Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Player Guild Dynamics And Evolution In Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Chien Hsun Chen, J. L. Hsieh, C. T. Sun

Chien Hsun Chen

In the latest versions of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), developers have purposefully made guilds part of game environments. Guilds represent a powerful method for giving players a sense of online community, but there is little quantitative data on guild dynamics. To address this topic, we took advantage of a feature found in one of today’s most popular MMOGs (World of Warcraft) to collect in-game data: user interfaces that players can modify and refine. In addition to collecting data on in-game player activities, we used this feature to observe and investigate how players join and leave guilds. Data were analyzed …