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ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Gamers Like It Green:
The Significance of Vegetation
in Online Gaming
Minh-Xuan Truong,
1,2
Anne-Caroline Pre
´vot,
1,3
and Susan Clayton
4
1
Centre d’E
´cologie et des Sciences de la Conservation (CESCO
UMR7204), Sorbonne Universite
´s, MNHN, CNRS, UPMC, CP135,
Paris, France.
2
Albert Vieille SAS, Vallauris, France.
3
Laboratoire Parisien de Psychologie Sociale (LAPPS EA4386),
Universite
´Paris Ouest Nanterre La De
´fense, De
´partement de
psychologie, Nanterre, France.
4
Psychology Department, College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, USA.
Abstract
Modern lifestyles have increased a separation between humans and
nature while also integrating technology into daily life. The use of
technology has not only supplanted people’s traditional experiences
with nature but begun to change them: Through videos and doc-
umentaries, we can discover windows opened onto wilderness,
landscapes, places, and species we would not be able to reach and
see otherwise. Even video games contribute to this phenomenon. Can
gaming play a role in the relationship between humans and nature?
The current study focused on how players relate to nature in the
world’s number-one online role-playing game, the World of Warcraft
(WoW). We distributed an online questionnaire to 1,173 French-
speaking gamers to assess their preferred landscapes in the virtual
environment, their relations to nature in real life, and their moti-
vations to play. The results indicate that players prefer virtual areas
displaying a significant amount of green vegetation and specific open
landscapes but that this preference is not related to their connect-
edness with nature nor to their motivation to play, which is mostly to
escape from their daily life. We showed also that people that de-
clared being motivated to play for nature-based reasons are those
that declare being less connected with nature in real life. We discuss
these results as a reflection of biophilia in a virtual context, that is,
an attraction to virtual landscapes that are healthy and full of
vegetation, when it has become difficult to reach such landscapes in
real life. Key Words: Virtual experience of nature—Biophilia—Online
universe—Virtual nature—Video games—Connection to nature.
Introduction
In 2016, nearly 18 billion internet-connected devices were in use
worldwide: more than two devices on average for every person
on the planet, a ratio that is expected to rise to 4.3 by 2020
(Mercer, 2014). A growing proportion of humanity delegates its
sensory and cognitive abilities to new technologies, a myriad of
electronic and connected devices built to make lives easier or more
exciting. For example, GPS and Google Maps progressively replace
individual orientation efforts; individual memory is delegated to
search engines (Battelle, 2011).
In parallel, 54% of the global population now lives in urban areas,
a proportion that is expected to increase to 66% by 2050 (United
Nations, 2014). Given the relative dearth of natural settings in cities
(McKinney, 2002), personal experiences with natural environments
and associated awareness of nature are increasingly difficult in urban
contexts (Dunn, Gavin, Sanchez, & Solomon, 2006). Yet extensive
research in psychology has provided evidence that encountering real
nature can be restorative and stress reducing (Bratman, Hamilton, &
Daily, 2012; Howell, Dopko, Passmore, & Buro, 2011; Passmore &
Howell, 2014; Staats, 2012; Ulrich et al., 1991). Natural environments
have characteristics that make them restorative, when they have
extent in space and/or time, capture attention effortlessly, are com-
patible with a person’s active goals, and provide a sense of being
‘‘away’’ by offering a different perspective from the one that had been
DOI: 10.1089/eco.2017.0037 ªMARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. VOL. 10 NO. 1 MARCH 2018 ECOPSYCHOLOGY 1
previously experienced (Kaplan, 1995). Moreover, natural environ-
ments may have a cognitive effect on the individuals who experience
them, by ‘‘broadening individuals’ thought–action repertoires,’’
producing a ‘‘broad, flexible, creative, cognitive organization, and
increasing ability to integrate diverse material’’ (Isen, 1990, p. 89).
