Information Seeking in World of Warcraft

This study examines how users of the immersive virtual environment World of Warcraft look for information to meet in-world information needs and particularly whether the ability of users to see and interact with other in-world users has impacted their information-seeking habits. Sixteen participants were interviewed about what information they sought, what sources they used, and why. While participants' purposeful information seeking was fairly similar to that found in other studies of everyday life or online information seeking, World of Warcraft allowed participants to incidentally acquire information when other players noticed that a participant seemed to lack some information and volunteered it. Furthermore, although in online text-based communities, a community member must choose to share information for participants to acquire it, in World of Warcraft, participants can sometimes gain observing other players even if those players did not consciously intend to provide information