The Changing Social Experience in World of Warcraft : Social Affordances in World of Warcraft and their impact on the Social Gaming Experience

Design philosophies in MMOs seem to have seen a shift in recent years. What used to be designs for social dependencies and challenging content seems to have become designs for social independence and casual play. This has not gone by unnoticed by communities of players that have gradually increased in size, hoping to find regression in design philosophies for their favorite games. This study combines the social component of Yee’s (2006) model for motivations for online play with Bradner’s (2001) concept of social affordances, and quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews in order to examine how the social player experience in World of Warcraft has changed in relation to changes made to the game. Some of the findings are that the incentives and necessity for socializing with strangers in the game has generally diminished as a consequence of changes made in the game that focus on practical efficiency. External factors that seems to have played a role in these results are age, technological contexts and life contexts of the respondents