Information System Literature Review
Team A
University of Phoenix

Information System Literature Review Paper Over the last 10-15 years, the gaming industry has come an extraordinary long ways in development and growth. This particular industry continues to grow and improve from year to year. The newest generations have come from board games, to video games, and finally computer games. The computer games have developed from two dimensional (2-D), three dimensional (3-D), and virtual environments. Gamers get to experience revolutionary virtual realities known as massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). To understand the growth into MMORPG’s, a game developer must research the history, theory, some negative implementations, and contemporary best practices of networking, the opportunities, and innovation with the field of MMORPG’s.
Historical development of the field
The first computer game produced was 2-D in 1962 (Thomson, 2008). This was just a simple game where two players controlled his or her spaceship and attempted to destroy the opposing player. This was the lead into an ever-evolving world of gaming.
The gaming industry has evolved into virtual world environments. This type of gaming has unleashed a world where players create an avatar in which can look anyway they want. This has allowed the gamers of today a way to communicate in a new way. It has even gone as far as allowing people a new way of learning (Barnett, 2010). Colleges are making a virtual presence for reaching to their students. For instance, Northeastern State University of Oklahoma (NSU) Library has been putting many books to virtual copies in which students can view anywhere they have a browser. Brandon Tarr, technical lead for the system service department at the NSU Library, was part of the Second Life exploration back in 2010. NSU had a just one major concern with a virtual presence.
Northeastern State University Library Systems Services department was concerned only with the latency and network limitations and requirements for their virtual presence. To get the best experience for a virtual game a player or group must have a connection that does not cause latency, also known as lag (Fritsch, Hartmut, & Schiller, 2005).
Virtual environments or MMORPG’s are Internet-based environments (Fritsch et al., 2005). Therefore, a player must have a good connection to communicate with the game’s servers and networks. A player must provide himself or herself with good upstream and downstream communication speeds. Have good speeds mean the computers, also known as client personal computers (PC), can effectively communicate with the host’s servers without any lag.
Theoretical views of the field
In theories of MMORPGs, there is an association of the online community as a utopia where individuals live out certain experiences that they would not be able to do in reality (Brookey, 2009). The virtual world is correlated to the new frontier as a comparison of the new settlers in the new frontier (Brookey, 2009). However, in the New World, the culpabilities made within the many risks associated in the virtual world can be hidden under virtual identities (Brookey, 2009). Within the developments of the new frontier, the constraints of coming to America, the land of opportunity had its downsides. Subsequently, not all of the opportunity would be equally affordable to all, while there were racial divisions within the land of opportunity. This transports discord within the frontier whereas no one will benefit from the economic growth (Brookey, 2009).
Some risks that are perceived morally inappropriate and not socially acceptable, such as killing an individual for pleasure (Luck, 2009). Although in the virtual world, killing a person is common in online gaming and crosses a very thin line morally (Luck, 2009). This moral code is not prevalent in the virtual world and many would see this viewpoint different and think that a moral code should be in place (Luck, 2009). Will online gaming influence individuals, especially minors under age, to act out their virtual experiences and will it isolate them from socially acceptable with newfound formal learned behavior from the virtual world? Will the thought of the value of a human life be worth saving? These are the questions in which will challenge the online gaming world as they continue to influence gaming software that promotes losing a person’s life.
In contrast, online gaming and virtual worlds can be used for positive influences upon the community. It can nurture a learning environment for social groups for the workplace and for students. With the growth of the Internet, social networks have implored, and brought with it groundbreaking changes to technology advancement in collaboration (Mysirlaki & Paraskeva, 2012). Learning in virtual teams can promote growth for an individual who may only be able to grasp the concept from a man of his peers, whereas traditional learning is a challenge.
Negative implementations within the field
MMORPGs have surged over the last couple of decades not only to mesmerize adolescents but young and older adults as well with the game consoles systems and video games. New technology being added to MMORPGs appeals to the social environments that attract individuals to see what will the online gaming systems (MMORPGs ).come up with next. According to Ahlstrom, Lundberg, Zabriskie, Eggett, and Lindsay (2012), “Recent research on Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs ) shows increased adult participation, the average age for male players being 26, and for females 32” (Ahlstrom, Lundberg, Zabriskie, Eggett, & Lindsay, 2012, p. 2).
The interaction with individuals not in the virtual world has decreased and interaction increased within the social environments. It further interferes with the interactions of friends and family whereas relationships have been strained and broken. Moreover, Ahlstrom, Lundberg, Zabriskie, Eggett, and Lindsay (2012) state in their research, “MMORPG gamers play on average of 22.71 hours per week and 82% of gaming occurs from 6 to 11 pm, a time of night frequently reserved for social interaction and communication or participation in individual, couple, or family leisure activities” (p. 2).
A person deems the virtual world more interesting than the real-world, tends to lean more in the virtual world, and create an avatar to identify himself or herself with his or her personal character. The individual is motivated to be involved with the virtual world because they are inquisitive, view it as a dare, it is not the real world, there are no risks, and he or she is in control (See Figure 1) (Hsu, Wen, & Wu, 2009).

