NSF: SGER: Creative Collaboration in an Online Game

这项探索性研究将分析和理解《魔兽世界》（一款流行的多人游戏）的玩家进行创造性合作的方式。《魔兽世界》是一款大型多人在线角色扮演游戏，在全球拥有1000万玩家。该研究在分布式在线空间协作背景下定位创造力方面是新颖的。大多数创造力研究都是基于实验室的。它以个体为分析单位。本研究将考察创造力作为一种协作行为，并将调查分布式在线环境下的创造力。这项研究将把重点放在modding上——创造和分发玩家创造的软件修改，以扩展游戏——作为创造性合作的一种行为。合作对创造力的影响是什么？是什么促使玩家保持粘性？游戏软件本身是如何支持或阻碍合作的？玩家使用什么互动工具进行创造性合作？我们可以从游戏中的创造性合作中学到什么？这些原则是否也适用于其他环境，如工作环境，或者“游戏”本身是否具有无法轻易翻译的内在品质？在游戏和虚拟世界中，工作和娱乐的日益融合是工业界和军方越来越感兴趣的话题。参与多人游戏正在塑造数百万年轻人的行为。玩家将把这些实践带到工作场所和军队服役中。研究如何通过协作在线实践实现创造力，对于我们理解如何重塑工作和军事服务以鼓励和维持这些领域的创造性活动至关重要。

This exploratory study will analyze and understand the ways in which players of World of Warcraft, a popular multiplayer game, engage in creative collaboration. World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role playing game with ten million players worldwide. The proposed research is novel in locating creativity in the context of collaboration in a distributed online space. Most creativity research is laboratory based. It takes the individual as the unit of analysis. This research will examine creativity as a collaborative act, and will investigate creativity in a distributed online context. The research will focus on modding - the creation and distribution of player-created software modifications that extend the game - as an act of creative collaboration. What is the effect of collaboration on creativity? What motivates players to maintain engagement? How does the game software itself support or hinder collaboration? What interaction tools do players use to undertake creative collaboration? What can be learned from creative collaboration in games about mediated collaboration in general? Can these principles be translated to other environments such as work, or does the very context of "play" have inherent qualities that cannot be easily translated? The increasing confluence of work and play in games and virtual worlds is a topic of growing interest in industry and the military. The practices of millions of young people are being shaped by participation in multiplayer games. Players will take these practices into the workplace and military service. Investigating how creativity is enabled by collaborative online practices is vital to our understanding of how work and military service can be reshaped to encourage and sustain creative activity in these arenas.