PAVIMENTOS

the way games are designed to require mutual interdependence. This includes intense bonding social activities (Yee, 2006) to attempt the end content (Bartle, 2003). Also a meta-currency DKP system is an example of member co-produced social value. It has no value outside of that which the members give it, and its existence denotes political cohesion amongst members (Malone, 2009).

3. Role of social identification. The identification of a customer as a player, a guild member, the "perceived oneness with or belongingness" (Bhattacharya et al., 1995, p.46), to the game, guild or community and the “bonds of identification” (p.46), would indicate that social identification is a main intention of virtual world game designers, with again Bartle’s (2003) statement that “it is imperative that players be able to form groups” (p.391). This influences the psychological

constructs of trust, commitment and emotional satisfaction, along with social and cultural values the customer accumulates or acquires which bonds them to the game (Malaby, 2006).

4. Inter-dependence amongst members. As Bartle (2003, p.232-33) discusses, MMO games are mechanically designed to create mutual dependences on two levels to help create interactions and foster community. Firstly, dependencies amongst customers (player-to-player bonds), in that in-game groupings are required to perform certain tasks within the game. Secondly, community level bonds are formed, the simplest example being an in-game economy in which game mechanics are such in that no one customer can be without the need to interact with the community to develop his avatar.

5. Linkage of membership to core service. As the MMO subscription is an access membership (Gruen, 2000, p.360) there is an immediate link between the core service (the entertainment service provided by the company) and the membership itself.

Thus, as the mass market MMO subscription both shares all of the commonalities of a membership, and all the unique features, based on the Gruen (2000) typology, there is evidence that a relationship does exist, and that this relationship can be classified as a membership. Furthermore based on research by Ducheneaut et al. (2006) and others into customer-to-customer interactions in MMO games and their importance, this study concludes that Relationship Marketing mass market criticism that

“Relationships develop through interaction” (O’Malley and Tynan, 2000, p.806) has been answered in that interactions firmly do take place in MMO games (as the massively multiplayer element would suggest) both on a customer-to-customer level and through a relational public relations route (Kruckeberg and Starck, 1998) with the MMO company listening to and responding to the community. Finally, the emotional nature of the entertainment product (Bhattacharya and Bolton, 2000, p.330) and the

indicate that the relationship, despite the mass market element, if ended, could create social and emotional costs (Egan, 2008, p.108). This is a clear indicator that the association transcends a mere transactional occurrence and that the customer, through their purchase of the product, has entered into a relationship with both the product and the associated “consumptive tribes” (Cova and Cova, 2002, p.595) surrounding the product.

This study forms the basis of its interaction framework from the literature of membership discussed and the multiple MMO gaming product investigations by Yee (2004; 2006; 2007) and Cox (2000). This study defines in Figure 5 (below) the interaction as being through three network communication channels; direct interaction, direct non-interactive communication and by engagement dependent community interaction.

Figure 5: MMO business-to-customer relationships which have communities or consumer tribes

Figure 5 displays how this study views the relationship between a customer and the business/product the month after (and months after) the initial renewal decision. As this diagram shows in (1) a direct interaction, a two-way interaction, between the customer and the business (usually through a customer service representative) can take place both in-game (a customer can request assistance from a customer service representative) and out of game (calling the accounts department to discuss billing issues). The business will also engage (2) in direct public relations communications with its various customer members, informing them of various events (new patches, new content) or changes. This could be done via direct e-mailing, or for example, in the World of Warcraft product via placing information on the game’s “launchpad”; a subprogram which the user usually clicks on to start the process of checking for new in-game content and downloading patches, which also acts as a notice board for Blizzard Activision to place new information on.

All of the information disseminated using (2) though is usually communicated informally through the route (3) to the consumptive community well ahead of the “official” information. The business interacts and considers (but does not necessarily act on) the community opinions, and information diffuses throughout the community, this is usually an information source which is more detailed (and opinionated). The consumption community in this sense is a rather large concept representing both in-game groupings, guilds and alliances which the player might interact with (customer-to-customer interaction) and extra-game community online forums (of possibly both the game owners own, and forums controlled by customers), consumptive group websites, product-related blogs and perhaps even podcasting radio stations and webcast TV shows (Rheingold, 1993; Evans et al., 2001; Kozinets, 2002)

Thus community in a sense (especially in an internet medium) is all of those parts of the community, this can include both elements with low cultural value or significance, and the more community valued artefacts, being an

accumulation of various aspects. The customer can (4) chose to engage with these various community elements, both in-game and extra-game, or not, and it may be quite possible for a World of Warcraft customer to go through the game without reading message boards, without checking a leading related website like MMO-Champion or Wowhead (Steinkuehler and King, 2009), and never using any kind of add-ons (community developed programs); it is possible, but unlikely. Studies by Yee (2006) for example show that the average customer spends over ten hours a week performing such activities. In addition, the community is also both potentially distant (i.e.

websites, radio shows etc.) and intimate at the same time as (4) also represents the in-game social interactions with fellow customers, which, through the process of identification could be expected to have self-reinforcing effects. For example, a customer in a guild which expects its members to read online strategy guides for in-game encounters may be more engaged with the community and so forth (Yee, 2006).

