Bien jouer ensemble : les activités de coordination des joueurs de jeux de rôle en ligne massivement multijoueurs

MMORPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, appeared late 90s. Based on strategy games and heroic fantasy universes, they offer an imaginary and warlike environment to many players connected worldwide. Many of them now have spent thousands of hours of playing those games. Behind their computers, hands on their keyboards and mice, headsets and microphones ear to mouth, these players have learned to interact in number to meet the "challenges" offered daily by these games: beat the dragon perched in its keep (Player versus Environment) or ambush the group of players they just saw (Player versus Player). This research explores the coordination of players during these activities within those sociotechnical entertainment spaces. It focuses specifically on combat group activities proposed by the game systems and on how players invest themselves passionately, intensely, and most of all, collectively. Our study considers the coordination of the players in terms of mental activities required by the sociotechnical-distributed system they form with other players. To coordinate in those games, players had to learn to master the rules (culture), to optimize their devices (technical) and communicate remotely with efficiency (social). In doing so, they have not just learned to coordinate but they have mostly learned to play together. Altogether, they create a playable collective experience. In MMORPGs, learning to coordinate is learning to play. Our exploration followed the combat activites of seasoned players of Dark Age of Camelot (PvP) and EverQuest 2 (PvE). After having collected, processed and analyzed their game recordings, we confronted the player to the practice of other players (allo-confrontation), to their own practice (self-confrontation) and ultimately to what other players said about their practice (allo– self-confrontation). Together, we could decipher the rules they follow, the principles they apply, the way they interact and communicate, or the way they adapt their interfaces. Together, we analyzed how one coordinates within these games. Together, we tried to understand what is it to play well together.