Article: Sociologist Parker Benth Publishes WoW Class Case Study

[Jeremiah]

You can view the page at http://www.mmowned.com/forums/conten...ass-Case-Study

[EddyEvil]

Fantastic study and great read. Thank you for posting this.

[stoneharry]

Shame it's a sociological study and not a psychological study. But a good read none the less.

[ShadowRanger23]

Darn, I was hoping there would be good evidence to call hunters Huntards.. well good read anyway :P

[faux pas]

Wow. That's all I can say. This article is complete garbage. The studies conducted are in no way conclusive, and I can vouch that not one single player I know falls into categories cataloged here. People can embellish details or misinform in regards to critical information, the entire study, and in effect, the results are biased at best and lacking an integral foundation at worst. This piece deserves as much scrutiny as possible, it's pseudoscience like this that dilutes the mind of true aspiring intellectuals. Go home, try again.

[Razalan]

I think this stands out most because it gives a better look of who you are playing with. It kind of allows you to put a face to the character you actually see. Chances are you only have a few friends on WoW that you actually know out of the game, every one else is just another Night Elf or another Tauren walking the streets, preparing for a Raid, gearing up, or maybe just jumping onto the Stormwind fountain.

[Holysymbol]

Holy shit.

****ing picked me right out.

I play a rogue, Hispanic, 80k a year, and independent..

This guy is smart.

[Xel]

Thanks for the article!

[Janube]

Wow. That's all I can say. This article is complete garbage. The studies conducted are in no way conclusive, and I can vouch that not one single player I know falls into categories cataloged here. People can embellish details or misinform in regards to critical information, the entire study, and in effect, the results are biased at best and lacking an integral foundation at worst. This piece deserves as much scrutiny as possible, it's pseudoscience like this that dilutes the mind of true aspiring intellectuals. Go home, try again.

As much as I dislike this "study" for a number of empirical reasons, don't let fallacies dictate your disdain.

Personal experience and connections have no business in logical discourse.
I'm willing to bet everyone knows SOMEONE who falls in line with one of these figures- Probably several people. But that doesn't make them true, or even representative by any stretch.

Personally, I enjoyed the line about females playing Shamans, Hunters, Warlocks, and Druids, where the author of the study implied that there is at least one class that exists whose sole purpose is healing. By suggesting that, "All four of those classes are also damage-dealers," it's fallaciously knocking down a stereotype that COULDN'T be definitionally true in his eyes from the get go.

I agree though, I say "feh" to this study.

[nismoz91]

Hell it sounds interesting, if he comes out with a book, I think I'd buy it...but Pallys being last on the income list...I just went from Mage to Pally without any change to my economic standing, but I also have a Warrior...wierd...lol

[faux pas]

I didn't mean to imply that my disdain was based solely on personal experience, despite its obvious contradictions.

For one, this study is based on 5000 Americans, of the 12 million + people across the globe who play. This is hardly an accurate depiction of the playing community as a whole, and all results could be based on coincidence, considering he neither gives a statistical percentage on any result listed, nor offers any factual evidence to back up claims he used to substantiate the validity of these studies. Resources are lacking, vaguely cited, and those that are cited are of studies taken out of context for this current research.

I don't disagree that some people may fall into one or more of the categories listed here, but I am forced to believe, based on the rigid and nonacademic approach and execution of this study, that more people do not apply to this stereotype. What about people who play multiple characters? (Which is very often in today's WoW) They can't possibly apply to all of these demographics.

I've searched over and over for the original source of this article to find the sources cited since they are so inaccurately cited here, but had failed to do so, but it seems his basis for most claims are in fact relative to opinion (either his own or that of the cited source's author) rather than to any conclusive evidence resulting from this "study", which in reality, concluded almost nothing except that this guy is fishing for a publisher.

[Janube]

Yeah, the basic conclusion to arrive to immediately after reading this is that the working definitions he has for the descriptions of the classes are entirely based on his biased subjective interpretations.

As such, the study is almost null to start with.


Sorry for the misunderstanding originally. =]

[Mog1255]

^ What they said, lol.

If a larger cross-section of players was polled, from various different countries as well, I'd say this might have a little more merit, and they might find all of the current data above totally different. 5,000 players is too few, in my opinion, to generate any remotely conclusive results on anything about WoW players. Hell, to get accurate data on what a particular mob drops, and how often each item drops, you need to kill it several thousand times just to start to get conclusive data. Bump the number polled to over 100k and I'd say those results might mean something.

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[Global Fugitive]

i think if you took a sample of 5000 sociologists and classified them into categories, then Benth would fall into somewhere between 'Writer of rubbish hoping for their 10 minutes of fame' and 'Desperately seeking attention so I'll write an article in a vertical where any story will attract some'.