Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Individual Incentives for Investment in Gameworlds

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Virtual Sociocultural Convergence

Abstract

Social theorist George Caspar Homans (1910–1989) believed that all the social sciences should converge as one, yet was an opponent of functionalist attempts to understand society as a unit, because he believed the individual person was the appropriate unit of analysis. This chapter uses an avatar based on Homans to explore Final Fantasy XIV, after a short consideration of a predecessor massively multiplayer online game, Final Fantasy XI. Both Final Fantasy games minimize conflict between factions of players, yet potentially this pair of games battled each other, and Final Fantasy XIV rather dramatically tore itself apart. This chapter examines a prominent case of bad game design from a theoretical perspective well-prepared to learn from its failure some fundamental principles not merely about games, but about human behavior. Homans was the most influential sociologist belonging to the Behaviorist school of thought, associated with his friend and colleague, psychologist B. F. Skinner, yet his work had a powerful cognitive element and might have been classified as cognitive science if sociology had been one of the fields that amalgamated to form cognitive science, or if he were still working today. Two main theoretical issues motivate this chapter. First, Homans believed that human action is determined by expectation of reward, and his theory allows us to understand why Final Fantasy XIV initially received very negative reviews and failed, then was radically revised and succeeded in the market place. Second, Homans dismissed the concept of culture, saying it was too vague, and the chapter confronts his view with extensive data on players who use the Japanese versus English language. Paradoxically, Homans advocated the importance of unifying social science, while believing that society was the culmination of chaotic processes described by all the natural sciences, and thus had no distinctive discoveries that could be made in the decades following his death.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Bainbridge, W. S. (1994). Homans, George Caspar. In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (Eds.), The encyclopedia of language and linguistics (pp. 1592–1593). Oxford: Pergamon.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Axelrod, R. M. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. As explained on support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id = 5382&tag = authc. Accessed 1 Dec 2014, the Square Enix company requires that this notice be published in connection with the two screenshot images in this chapter: FINAL FANTASY XIV © 2010–2014 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.

  4. Homans, G. C. (1984). Coming to my senses: The autobiography of a sociologist (p. 7). New Brunswick: Transaction Books.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Homans, G. C. (1967). The nature of social science (p. 97). New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Bainbridge, W. S. (2012). The Harvard department of social relations. In W. S. Bainbridge (Ed.), Leadership in science and technology (pp. 496–503). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Homans, G. C. (1950). The human group. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Homans, G. C. (1974). Social behavior: Its elementary forms (pp. 16–43). New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Rodney, S., & Bainbridge, W. S. (1987). A theory of religion. New York: Toronto/Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Heeter, C., Lee, Y.-H., Medler, B., & Magerko, B. (2011). Beyond player types: Gaming achievement goal. In Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Video Games (pp. 43–48). New York: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  11. massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/23/rumor-retailers-instructed-to-destroy-final-fantasy-xiv/

  12. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_737hYbSCEs

  13. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIV

  14. Manion, R. (2010, October 11). A bold step backwards. GameSpy, pc.gamespy.com/pc/square-enix-next-gen-mmorpg/1127142p1.html

  15. Onyett, C. (2010, October 11). A big, beautiful, busted world. IGN, www.ign.com/articles/2010/10/12/final-fantasy-xiv-review?page=2

  16. VanOrd, K. (2010, October 6). Final Fantasy XIV online review. GameSpot, www.gamespot.com/final-fantasy-xiv-online/reviews/final-fantasy-xiv-online-review-6280901/

  17. Senior, T. (2010, October 18). Final Fantasy XIV review. PCGamer, www.pcgamer.com/review/final-fantasy-xiv-review/

  18. Bainbridge, W. S. (2010). When virtual worlds expand. In W. S. Bainbridge (Ed.), Online worlds: Convergence of the real and the virtual (pp. 237–252). London: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Williams, D., Kennedy, T. L. M., & Moore, R. J. (2011). Behind the avatar: The patterns, practices, and functions of role playing in MMOs. Games and Culture, 6(2), 171–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Dominik Güss, C., Tuason, M. T., & Gerhard, C. (2010). Cross-national comparisons of complex problem-solving strategies in two microworlds. Cognitive Science, 34(3), 489–520.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Kow, L. M., & Nardi, B. (2010). Culture and creativity: World of Warcraft Modding in China and the US. In W. S. Bainbridge (Ed.), Online worlds: Convergence of the real and the virtual (pp. 21–42). London: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. Homans, G. C. (1941). English villagers of the thirteenth century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  23. Benedict, R. (1946). The chrysanthemum and the sword: Patterns of Japanese culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Scott, J. F. (1971). Internalization of norms: A sociological theory of moral commitment. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Bandura, A. (1969). Principles of behavior modification. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  26. finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIV. Accessed 31 Dec 2014.

  27. Moorhead, J. H. (1984). Between progress and the apocalypse: A reassessment of millennialism in American religious thought, 1800–1880. The Journal of American History, 71(3): 524–542; Almond, P. C. (1993). Henry Moore and the apocalypse. Journal of the History of Ideas, 54(2):189–200; Landes, R. A. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  28. na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/world/#!/story/content?eorzea. Accessed 2 Jan 2015.

  29. Sarkar, S. (2014, February 5). Square enix returning to profitability in 2014 fiscal year. Polygon, www.polygon.com/2014/2/5/5381734/square-enix-q3-2014-earnings-returning-to-profitability. Accessed 4 Jan 2015.

  30. www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/pdf/ar_2014_01en.pdf. Accessed 4 Jan 2015.

  31. Roco, M. C. (2016). Convergence-divergence process. In W. S. Bainbridge & M. C. Roco (Ed.), Handbook of science and technology convergence. Switzerland: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Mandelbrot, B. B. (1983). The fractal geometry of nature. San Francisco: Freeman; B-L. Hao (Ed.). (1984). Chaos. Singapore: World Scientific; Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a new science. New York: Penguin; Arthur, W. B. (1990). Positive feedback in the economy. Scientific American, 263: 92–99; Goerner, S. J. (1994). Chaos and the evolving ecological universe. Luxembourg: Gordon and Breach.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Sewell, W. H. (1989). Some reflections on the golden age of interdisciplinary social psychology. Annual Review of Sociology, 15, 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. House, J. S. (2008). Social psychology, social science, and economics: Twentieth century progress and problems, twenty-first century prospects. Social Psychology Quarterly, 71, 232–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Bohannon, J. (2015). Many psychology papers fail replication test. Science, 349: 910–911; Open science collaboration, “estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. (2015, August 28). Science, 349: 943.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arlington, VA, USA

    William Sims Bainbridge

Authors
  1. William Sims Bainbridge
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bainbridge, W.S. (2016). Individual Incentives for Investment in Gameworlds. In: Virtual Sociocultural Convergence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33020-4_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33020-4_9

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33019-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33020-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation