{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,1]],"date-time":"2026-05-01T14:27:35Z","timestamp":1777645655362,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2016,5,22]],"date-time":"2016-05-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1463875200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Games and Culture"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2016,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Why do people spend time in massively multiplayer online games? This article aims to complement games studies\u2019 analytical toolkit with a material causal perspective on players\u2019 time spent in Chinese World of Warcraft ( WoW). I argue that the WoW gameworld is atypically rich in stimuli that have a strong, or supernormal, capacity to activate the moral cognition reasoning systems identified by Haidt and Joseph\u2019s \u201cmoral foundations theory.\u201d Testimonial data gathered during long-term fieldwork in Wuhan, China, and data from a survey of 545 Chinese WoW players, wherein combat role (healer, tank) predicts frequency and type of in-game moral experience, are presented in support of this argument. Finally, the causal perspectives outlined in this article are styled in a steampunk aesthetic ( Hornbeck, 2014 ), which I use as \u201cplayful\u201d aid to interdisciplinary discourse.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1555412015570112","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2015,2,9]],"date-time":"2015-02-09T20:13:36Z","timestamp":1423512816000},"page":"489-509","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Explaining Time Spent in Multiplayer Online Games"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Ryan G.","family":"Hornbeck","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Thrive Center for Human Development, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,5,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-1555412015570112","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0065-2601(04)36004-1"},{"key":"bibr2-1555412015570112","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1167748"},{"key":"bibr3-1555412015570112","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/8329.001.0001"},{"key":"bibr4-1555412015570112","volume-title":"Supernormal stimuli: How primal urges overran their evolutionary purpose","author":"Barrett D.","year":"2010"},{"key":"bibr5-1555412015570112","first-page":"200","volume-title":"The handbook of evolutionary psychology","author":"Barrett H. 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