The negative effects that MMORPG players somewhat neglect to see is the impact of withdrawal from physical communication with family and friends. Another study completed by Ahlstrom, Lundberg, Zabriskie, Eggett, and Lindsay (2012):
“MMORPG users would rather spend time in the game than with friends, have more fun with in-game friends than people they know, found it easier to converse with people in-game, did not find social relationships as important, and felt happier when in the game than anywhere else. It appears that many MMORG players would rather have social relationships with those in their online virtual word environment than with the people or relatives in their real physical world environment” (p. 5).
The Cyber-psychologist has labeled this an addiction behavior, as the over use of the Internet and having an unhealthy relationship with the online gaming with characteristics of being excessive, problematic, and uncontrollable (Metcalf, 2013). Finally, the American Psychiatric Association is considering recognizing the Internet use disorder with special subtypes, such as excessive online gaming listed first on the list (Metcalf, 2013). * Contemporary best practices of networking within the field * Contemporary best practices of networking within MMORPG are load-balancing servers, using multiple databases and servers, subspaces, and game traffic: game protocol and game behavior. The four areas are important to practice to give customers the best available interface and interaction possible. Providing customers a platform smooth and flawless will keep them coming back. Load-balancing is where there are multiple paths to a destination that a packet can travel. A packet is a unit of binary data of information that a computer network routes. The more paths or shortest path a packet can take through a network will increase speed rates and transfer time. In MMORPG, load-balancing is critical to keep the network and servers from becoming overloaded. When one path has a high load of packet crossing through, the network will pick another path for other packets to get to the destination. Once at the destination, the receiving server is responsible to put the packets together to form complete data. Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games players expect the games to be functional with little or no downtime (Assiotis & Tzanov, 2006). Service providers should use multiple databases and servers to transfer character information from one server to another in case of hotspots or overload of one server. Most service providers of MMORPG use Peer-2-Peer (P2P) connection. According to Assiotis & Tzanov (2006), P2P does uses some form of distributed load and scaling effectively, they are not very good for real-world solutions. P2P is not very secure, and they are not centralized control of the game publisher. Using multiple servers and databases will allow the game publisher more centralized control and establish a reliable distributing load and scaling system. In contrast, Yamamoto, Murata, Yasumoto, and Ito (2005) stated that P2P was the best course of action for service providers. Using P2P would save management cost by not possessing servers or high-speed networks. Yamamoto et al. (2005) recommended that the game divided into many pieces because many players join the same game at the same time. Hence, the game space would be divided into multiple small subspaces. The subspaces would allow each player’s view be overlapped by switching quickly and seamlessly as the view moves around in the game space. Subspaces would provide players a smoother and cleaner game play.
Opportunities and innovations within the field Opportunities and innovations with MMORPG are best demonstrated by the education system. According Dickey (2007), the current movement in education is the cultivation and emergence of interactive learning environments. Interactive learning environments are made possible by the advancement in technology and teaching (Dickey, 2007).
Many higher education institutions are cultivating interactive learning environments to teach different subjects. For example, students can create and run a business, city, or government, and learn the cause and effect of decision-making process that otherwise it would be impossible (Bonk & Denned, 2005). “The motivational nature of these games allows students to persist in the virtual environment longer than they would in a traditional learning environment” (Barnett & Archambault, 2010, pg. 1). In these games, students can learn economic concepts (e.g., efficiency, specialization, and supply and demand (Barnett & Archambault, 2010)) by creating items and selling them to other players. There is a brokerage system setup in the MMORPG for this purpose.
Interactive learning environments developed in foreign countries to teach students English. One example of an MMORPG designed and developed as an educational and motivational education-designed (EdD) called Ed-Wonderland (Hung, 2011). The programmers of Ed-Wonderland developed and used the program in a study to determine if students would be more motivated into learning the English language more than in a traditional classroom. Hung’s (2011) studied show that students learned more and was more motivated from playing Ed-Wonderland than students in the traditional classroom.
Conclusion
The gaming world will continue to evolve has time passes on. The end users will continue to be amazed by new developments as long as developers keep creating new ideas. The development of new technology will help create new ideas for gaming. Just as 2-D games became 3-D the evolution of virtual MMORPGs with conform into a brand new type of game. Developers need to understand the growth of games have taken into what we know as MMORPG. Therefore, a developer must research the history, theory, some negative implementations, and contemporary best practices of networking, the opportunities, and innovation with the field of MMORPG’s.

References
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