Community

So far in this chapter, I’ve been talking about players as individuals, at a “psychological” level. Now it’s time to look at collections of individuals, at a “sociological” level. The object of study increases in size from individual to group to community to society. In virtual worlds, it’s most important to understand individuals and community first; groups have elements of both in them, and society implies large numbers of diverse but interdependent communities that just don’t exist in virtual worlds (yet).