Kellert (2012) proposed that the effect of natural green environ-
ments on individual cognition and restoration is based on their dis-
tinctive attributes and level of stimulation: People are generally
attracted to landscapes that are rich in vegetation, with shelter, po-
table water in flowing streams and rivers, and long views from
sheltered areas—characteristics that may have served an adaptive
function in human evolutionary history by promoting human fitness
and survival in the past (Staats, 2012). This assertion might also be
included as a part of the ‘‘biophilia hypothesis’’ (Kellert & Wilson,
1993), the proposition that people have an inherent inclination to
affiliate with nature which can improve physical and mental health,
productivity, and well-being. Finally, experiencing natural envi-
ronments may increase individual connection to nature, leading
potentially to increase in concern for biodiversity and environmental
issues (Chawla, 2009; Clayton, 2012).
Although biophilia is proposed to be inherent, childhood bonding
with natural places and organisms may be essential to activating
biophilia and subsequent caring behavior, perhaps by establishing a
sense of environmental identity (Clayton, 2012; Pre
´vot, Clayton, &
Mathevet, 2016). According to Kahn (1997; Kahn, Severson, &
Ruckert, 2009), the natural environment in which each generation is
born will serve as a reference, a shifting baseline for what people
consider as healthy nature. The current biodiversity crisis profoundly
reduces the richness and the complexity of natural landscapes (Ku
¨hn
& Klotz, 2006; McKinney, 2006). As a result, the opportunities of
experiencing nature are becoming scarce and homogenized. In ad-
dition, the modern way of life in Western-like societies promotes a
growing separation of humans from nature. Environmental degra-
dation and a Western way of life are two combined processes that
make successive generations grow with potentially decreased expe-
riences, knowledge, and demands in terms of natural spaces richness
in their close environment, a phenomenon referred to as the ‘‘ex-
tinction of experience’’ (Pyle, 2011; Soga & Gaston, 2016). This could
eventually lead to a collective ignorance and perhaps ultimately to a
general indifference toward nature (Louv, 2010).
However, together with the increase in technology uses, video
search engines (e.g., YouTube) and nature-dedicated television
channels could open virtual windows onto wilderness, landscapes,
places, and natural species that would have remained undiscovered
by individuals otherwise: They may provide occasions to virtually
experience nature. Indeed, technology enables new experiences of
nature that may be transforming the relationship between humans
and the natural world (Clayton et al., 2017). Virtual worlds, notably
video games, go even further in this direction (Damer, 2008), asking
the following question: Could virtual nature provide a substitute for
real nature? Indeed, these novel human-nature technology-based
relationships use devices that can mediate, augment, or simulate the
natural world, and then provide symbolic experiences of nature
(also called vicarious experiences [Kellert, 1996]). However, com-
pared to known effects of encountering real nature (Levi & Kocher,
1999), the range of technologically mediated experiences of nature
has just begun to be explored (Kahn, 2011; Kahn et al., 2009).
Kahn’s research suggests that nature as depicted on a television
monitor has some, but not all, of the effects of live nature. But
technology continues to change, promoting more interactive ex-
periences as well as displays that, in some cases, provide more ac-
curate depictions of the natural world.
Among these technologies, video games occupy an important
part of the entertainment industry: In 2016, the international vi-
deo game revenue was estimated to be $91B (SuperData Research,
2016), which is far more than double the $38.6B revenue of the
Global Box Office in 2016 (Motion Picture Association of Amer-
ica, 2016). With an increasing number of gaming platforms (in-
cluding the growing importance of mobile gaming) and game
types, video gaming is spreading to a very diverse public. Gamers
are now split almost equally by gender: 41% are women, 59% are
men (Entertainment Software Association, 2016); and video
gaming is no longer disparaged as an antisocial pastime (Howe,
2014) but is even now considered by people as a new culture
(Shaw, 2010) and a positive activity (Syndicat des Editeurs de
Logiciels de Loisirs, 2015).
A part of the gaming industry is now producing a very popular
game type called massively multiplayer online role-playing games
(MMORPGs). These games are persistent universes, which continue to
exist and develop internally even when there are no people inter-
acting with them (Bartle, 2006). In these immersive online worlds,
people can create and enact avatars (visual representations of the
player’s self) that respond to commands in adventure and explora-
tion, experience success in quests, and interact with thousands of
other avatars of other players. MMORPGs provide tridimensional
universes that are graphically very realistic, rich, and detailed, and
follow very elaborate storylines (Nardi, 2010). MMORPGs allow
players to live a virtual experience in which they are the actors of
their own virtual journey. Consequently, we propose that these games
are a vicarious experience of nature.
