Abstract
Research was conducted to determine if certain effects upon volunteers found in other studies of volunteering in real-life environments could also be found in the virtual environments of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Participants were 59 male and 17 female players of a popular MMORPG between the ages of 13 to 65 gathered via advertisements in online forums for the game. Participants completed an online survey consisting of demographics and play-time questions, the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short Form, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the UCLA Loneliness scale, and the Miller Competitiveness scale. No statistically significant correlations were found between hours spent in volunteering activities in the game and any of the four scales. Since results would have been significant only at extremely large sample sizes, it was concluded that if there is an actual effect of volunteering behaviors in MMORPGs it is likely very small.