(Dis-)Integrative Effects of MUD-Usage as Seen by the Players

Susanne Keuneke's 2007 study examines whether participation in the German text-based multiplayer game Avalon integrates or disintegrates players' social lives, challenging the common assumption that online gaming fosters loneliness and social withdrawal. Drawing on covert participant observation, a questionnaire of 50 respondents, and 20 qualitative online interviews, the research concludes that the game's social impact cannot be reduced to either outcome. The sample skews toward young, educated, male players, and survey results leaned positive, with roughly 34 of 52 assessments favorable and about a fifth reporting negative effects.

The interview findings reveal a nuanced picture. Eleven interviewees had neglected offline friendships for periods of six months to a year, yet most later restored those networks, often with support from their social environment. Positive assessments typically reflected new friendships, partnerships, and improved social skills, while negative assessments centered on damage to offline relationships and partnership conflicts. A detailed case study of one player, Ulrike, shows that pre-existing family and psychological difficulties, combined with the game serving as an escape, could produce social isolation and depression. The game thus appears to act more often as a trigger or amplifier of existing problems than as their sole cause.

Across the study, players frequently described broadened social horizons, a shift toward judging others by behavior rather than appearance, and the overcoming of prejudices. Anonymity was seen as enabling players to reveal their "true selves," and one participant used MUD communication as a quasi-therapeutic outlet during a life crisis. Partnerships formed within the game were common and sometimes lasting. The author stresses, however, that these results are exploratory: the sample is small and partly self-selected, and no representative study had yet been conducted, so the findings should not be generalized beyond this community.