Communities of Practice in WoW?

 

 

My seventeen year old brother is my favorite person in the world. We do everything together, at least, we did until I moved countries to go to college. Even so, he would constantly phone me and we’d chat for hours after hours on the phone or online. In the last year or so, my time with him as been eaten away. I kind of expected this to happen, he’s a teenage boy and I knew girls would get in the way sooner or later. I was ready to bow down gracefully and step aside to give him room to mature and experience the wonders of autonomy – that is, until I realized that the reason he was no longer talking to me on the phone was because he was busy playing an online game called World of Warcraft, not meeting up with girls and other teenagers like I’d thought.

At first I just couldn’t understand it and was quite hurt by his actions. I couldn’t believe that he wanted to spend hours and hours playing a game and talking to people he didn’t even really know, all to slay a dragon or collect gold coins. I thought it was pathetic, especially when my Mom informed me he was online playing WoW until four or five in the morning. I began to worry he was addicted, I began to believe that maybe he was having a sexual relationship with one of his WoW friends. Whenever he got on the phone with me I shouted and demeaned him, angry that I had been given up for a stupid game.

It wasn’t until we discussed Wow in my Writing for Electronic Communities class that I began to understand a little of what was going on. Reading Wenger’s Communities of Practice, I was introduced to a new concept which helped me to look at my brothers situation differently. Communities of practice (CoP)are groups of people that work together and build relationships, even in non-traditional situations such as the members on WoW. If you see below, there is a great video that helps explain why WoW can be considered a community of practice and why then, I should not be criticizing my little brother so much. I don’t understand his actions because I am not a member of his community of practice, but that doesn’t meant that I have the right to put him down – I know that now.

According to the video above, WoW has a CoP, as it fulfills several criteria:

1) The average member dedicates 20+ hours a week to WoW

2) WoW employs the use of a small set of tightly integrated tools

3) The game supports collaborative work (specialized interface)

4) It has a set of worthwhile challenges and rewards

5) Problems that need to be solved are tackled by group work

I’m still reluctant to accept that right now I rate less attention because of an online game, but put into perspective, I can at least now get some comprehension as to why my brother is so dedicated to this game.