Collaborative practices are also explicitly designed into many multiplayer online computer games. ‘World of Warcraft’ (WoW) is the largest of the massive multiplayer online role-player games (MMPORG), with over 11 million subscribers globally (Cifaldi 2011).
Players control a character in a virtual world where they have the choice of simply exploring the environment, or can engage in ‘quests’ throughout the world which involves developing new skills, exploring new areas and inevitably involves fighting with monsters and other players along the way.
Participants have the option of playing alone or with others—however, many challenges are designed in such a way that they can only be overcome through collective group activity.
Players therefore often join together in either permanent guilds or temporary parties and groups, and can talk with other members via the ingame chat or out-of-game chat channels to co-ordinate their activities together.
‘Minecraft’ is another multiplayer online game which was released by Mojang in 2009, and has, at the time of writing, sold over 4 million copies.
The game is focused around creativity and construction, as players use resources such as tools and weapons to build things out of cuboid ‘blocks’ whilst fending off attacks by monsters.
As in WoW, players can collaborate with each other to build together and collectively protect and defend each other from danger.
Industry commentators have stated that the reason why Minecraft is so successful is that it appeals to the ‘basic human activities’ of exploration and collaborative co-construction (Edwards 2011).