effects sizes for loneliness,
depression and social support compared with the
effects sizes generated by enjoyment of relationships
and quality of guild play. This finding is predictable
and reasonable. Communication methods and
network level provides older adults many
opportunities to interact with other players and
exposes them to different viewpoints, but they don’t
indicate the intention or content of these activities.
Communicating and collaborating with other players
(no matter which tool is used or with whom) does
not automatically create a deep social bond among
them.
It was also found that amount of time of game
play was not associated with older adults’ feelings of
loneliness, depression and social support when other
variables related to the social interactions in
MMORPGs were taken into account. This is
compatible with the finding of Shen’s (2014) study
that time spent had a very small overall impact on
players’ psychosocial well-being. Instead, the social
and psychological impacts of playing MMORPGs
on older adults are very much dependent on the
CanPlayingMassiveMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGames(MMORPGs)HelpOlderAdults?
533
contexts of game play, enjoyment of the
relationships and the quality of guild play.
7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The first limitation of this study is associated with
survey research. All the data collected for this study
were self-reports. As such, issues of social
desirability and accuracy of responses need to be
taken into account. The second limitation is related
to the web survey. As discussed above, the majority
of participants are heavy gamers, and most of them
have reached high levels of the game. This might
result in our sample being biased towards expert
players. Finally, the sample comprised volunteers
who were willing to complete the survey.
8 CONCLUSIONS
This study explored the social and psychological
impacts of playing MMORPGs (i.e., WoW) on older
adults aged 55 and over, primarily analyzing the
relationships between older adults’ social
interactions in MMORPGs and three social and
psychological factors. The regression analyses
revealed that enjoyment of relationships and quality
of guild play has deep impacts on older adults’
social and psychological wellbeing. This study
contributes to the knowledge of older adults’ social
experiences in MMORPGs and how it influences
their social and emotional lives. The findings can
form a solid foundation for conducting future
randomized controlled trials to measure and evaluate
the impacts of MMORPG playing on older adults.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
for their financial support of this research study.
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