A Cultural Adventure
A Cultural Adventure
World of Warcraft is a persistent, online world that millions of players log onto and create heroic identities. Although World of Warcraft was built for entertainment, it takes on a very serious role in the lives of its players, for whom game play is part of a larger cultural matrix in which the fantastic, including both science fiction and fantasy, is vital in the establishment of meaning. World of Warcraft is described as an “authentic fake,” a secular practice that does the authentic work of religion, with the theoretical structure present to guide readers through the following chapters. This chapter also introduces the author’s approach to the ethnography of virtual worlds.
Keywords: Authentic fake, Ethnography of virtual worlds, Religion, Science fiction and fantasy, World of Warcraft
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