TRUONG ET AL.
2ECOPSYCHOLOGY MARCH 2018
Based on their social and economic success, virtual universes,
video games, and gamers offer multiple opportunities for academic
research (Bainbridge, 2007). MMORPGs and other gaming types have
been the subject of numerous studies, for instance according to their
impacts on gamers’ life as social experiences (Domahidi, Breuer,
Kowert, Festl, & Quandt, 2016; Domahidi, Festl, & Quandt, 2014;
Nardi, 2010; Williams et al., 2006), their psychological outcomes
(Kaye, 2016; Kort, Meijnders, Sponselee, & Ijsselsteijn, 2006), or
according to gamers’ motivations to play (Bartle, 1996; Yee, 2006,
2016). In 2007, Yee proposed 10 main categories of motivations to
play MMORPGs, which he grouped in three main dimensions: (1)
achievement, based on the player’s will to be efficient and compet-
itive in his or her gaming experience; (2) sociality, based on the will
to socialize with others while playing, chatting, creating real bonds
with other players or in collaborative tasks (e.g., group quests or
dungeons); (3) immersion, based on the discovery and exploration of
the universe and its lore, the involvement in the embodiment of the
player’s character, and escaping from real life. Despite this bur-
geoning literature on gaming, research in environmental or conser-
vation psychology has rarely been concerned by this subject, except
in Kahn’s studies about human relation with nature and technolog-
ical nature (Kahn, 2011; Kahn et al., 2009). In order to further in-
vestigate the potential significance of virtual depictions of nature, we
present in this paper a study about gamers’ relation with virtual
nature in the most famous MMORPG video game, the World of
Warcraft (hereafter termed WoW). We asked the three following
questions:
(1) How natural are the players’ preferred online environments?
(2) Do WoW players use these virtual universes to experience
nature? Is this experience a significant motivation to play?
(3) Is players’ personal connectedness with nature related to the
nature-closeness of their avatar, their nature-connected
practices in the game, and their motivation for playing?
We assessed the motivations to play by using a typology, where
we focused on the gamer’s relation to the environment. As such, we
proposed two motivations that refer to the virtual world representing
a different environment: escaping from the real environment and
entering a natural environment.
We defined and used an index of naturalness of the different
regions of the virtual universe of WoW. We also defined and as-
sessed the naturalness of the different characters available as ava-
tars in the game.
We described the nature-relatedness of gamers’ behaviors through
the naturalness of the regions they prefer and of the character they
play. We characterized gamers’ connectedness with nature in real life
by using the Inclusion of Nature in Self scale (INS, Schultz, 2002). The
INS is a measure of the cognitive schema of a given individual de-
scribing the overlap between the knowledge structure of the self and
the knowledge structure of nature (derived from Aron, Aron, &
Smollan, 1992).
We conducted this research by an online questionnaire delivered
to the French-speaking WoW community.
Method
Study universe: The World of Warcraft
Since being launched by Blizzard Entertainment in November
2004, WoW is the most popular MMORPG and the most played
video game of all history, with 100 million accounts created in 144
countries and over 5.5 million subscribers in November 2015
(BusinessWire, 2015). WoW is a colorful, detailed, and complex
tridimensional universe, featuring a large variety of environments,
each region having its own characteristics. Each region is charac-
terized by a specific geological morphology, vegetation, fauna,
landscape colors, weather, and even extraordinary sky events,
which realistically recall natural environments and biomes that can
be encountered in real life. WoW is also full of magic landscapes
and creatures that may seem straight out of a fantasy book, like
floating islands with spilling waterfalls, giant mushroom forests,
dragons, dwarves, elves, and a multitude of fantastic creatures.
During WoW’s exploration phase, the player not only learns to
control his or her character but also discovers the virtual universe.
He or she can, for instance, walk across boreal forests with huge
coniferous trees, meet bears and wolves along rivers, watch auroras
borealis in the sky, or wade through a green, lush jungle full of
ferns, lianas, and tropical plants, bugs, crocodiles in the water,
tigers and panthers hidden in the shadows. The possibility to go
wherever the player wants to visit places and meet animals makes
the virtual nature very immersive.
