FFXI and cyberanthropology.

Alan Meade has been gathering data on player attitudes for two years as part of his dissertation research. Among the interesting findings: the regional differences in median player age (17 in Norway; 22 in the US; 27 in Japan.) In general, players from East Asian countries are older than those in the Americas and Europe.

There are a number of possible explanations for this: that there are differences in the structure of free/leisure time in different countries (due to differences in educational and work systems); there are differences in access to the platforms, etc. My own interest is drawn to the possibility of distinct canonical players in different national markets. Manga, for example, is considered a "young person's" medium in the West, but is ubiquitous as a format for popular non-fiction and fiction alike for a wide variety of demographics in Japan. While I don't think that video and computer games are "unmarked" as a medium--that is, the canonical player is not the canonical subject, and playership marks the player as a particular, rather than general, kind of consumer--there may be a wider distribution, and less particular marking, for the game player there.

I also wonder if the differences in age are as responsible for the in-game conflicts between North American and Japanese players as "culture" is. (I put "culture" in scare-quotes, partially out of skepticism of the privileging of national identity as the boundary-line of culture.) Discussions with the game producers revealed that the complaints made by Japanese players of American players included those associated with maturity: deficits in planning, foresight, and consideration, in particular. The differences in median age between the two groups, interestingly enough, distinguishes those who may have significant adult work experience from those who may just be finishing their education. Insofar as the Final Fantasy XI group-play experience resembles a real-world work-team, the differences in player experience could be significant.

Alan's dissertation should be available soon.