The consumption community (Cova and Cova, 2002) is the key medium which enables organisations to create relationships with mass markets and their memberships (Kruckeberg and Starck, 1998), and is seen as a critical part of the MMO game product producer’s interaction with the customer (Yee, 2006). Thus, the creation, maintenance and management of interactions with this community, and the engagement with it are the key elements which enable organisations to act as partners in the relationship (Kruckeberg, 2000). As Johnston (2008) discusses though, in this community the concept of “the engagement philosophy” (p.2) is crucial, engagement “provides a high level of interest by community members” (p.2) it provides a motivation to act, be involved, read about the organisation.

Engagement is also a “…set of attitudes that predispose” (Barkan, 1998, p.

64; Kozinets, 2002) an individual to be a part of the community, to have an emotional bond or emotional involvement and the “…act of engaging therefore needs to be based on appeals of relevance, context, emotion…”

(Johnston, 2008, p.2). One cannot presuppose the existence of a community though as Johnston (2008, p.3) relates, the dynamic dyadic relationship

between a business or organisation and its community is based on the existence of a typology consisting of there being evidence of community information, evidence of community consultation by the organisation (though critically, consultation doesn’t mean influence) and evidence of community participation; “an active role by community members in the creation of meaning and developing solutions to complex social problems or proposed solutions that affect a specific community” (Janse and Konijnendijk, 2007, p.23).

In the MMO environment, as Cox (2000, p.221) relates, game developers

“recognise that, having created a community, the game no longer belongs entirely to the developer”, and that good MMO businesses listen to the community, and apply community communication strategies to avoid alienating customers. Those MMO games with the “worst reputation for customer service” (Cox, 2000, p.221) are the ones which rule by diktat and refuse to engage with their customer community. For an online product, this customer-to-customer community model of interaction (Evans et al., 2001) allows for a business, even in a mass market situation, to understand and address the concerns of customers (Kozinets, 2002). Consequently, a monthly payment relationship between a utilities company and customer may share functional similarities with a MMO game subscription. However, without an information sharing consumption community, an ability to use that community to consult and listen to problems or issues, and an active community solving issues or creating meaning, these functional similarities do not equate to an expectation of the presence of a useful and meaningful network of online interactions between the business, customer and the virtual community of consumption (Evans et al., 2001, p.152).

2.4 Summary

To summarise, in a comparable example, does a football season ticket buyer have a personal interactive relationship with his football club? Does the football club have a personal relationship with an individual fan? On the

football season ticket buyer through his purchase can become (through motivational investment and engagement; financial or time-wise) a member of the ‘supporters’, ‘the fans’, a member of the consumption tribe which surrounds the team, perhaps even building social capital with other supporters through meeting likeminded people and building connections, and perhaps building cultural capital (knowledge about players, jargon etc). To say this sort of customer doesn’t have a relationship, an emotional bond, with the business, would ignore both sense and empirical research (Arnould and Price, 1993; Celsi et al.,1993; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995; Sutton et al., 1997; Cova et al., 2007). Being a member rather than a customer is a clear sign of relationship existence, as the core component of the membership concept is the notion of a relationship (Gruen, 2000). The purchase of an MMO computer game is the start of a process of membership, the initial purchase providing access (Gruen, 2000). However, the purchaser of a computer game has not necessarily entered into any kind of relationship in that initial purchase. As Kotler (1997, p.26) suggests, it is through the renewal decision that the relationship is formed and the membership engagement process is started, with the customer progressing from being an initial first time customer exploring and gaining awareness of the product to a member of that community.

Not all mass market subscription-based business-to-customer channels may be equal. It may be inappropriate to examine buyer-motivated and non-emotional transactions which lack a perceivable consumption tribe (Cova and Cova, 2002) using the presumption that a “relationship” exists. This line of reasoning comes to the conclusion that context, emotion and engagement are key when examining the use of the relationship concept in empirical research of this type. The fundamental assumption that a relationship exists is crucial to this research. Consequently, it is important that this research has addressed these concerns and comes to the conclusion that the business-to-customer association is a membership, and that this relationship is seen as both valid and applicable to the Network and Interaction approach which Commitment Trust Theory takes.