The evolution of social ties online: A longitudinal study in a massively multiplayer online game

How do social ties in online worlds evolve over time? This research examined the dynamic processes of relationship formation, maintenance, and demise in a massively multiplayer online game. Drawing from evolutionary and ecological theories of social networks, this study focuses on the impact of three sets of evolutionary factors in the context of social relationships in the online game EverQuest II (EQII): the aging and maturation processes, social architecture of the game, and homophily and proximity. A longitudinal analysis of tie persistence and decay demonstrated the transient nature of social relationships in EQII, but ties became considerably more durable over time. Also, character level similarity, shared guild membership, and geographic proximity were powerful mechanisms in preserving social relationships.

[1]  Scott E. Caplan,et al.  Who plays, how much, and why? Debunking the stereotypical gamer profile , 2008, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[2]  Marco Gonzalez,et al.  Author's Personal Copy Social Networks Tastes, Ties, and Time: a New Social Network Dataset Using Facebook.com , 2022 .

[3]  Chuen-Tsai Sun,et al.  Player Guild Dynamics and Evolution in Massively Multiplayer Online Games , 2008, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[4]  H. Rao,et al.  The Demography of Corporations and Industries , 1999 .

[5]  Robin I. M. Dunbar.  Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language , 1996 .

[6]  Chen Zhang,et al.  Emergence of New Project Teams from Open Source Software Developer Networks: Impact of Prior Collaboration Ties , 2008, Inf. Syst. Res..

[7]  David Krackhardt,et al.  Cognitive social structures , 1987 .

[8]  Ronald S. Burt,et al.  Relation contents in multiple networks , 1985 .

[9]  Alessandro Vespignani,et al.  Modeling Users' Activity on Twitter Networks: Validation of Dunbar's Number , 2011, PloS one.

[10]  Ronald S. Burt,et al.  Bridge decay , 2002, Soc. Networks.

[11]  Christos Faloutsos,et al.  Graph evolution: Densification and shrinking diameters , 2006, TKDD.

[12]  Robin I. M. Dunbar.  Cognitive constraints on the structure and dynamics of social networks. , 2008 .

[13]  Kathleen M. Carley,et al.  Patterns and dynamics of users' behavior and interaction: Network analysis of an online community , 2009, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[14]  Peter R. Monge,et al.  Communication Network Evolution in Organizational Communities , 2008 .

[15]  W. Bainbridge.  The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds , 2007, Science.

[16]  Robert J. Moore,et al.  The life and death of online gaming communities: a look at guilds in world of warcraft , 2007, CHI.

[17]  Edward Castronova,et al.  Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality , 2007 .

[18]  Amos H. Hawley,et al.  Human Ecology: A Theoretical Essay , 1986 .

[19]  A. Stinchcombe.  Social Structure and Organizations , 2000, Political Organizations.

[20]  W. Powell,et al.  Network Dynamics and Field Evolution: The Growth of Interorganizational Collaboration in the Life Sciences1 , 2005, American Journal of Sociology.

[21]  Dmitri Williams,et al.  The Impact of Time Online: Social Capital and Cyberbalkanization , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[22]  Thomas V. Pollet,et al.  Exploring variation in active network size: Constraints and ego characteristics , 2009, Soc. Networks.

[23]  J. Ivery,et al.  Organizational Ecology , 2007 .

[24]  W. Galston.  Does the Internet Strengthen Community , 1999 .

[25]  A. Bennett.  The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection; or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life , 1872, Nature.

[26]  Scott E. Caplan,et al.  Looking for Gender: Gender Roles and Behaviors Among Online Gamers , 2009 .

[27]  M. McPherson,et al.  Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks , 2001 .

[28]  Jeremy N. Bailenson,et al.  The Evolution of Social Behavior over Time in Second Life , 2009, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[29]  Nick Yee,et al.  The Demographics, Motivations, and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively Multi-User Online Graphical Environments , 2006, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[30]  Araújo,et al.  An Evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[31]  L. Freeman.  Centrality in social networks conceptual clarification , 1978 .

[32]  S. Feld.  The Focused Organization of Social Ties , 1981, American Journal of Sociology.

[33]  G. Simmel.  The Sociology of Sociability , 1949, American Journal of Sociology.

[34]  Nick Yee,et al.  Motivations for Play in Online Games , 2006, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[35]  D. Campbell.  Variation and Selective retention in Socio-Cultural Evolution , 1965 .

[36]  Barry Wellman,et al.  A decade of network change: Turnover, persistence and stability in personal communities☆ , 1997 .

[37]  M. Hannan,et al.  Structural Inertia and Organizational Change , 1984 .

[38]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  The Benefits of Facebook "Friends: " Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites , 2007, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[39]  Judith Donath,et al.  Signals in Social Supernets , 2007, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[40]  R. Gulati,et al.  Where Do Interorganizational Networks Come From?1 , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[41]  Peter R. Monge,et al.  Predictors of the International HIV–AIDS INGO Network Over Time , 2005 .

[42]  Yun Huang,et al.  Distance matters: Exploring proximity and homophily in virtual world networks , 2013, Decis. Support Syst..

[43]  S. Winter,et al.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[44]  John F. Padgett,et al.  Organizational Invention and Elite Transformation: The Birth of Partnership Systems in Renaissance Florence1 , 2006, American Journal of Sociology.

[45]  Roger B. Chen,et al.  Time to Play? , 2010 .

[46]  S. Morris,et al.  Social inertia in collaboration networks. , 2005, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[47]  Carle C. Zimmerman,et al.  Social Change in Developing Areas, A Reinterpretation of Evolutionary Theory , 1996 .

[48]  Ronald S. Burt,et al.  Decay functions , 2000, Soc. Networks.

[49]  Stanley Wasserman,et al.  Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications , 1994, Structural analysis in the social sciences.

[50]  B. Kogut,et al.  Social Capital, Structural Holes and the Formation of an Industry Network , 1997 .

[51]  Lawrence Lessig,et al.  Code - version 2.0 , 2006 .

[52]  David Lazer,et al.  The Network Structure of Exploration and Exploitation , 2007 .