My Forum Posting

Title (if necessary): A Study of Age Relations in Online Gaming

Hello. My name is Grady. I am a gamer and communications major at Trinity University in San Antonio. I am conducting a study for Dr. Aaron Delwiche's COMM 3344 class "Games and the Web," also occasionally refered to as "Ethnography in Massively Online Games," which will analyze the interactions and tendencies of MMORPG players of different ages. Essentially, this is a call for people to volunteer for brief interviews so that I can get a basic idea of how gamers of different ages interact with one another. Controversial subjects such as sexuality and other adult behaviors will generally be avoided, as my primary focus in this study is gameplay habits and social interactions. All interview participants must be at least 18 years of age, or have parental consent. (side note, I may leave the parental consent part out of the post to oldergamers.net, since I'm assuming they're all well over 18)

Those who wish to participate in the study should feel free to contact me at oldyounggamer@yahoo.com. From there, we can discuss how best to facilitate interviews (completely by e-mail is fine; I also have an active Everquest II account and am working on getting a World of Warcraft account; I'm also open to talking on MSN Messenger, AIM, GoogleTalk, or Yahoo! Instant Messenger) Please note that anonymity is guaranteed, and interviews can be terminated by the subject at any time.

I am aware that researchers of online games have a bad habit of gathering information, then leaving without any sort of feedback to their subjects concerning the nature of the study and its results. Rest assured that this study will not be conducted in that manner. I, along with the rest of the class, fully intend to post our research findings and papers online when they are complete, and I personally will contact each of my subjects on completion of my project as best as I am able. If you wish to learn where/when the project is expected to be posted, or have any questions about the class or other projects related to it, feel free to check here for more information:

http://www.trinity.edu/adelwich/worlds/faq.html

If you would like to participate in my study or have any further questions, the e-mail being used for the study once again is oldyounggamer@yahoo.com.

Thank you all for your time, and I look forward to hearing from each of you.

-Grady