Simulating Marriage

Virtual marriage is a complex social activity in virtual worlds, yet it has received relatively little research attention. What happens when an important relationship such as marriage is transformed into gameplay? In this paper we present an empirical study of how players perceive, experience, and interpret their in-game marriages, especially with regard to representations of gender and sexuality, in an online game (Audition) where a ludological simulation of marriage is centrally embedded in gameplay. Findings reveal that marriage-as-ludic-rule-system and marriage-as-significant-sociocultural-institution provide a double set of gameplay/social/psychosexual resources that players collaboratively learn and perform, and that this negotiation is a source of pleasure, frustration, and meaning in the game. These findings can contribute to understanding the specificity and heterogeneity of players' gender representation in virtual worlds and inform the design of mixed reality games that simulate important life events for learning.