1) The study examined player behavior and experiences in the online game Faunasphere from its beta period through its closure. 2) During the beta period, players helped test the game and set a tone of helpfulness, but clashes emerged when the full launch brought many new players. 3) The game's move to Facebook changed player expectations and behaviors as players were used to begging for items on Facebook games like Farmville. This led to tensions with earlier players. 4) At the end, players spent time caring for their Fauna pets and grieving the loss, highlighting the emotional bonds that formed despite the pets being digital.

1. Players and their Pets:
An Online Game
From Beta to Sunset
Mia Consalvo
Concordia University

2. Cheat Sheet
• Player-Avatar relationship is not always one of
1-1 identification; theory in this area is in need
of heavy refinement
• Game platforms exert strong influences on
gameplay, player expectations, community
• Participation (i.e. player types/styles of play)
much more fluid than most research suggests;
linked to temporal contexts

3. The Context:
Big Fish Games & Faunasphere

4. Jason Begy (on the left)

5. A “Casual” MMO Game
• March 2009 – April 15, 2011
• Beta largely drew from BFG customer base
• Browser based game -> Facebook
• Freemium, non-combat based, Caretakers

8. We did a survey shortly after the
game’s public launch,
with the sponsorship/approval of
Big Fish Games

9. Data
• 671 survey responses
• Usage data from BFG
• Interview with Community Manager
• Forum post collection
• Player base primarily USA & Canada, but also
UK, Australia, some Western Europe and
South America

10. Who Played
• Gender: 93% female
• Age: 26% 45-54
22% 55-64
21% 35-44
• Education: 31% Some college
20% Bachelor’s degree

11. Prior Experience
• Prior MMO experience: 61% No prior exp.
• Of those with experience:
– 39% have tried/still play World of Warcraft
– 32% have tried/still play Second Life
– Smattering of heavy players of other MMOs, other
choices such as Runescape, Travian, Free Realms

12. Not so casual
• Playtime:
– 41% play several times a day
– 37% play daily
– 14% play several times a week
• Playtime per session:
– 51% play for more than 2 hours at a time
– 27% play 1-2 hours per session
– 11% play 41-60 minutes per session

13. Against typical player types?
• Favorite activities in game:
– #1: Completing goals [quests]
– #2: Breeding Fauna
– #3: Leveling up Fauna
– #4: Decorating Faunasphere
– #5: Interacting with friends

14. Participation is (obviously)
highly contextual
Temporal issues
Platform shifts

15. Beta Period
• Loyal BFG customers
• Free labour
• New to MMOGs, positive about the
experience
– Ambassadors for those not in Beta
– Saw their role as important, helping company find
bugs, refine the game
– Worried about game launch
• Set the tone for the larger community

16. Beta players
• Culture of helpfulness and ‘niceness’
• Pay it forward
• Developed formal and informal structures for
how to interact ‘successfully’ in game
– Zapping etiquette
– Begging for eggs
• Small community, already familiar with culture
of BFG Pond Forums

17. Importance of beta period
• Beta players can set tone for later community
• Betas feel stronger ownership of the game
– Even ‘newbies’ can challenge developers’ views of
what the game should be

18. Importance of beta period
• Clashes can emerge
– insider/outsider with betas as cliquey
– newbies as wanting different styles of play
• Temporal context- newness- encourages
certain styles of play (experimentation); but
still in formation

19. Beta  Web & Facebook
Launches

20. Faunasphere v. Farmville
• Facebook launch
provides more fuel for
unhappy players
• Newer players classified
as ‘hordes of
malevolent children’
• Differing expectations
from SNS game players
(Farmville model v.
Faunasphere

21. Platform anxiety
• “Rudeness, it didn't really happen much until
Facebook entered. That in my humble opinion
was the downfall of the game.”
• “many CTs [Caretakers] were also resentful
that players with Facebook connections or
who played from Facebook got FREE items
unavailable to other players. Paying players
resented this.”

23. Clash of expectations
• “whenever you went out into the main
worlds...there were demands for items from
all sides. It became so bad that there were
people waiting by the gates to accost you
when you came out of your house”
• “I never saw one incident of rudeness or the
‘gimme/I want’ brigade until after the
Facebook launch.”

24. Facebook & Zynga’s influence
• “the FB crowd is different in general. Those games
demand begging. And so many people befriend
without even trying to get to know one another.
That's sad to me and not at all how I'm built.”
• “a whole ‘generation’ of players … [entered] the
game, who were used to the traditional Facebook
games where in effect you beg your friends for
things, and they seemed to be unwilling to achieve
any of the goals on their own.”

25. Kids!
• “I'm now an empty nester,
spent most of my adult life
very involved with my kids,
their school and friends. It's
now my time to be around
adults. And, I thought I was
going to find that within this
game.”
• “The younger player just
want you to give them
things and do things for
them.”

26. Platforms reconsidered

27. Beta > Web > Facebook > ?

31. End of the world
• Player reactions indicate changing styles of
play
– Massive increases in play time to finish goals,
spend ‘time’ with Fauna
– Immediate dropoffs in play w/some players (too
hurt to continue)
• Players prepare for the end
– How developer interacts with players makes a
difference

32. Sunset
• Memory Walks
• “closing up the summer house”
• Gathering in Rock Garden
• Private time in spheres with fauna
• The end…

35. Closure and insights gained into
player-avatar relationship(s)

36. Caretakers, not avatars
• “I spent the last hour with my Fauna, watching
them play and feeding and denning them and
saying “goodbye.”
• “I spent a little time with each of them. I had
them all do their tricks for me and fed them
well and made them as happy as I could.”
• “During the last 5 minutes I started throwing
all my food from inventory on the ground (did
not want anyone to starve) lol and I cried.”

37. Player Reactions
• “Your fauna weren‟t simply a bunch of pixels,
they were your children. You gave „birth‟ to
them (hatching), you fed them, you cared for
them (dens), you taught them things, you
shared their foibles with friends as well as
their eggs.”
• “It was heartbreaking, sort of like when you
have to put a pet to sleep.”

38. Player Reactions
• “… look at the premise of the game, it‟s about
naming and raising pets. In the real world, a
good person would never just walk away and
abandon their pet, and that‟s what BFG made
us do. They gave us creatures to love (even if
they are only pixels) and then told us they
were taking them away from us.”

41. How much do we (really) identify
with our avatars?

42. From avatar to caretaker
• The fiction of the game pushed players to “see
themselves” or participate as the disembodied
care giver
• Avatars not positioned as source of
identification for players
• Players still highly invested in avatars/pets,
and the game

44. Players don’t always identify with
their avatars

45. Avatar as boundary object
– Self can rise up through,
may submerge down at
some times
– Avatar may enable
certain actions
– Avatar might prevent
others
– Sometimes avatars are
simply tools
– Other times avatars can
be loved „pets‟

46. Conclusions
• The fiction of each game will shape a player’s
relation to it, and its avatars
• Players can change their play styles and
interests over the lifespan of a game
• We need more studies of beta periods and
communities, game closures
• Game platforms have implications for how
players understand game norms

47. thanks!
Mia Consalvo
Concordia University
Twitter: miaC
mia.consalvo@concordia.ca