At the time of the study, WoW’s universe was living its fourth
extension’s scenario, called The Mists of Pandaria. At this point,
WoW’s universe was geographically divided into continents, them-
selves formed by 122 regions in which players can potentially in-
teract with each other.
Participants
We conducted data collection using an anonymous online ques-
tionnaire, from June to September 2014, addressed to WoW players
from the French-speaking community. We collected 1,173 completed
questionnaires. Of these participants, 84% were men (n=987), and
SIGNIFICANCE OF VEGETATION IN ONLINE GAMING
ªMARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. VOL. 10 NO. 1 MARCH 2018 ECOPSYCHOLOGY 3
16% were women (n=186), which is similar to the gender ratio in
other online-gaming studies (Billieux et al., 2013; Peters & Malesky,
2008). The age of the respondents was between 18 and 60+, with 61%
of the players between 18 and 25 years old.
Questionnaire design
The questionnaire itself was presented as a study of the relation-
ship between the world in the game and the real world. It was dis-
seminated through community websites and forums.
The online questionnaire consisted of 27 items and collected the
following information:
(1) Player’s game identity and preferences, notably information
about his or her main character (faction, class), and the re-
gions he or she likes or dislikes the most in the virtual envi-
ronments (12 items).
(2) Description of player’s preferred and less-liked regions,
through an open question asking the player to describe the
preferred and the less-liked region with three words.
(3) Player’s motivations to play, asking players to rank each of
the six following proposed motivations: (a) I play to escape
from my daily life; (b) I play to meet some of my friends in-
game; (c) I play to feel a sense of personal or group
achievement; (d) I play to be the master of my own adventure
/ virtual experience; (e) I play to pass the time; (f ) I play to
have access to a world with a predominant Nature.
(4) Player’s connectedness with nature in his or her real life,
using the INS (Schultz, 2002). This scale uses seven pairs of
overlapping circles labeled ‘‘nature’’ and ‘‘self’’ and was pre-
sented as follows: ‘‘please quote which figure is the best
representation of your relationship with natural environ-
ment.’’ Data were coded from 1 for the pair with two non-
overlapping circles to 7 for the total overlapping circles. The
INS has been extensively used in research (Liefla
¨nder, Fro
¨h-
lich, Bogner, & Schultz, 2013). It has also been found to be
strongly and significantly correlated with the Environmental
Identity Scale (Clayton, 2003), specifically in French surveys
(Pre
´vot et al., 2016). As the questionnaire was quite long, we
wanted a short scale to assess each player’s connection to
nature.
(5) Personal characteristics, including gender, age category.
As this study was anonymous and did not collect any infor-
mation that would be too personal, we were allowed to conduct it
by the competent authority from the French National Center of
Research (CNRS).
Preliminary Analysis
Region preference and disliked scores
Out of 122 regions, 117 were cited by the respondents either as a
preferred or less-liked region. We computed two preference scores for
all these regions, based on the number of players citing the region’s
name as their preferred or less-liked place in the game. These scores
provided a basic and easy way to rank all the regions on a preference
criterion (Table 1). They varied from 0 to 245 with a mean score at
16.3 for the favorite region, and between 0 and 89 with a mean equal
to 15.8 for the least preferred one.
Naturalness of the regions (1): Vegetation Green Index
From this scoring, we selected the 14 regions with more than 20
citations as preferred, the 18 regions with more than 20 citations as
less liked, and 27 regions randomly selected among the other regions
cited by the players.
In each of these 59 selected regions, we defined the naturalness of
the region through a Vegetation Green Index (VGI), computed with the
following procedure: First, we gridded the region based on its map (25
columns, 20lines per grid). In this grid, werandomly selected five pairs
of coordinates, to assess five sampling units per region. We then
sampled each of these units through a virtual visit to each one, using an
avatar in the game. To do that, we led this avatar to the geographical
center of each unit and oriented it in a randomly selected spatial di-
rection (north, south, east, or west). Then we took a screenshot from the
avatar’s point of view. This picture constituted the unit sample.
