08-05-2021, 12:27 PM
This is something I stumbled over just now that might be of interest to folks on Resurgence -- back in 2006, a Ph.D candidate (in Philosophy) submitted a dissertation based around City of Heroes as it existed back then -- Information Behavior and Meaning-Making in Virtual Play Spaces: A Case Study of City of Heroes (PDF link). I unintentionally DLed a copy and ended up reading some of it. A lot of it seems to be taken up with just explaining what's happening in the game to the readers, who are assumed to be ignorant of MMORPGs, but in between there are some very cogent observations on the nature of gaming and the mind of the gamer.