World of Warcraft e sua relação com a moda: análise sobre a utilização do serviço de transmogrificação no jogo de MMORPG

Abstract

The transmogrification service inside the World of Warcraft game is the central subject of this research, taking as main objective to make its relation with the fashion, in other words, to understand how the players that use this service are inserted in the context of the fashion. The same ones look for a differentiation as well as in real life, analyzing how the appearance of the items influences the social coexistence in game, as well as seek to identify the intention of the players about making this appearance modification in their character. In order to reach these objectives, a quantitative-qualitative methodology was used, and two stages were necessary. The first one was the bibliographical research, that based the theoretical referential approaching a little about what the character of the game World of Warcraft represents for his owner and also explains how the transmogrification service works; the second stage consisted of field survey, where a quiz was made for these players, which confirmed the hypotheses initially generated, taking as one of the main results within the sample, that 96.7% of the players use the service that is beeing studied in this research. From this result and the other evaluated, was concluded the importance of appearance modifying within a fictitious world, in order to influence the players social life, their self-esteem, their seek for the differentiation and recognition and even into their own character history.