Pirate's Life for Me
An Ethnography in the Sea of Thieves
METHODS
During lockdown, there wasn't much opportunity for in person ethnographic research, so when I took a sociological research methods course, the instructor encouraged us to look online for our field sites.
I chose Sea of Thieves, a video game where players sail a virtual world, harass each other, and participate in open-ended "voyages." My first research questions were about virtual theft, but I soon found that unless I instigated or allowed theft, it was unlikely to take place.
I pivoted to studying how players cooperate in immersive virtual environments. This research has implications for VR, meta-verse realities, and accessibility in virtual spaces. I joined crews composed of strangers, made plans with them, sailed the seas, and asked them about their experience of the game.
During lockdown, there wasn't much opportunity for in person ethnographic research, so when I took a sociological research methods course, the instructor encouraged us to look online for our field sites.
I chose Sea of Thieves, a video game where players sail a virtual world, harass each other, and participate in open-ended "voyages." My first research questions were about virtual theft, but I soon found that unless I instigated or allowed theft, it was unlikely to take place.
I pivoted to studying how players cooperate in immersive virtual environments. This research has implications for VR, meta-verse realities, and accessibility in virtual spaces. I joined crews composed of strangers, made plans with them, sailed the seas, and asked them about their experience of the game.
FINDINGS
In Sea of Thieves I identified three key steps that create a cycle of degenerative immersion. They relate to the choices made by the designers and creators of the game, Rare Studios. In identifying this cycle I found patterns that were not accounted for within the ontology of the game.
What I found was that one of the primary ways crews make the cycle of immersion generative is by replacing "panic" with "planning." Crews use "telephoning," (relays of information based on perception and bias) to try to share their perspectives and address possible concerns, before they become destructive.
All crews I sailed with telephoned, but more experienced crews developed codes and signals to run a tight ship.
In Sea of Thieves I identified three key steps that create a cycle of degenerative immersion. They relate to the choices made by the designers and creators of the game, Rare Studios. In identifying this cycle I found patterns that were not accounted for within the ontology of the game.
What I found was that one of the primary ways crews make the cycle of immersion generative is by replacing "panic" with "planning." Crews use "telephoning," (relays of information based on perception and bias) to try to share their perspectives and address possible concerns, before they become destructive.
All crews I sailed with telephoned, but more experienced crews developed codes and signals to run a tight ship.
The 3 P's of the Sea of Thieves
Perspective
Players are restrained to a first person, narrow field-of-view perspective that places them directly "in the head" of their avatar. Actions and interactions take place from this view.
Personification
The self splits; players are simultaneously in their body, playing a video game (where stakes are low) and are a pirate, sailing a ship, fighting skeletons, or digging for treasure.
The self splits; players are simultaneously in their body, playing a video game (where stakes are low) and are a pirate, sailing a ship, fighting skeletons, or digging for treasure.
Panic
Failure and danger are felt to be imminent and real. Decisions are made based on gut feel and reading the "body language" of other player's actions. The sense of perspective is reinforced.
Failure and danger are felt to be imminent and real. Decisions are made based on gut feel and reading the "body language" of other player's actions. The sense of perspective is reinforced.
CONCLUSION
What struck me about Sea of Thieves as a field site was how viscerally players experienced it. I approached the site as a digital one, where players knew the locations they were visiting were conceptual. What I found instead was that players felt their time in the game to be very real.
This led me to conclude that players do not approach cooperation in the game as an abstract experience that nets them personal gain. Rather, cooperation was an embodied experience, and cooperating effectively was its own reward. Sailing with strangers was far more difficult than I anticipated for just this reason: we were not allies in the abstract. Our lives depended on each other.
This produces profound possibilities for building genuine trust. Although a world apart, two people can feel themselves to be together and working towards a shared purpose; not "online," but there, by your side, sailing the seas.
What struck me about Sea of Thieves as a field site was how viscerally players experienced it. I approached the site as a digital one, where players knew the locations they were visiting were conceptual. What I found instead was that players felt their time in the game to be very real.
This led me to conclude that players do not approach cooperation in the game as an abstract experience that nets them personal gain. Rather, cooperation was an embodied experience, and cooperating effectively was its own reward. Sailing with strangers was far more difficult than I anticipated for just this reason: we were not allies in the abstract. Our lives depended on each other.
This produces profound possibilities for building genuine trust. Although a world apart, two people can feel themselves to be together and working towards a shared purpose; not "online," but there, by your side, sailing the seas.
