Calm down buddy! it's just a game: Behavioral patterns observed among teamwork MMO participants in WARGAMING's world of tanks

This study examines (also develops) several scenarios in a massively multiplayer online game, World of Tanks, in order to observe player's response to the occurred/created stimuli in different situations. A qualitative approach through observation and experience is employed to study the behavior of team players in the real situations, although occurring in a virtual environment. World of Tanks offers various scenarios, which are mostly involved with teamwork activities. Being a tiered/ranked-based game, also exposing players' stats to each other, the game has provided an environment, in which, for many players, ‘stats’ have become more important than the game itself. In this situation sometimes the fun part of the game is victimized by the above attitude, leading to cyber-bullying, humiliation, verbal abuse, and in some cases deliberate friendly fire. However, the level of behavior varies from a scenario to another. Additionally, some other behavioral patterns, observed during the experience, are discussed in this study, which reflect the real world semi-similar scenarios/situations in a virtual environment e.g. helping teammates in the time of need or taking personal advantages rather than assisting others. This is a phenomenological case study using symbolic interactionism, interpretivism, and phenomenology as a theoretical perspective through direct and indirect observation while experiencing the phenomenon being investigated. A constructionism epistemology is used in order to construct knowledge about the above phenomenon. Data is collected using an existing WARGAMING's World of Tanks account mainly from the real scenarios (battles). However, this game offers various features such as online chat (text and voice), statistics, and several associated websites where users can share their experience/thoughts in many different forms from text to interactive multimedia. These sources of data are also used wherever needed. This study looks at various scenarios to investigate the factors influencing the players' behavior in occurrence of the mentioned events in order to develop few patterns for some of them, where applicable. This study aims not to criticize the observed behaviors but to study and illustrate them. Therefore, study takes no side neither encouraging nor discouraging the behavior. However, a brief discussion is provided at the end arguing over the reflection of behavior in the real world scenarios, vice versa.