Into the World of Warcraft, where creationist capitalism is at its finest
What is creationist capitalism? In his book, “Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human,” Tom Boellstorff describes it as, “a social order constituting relationships between persons through what are held to be prior acts of individual creativity.” There is however, a much clearer definition of this found in chapter 8 of his book. He describes it here as, “a mode of capitalism in which labor is understood in terms of creativity, so that production is understood as creation.” He even takes it a step further in saying that ethnography itself has become increasingly predicated on creativity, and his book can be seen as within the logic of creationist capitalism. So in lame mans terms, creativity is held with great value in the logic of creationist capitalism.
So what does this mean to us in the real/virtual world? Better than just getting a direct answer to that question, let’s take a look at creationist capitalism at work in one of the most popular games created. One could argue that we see creationist capitalism in World of Warcraft. If you don’t understand how to play it, I won’t judge you, I promise. I am sure however, that you’ve at least heard of it. World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG for short. This virtual community, owned by Blizzard Entertainment, is played by millions of users, and more expansions of the game are still being made to date. Like many other MMORPGs, users are able to create their own characters, choose professions for their characters, and level them up, increasing their strength and in many cases, their uniqueness. Just this act alone can be seen as creationist capitalism within the World of Warcraft community. Additionally, the ability to create items and other things of the sort depending on your profession, show great value, further showing the understanding of creationist capitalism as it is discussed by Boellstroff.
