HD Online Player (online Hindi Movie Run 2004)
Mary Hargrove
MMORPGs are large multi-user games that take place in perpetual online worlds with a great number of other players. In most MMORPGs each player controls an avatar that interacts with other players, completes tasks to gain experience, and acquires items. MMORPGs use a wide range of business models, from free of charge, free with microtransactions, advertise funded, to various kinds of payment plans. Most early MMORPGs were text-based and web browser-based, later 2D, isometric, side-scrolling and 3D games emerged, including on video game consoles and mobile phones.
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Despite the growing popularity of online game playing, there has been no primary survey of its players. Therefore, an online questionnaire survey was used to examine basic demographic factors of online computer game players who played the popular online game Everquest (i.e., gender, age, marital status, nationality, education level, occupation). The survey also examined playing frequency (i.e., amount of time spent playing the game a week), playing history (i.e., how long they had been playing the game, who they played the game with, whether they had ever gender swapped their game character), the favorite and least favorite aspects of playing the game, and what they sacrifice (if anything) to play the game. Results showed that 81% of online game players were male, and that the mean age of players was 27.9 years of age. For many players, the social aspects of the game were the most important factor in playing. A small minority of players appear to play excessively (over 80 h a week), and results suggest that a small minority sacrifice important activities in order to play (e.g., sleep, time with family and/or partner, work, or schooling).
The average American woman earns 83% of what an average American man earns, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This stark disparity has hardly budged for over a decade: the pay gap between men and women has sat between 80% and 84% since 2004.
With new developments ahead, we are taking a look back at how athlete compensation has changed over the past ten years, comparing average salaries of men and women across sports like basketball, soccer and tennis. While many steps have been taken in pursuit of equal pay, inequality continues to exist.
Another sign of growth toward pay equality is that tennis players from both the ATP and WTA have come together to campaign for a larger share of tournament revenues. Their hope is that by moving closer to a 50-50 split, common in other pro sports, they can increase salaries for all players, male and female. In 2023, the WTA made new commitments to award equal prize money to men and women. The plan will increase payouts for professional female tennis players, ensuring equality in compensation within a decade:
The MS in Sport Management at Adelphi University is designed for hard-working, ambitious individuals with a passion for sports. The degree is available online and on campus and includes optional specializations in sport marketing or athletic administration.
At Adelphi, students gain an in-depth understanding of the sport industry with coursework that includes business management, market analysis, budget preparation, sport law, sport marketing and public relations. They also learn how to turn previous athletic experience and interests into professional strengths in order to stand out in the industry.
The rapid acceleration of online course offerings presents a design challenge for instructors who want to take materials developed for face-to-face settings and adapt them for asynchronous online usage. Broadcast lectures are relatively easy to transfer, but adapting content is harder when classes use small-group discussions, as in role-playing or negotiation games. To be successful, such environments should address three interrelated design challenges: (a) sustaining engagement, (b) promoting content-focused discussion, and (c) promoting reflection-on-action. This article is a case study of how one interactive role-playing game, Island Telecom, was adapted for online play. We describe eight design features, including automated player roles and a structured team decision-making process, and show how they match with design challenges. Feedback from a recent run of this game shows that, although students still prefer to play face-to-face, they now also give favorable ratings to the online version. Feedback on specific adaptations is also presented.
Interactive online games for more than two players or multiplayer online games have become a popular object of investigation ever since social and cultural sciences began studying the Internet. Whilst initial studies on online games mainly focused on text-based virtual realities (e.g. Bartle, 1990; Bartle, 1996; Bruckman, 1992; Curtis, 1996), over the course of the last few years there has been an increasing number of publications dedicated to games with a graphical user interface and several thousands of users playing simultaneously. This development has been accompanied by a series of related conferences and the establishment of specific publication platforms as well as research associations (for example, Aarseth, 2001). In the US, game research, or game studies, has even become a topic covered by the general interest news media (for example, Erard, 2004). However, in Germany apart from being covered as a business issue, this new field is only addressed by sporadic research, of which hardly any is based on rich empirical data (Goetzenbrucker, 2001 being one of the few exceptions).
From a research perspective such games are particularly interesting for at least two reasons. First of all, most of them are fully commercial games that do not require advanced computing skills like the older text-based games (for example, complicated computer commands to trigger actions). Therefore, in terms of socio-demographics they can be played by a much broader segment of Internet users, which is indeed the case. With about four percent of the German population frequently playing online computer games (regardless of genre) (ACTA, 2003) any effect of gaming on the offline life of the players is no longer confined to a minority of specialists. Hence the emphasis of some authors (for example, Castronova, 2003) on the influence of economic activity inside the gameworld on real-world economies as a policy issue may not be exaggerated.1 Apart from the increasing scope of MMORPGs in terms of numbers of users, we can also expect qualitative differences compared to text-based games, as the graphical user interface and the variety of possible actions brings these games much closer to what we are familiar with from our offline experience.
At the time of our study, as Wellman and Giulia observed (Wellman and Giulia, 1998), there was a need for detailed observation and evidence in online research in order to replace anecdote. Accordingly, we launched our study on Ultima Online as an ethnographic fact-finding mission in an unknown region (Baur and Kolo, 2001). First of all, we wanted to understand why people spend so many hours playing on the Internet. To learn more about this, we structured our analysis around several questions concerning the social dynamics of online games: Who are the players? When, how and why do they play? And finally, what are the social effects of the game in offline life?
After giving a brief introduction into the world of Ultima Online, some methodological considerations and an outline of the study design, we will examine the questions above. We will conclude our paper with an outlook on the role that social studies of online games could play in future research.
New players first have to accomplish some preparatory steps before entering the world of Ultima Online3. Together with an Internet access and an up-to-date personal computer, the purchase of the game software and the payment of a monthly fee are necessary. After registration and installation of the software, the player finally gains access to the game environment which is constantly synchronized with a central server. The software is regularly extended and updated by the game publisher via the Internet.
There are several elements of a MMORPG suitable for observation. Before starting our research we tried to specify the possible perspectives on them. These elements belong to three structurally distinctive categories or layers (see Figure 2):
Finally there is the world of data. In this layer, the data representing interface commands and the information for the representation of the gameworld is mediated, transferred and sometimes also distorted, for example, due to software bugs or connection problems.
These layers are technically linked by the hardware and software of the interface (typically a keyboard and a monitor), the personal computer and the network (for example, the Internet connection). Both the players and the observing researcher refer to these different layers in their remarks or field notes. Therefore, a complete picture of a game situation results from the synopsis of the processes in all layers.
When structuring the observable elements in and around the game an additional complexity is introduced because both the players and the characters can be regarded as an object of inquiry in several levels of aggregation. Thereby, the observable entities in the context of Ultima Online encompass:
the social micro-level of individual players (for example, the specific motivation to play or the strategy used) on one hand and that of the related characters on the other (for example, the skills or the possessions)
For the investigation of the phenomena in and around Ultima Online, we thought it necessary to combine several methods that reflect the different perspectives and are related to the different levels of aggregation. In principle there are three main ways of acquiring knowledge about a game like Ultima Online: by studying the information given by the developers; by observing others playing; and by playing the game ourselves. Ideally all three methods are combined (see also Aarseth, 2003). Accordingly, in addition to studying the manuals and introductions to Ultima Online as given by the publisher, between the end of 1999 and February 2000 we gathered qualitative data by open interviews via the Internet (ICQ, e-mail), by direct participant observation of two players in their domestic environment and by participant observation of the game from the perspective of a fellow player. In all cases the players were informed of the study situation.
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