Then, in each screenshot, we measured the importance of green
vegetation present on screen by adapting the principle of the frac-
tional green vegetation cover (Gutman & Ignatov, 1998; Hirano,
Yasuoka, & Ichinose, 2004; Wittich & Hansing, 1995) from a flat
background to a 3-D picture, that is, by assessing the percentage of
green vegetation in the picture. We specifically selected all the image
pixels drawn with green vegetation, using Photoshop’s selecting
color range image function. As we were concerned with similar-to-
reality main type of vegetation, we excluded de facto non-green
vegetation and nonvegetation green pixels. Once all the green veg-
etation areas were selected, we standardized them by replacing all the
different shading and merging it into one overall green area. Then,
using the color history function of Gimp 2.8, we assessed the per-
centage of the color display within the screenshot, which we named
the Vegetation Green Index (VGI), as a proportion from 0 to 1. We
eventually got five VGI per region and computed one VGI per region
equal to the mean VGI across the five units of the region (Fig. 1). The
VGI of the sampled regions varied from 0 to 1, with a mean VGI equal
to 0.23 (Table 1).
TRUONG ET AL.
4ECOPSYCHOLOGY MARCH 2018
Table 1. Vegetation Description of the 59 Studied Regions
and Scoring
NAME VGI
LANDSCAPE
TYPE
SCORE AS
PREFERRED
ZONE
SCORE AS
LESS-LIKED
ZONE
Ashenvale
a
0.4306 temp. forest 22 9
Azshara
b
0.0024 temp. forest 3 12
Badlands
c
0.005 no vegetation 0 25
Barrens
a
0.2754 Savanna 22 9
Blades edge
mountains
c
0.2378 no vegetation 3 49
Blasted lands
c
0 no vegetation 1 29
Borean tundra
c
0.1172 Meadow 3 23
Burning steppes
c
0 no vegetation 1 30
Darkshore
b
0.1856 temp. forest 4 5
Deadwind pass
b
0 no vegetation 5 11
Deepholm
c
0 no vegetation 4 26
Desolace
c
0.101 Meadow 4 68
Dragonblight
b
0 no vegetation 11 2
Dread wastes
c
0 Meadow 1 30
Dun Morogh
b
0.1422 temp. forest 11 3
Durotar
c
0.0298 Savanna 5 27
Duskwood
b
0.7278 temp. forest 17 18
Dustwallow marsh
b
0.0344 temp. forest 0 18
Eastern plaguelands
c
0 temp. forest 4 48
Elwynn forest
a
0.6502 temp. forest 33 12
Eversong woods
b
0.4346 temp. forest 17 0
Felwood
b
0 temp. forest 3 9
Grizzly hills
a
0.616 Tundra 78 0
Hellfire peninsula
c
0 no vegetation 6 89
Hillsbrad foothills
b
0.1164 temp. forest 2 0
Howling fjord
a
0.613 Tundra 42 5
Icecrown
c
0 no vegetation 7 21
Ironforge
b
0 City 2 3
(continued)
Table 1. Continued
NAME VGI
LANDSCAPE
TYPE
SCORE AS
PREFERRED
ZONE
SCORE AS
LESS-LIKED
ZONE
Isle of thunder
b
0.0486 temp. forest 3 2
Krasarang wilds
b
0.2162 temp. forest 0 7
Mount hyjal
a
0.395 temp. forest 25 1
Mulgore
a
0.5872 Meadow 22 2
Nagrand
a
0.548 Savanna 245 2
Netherstorm
c
0 no vegetation 5 42
Redridge mountain
b
0.1788 Meadow 3 0
Shadowmoon valley
c
0 no vegetation 10 20
Sholazar basin
a
0.5418 moist forest 40 0
Silithus
c
0 no vegetation 8 86
Silverpine forest
b
0.133 temp. forest 6 2
Stonetalon
mountains
b
0.1318 temp. forest 2 3
Stormwind
b
0.2242 City 8 5
Stranglethorn vale
a
0.703 moist forest 55 8
Swamp of sorrows
b
0.3988 temp. forest 0 5
Tanaris
c
0.0334 no vegetation 6 29
Teldrassil
b
0.3848 temp. forest 17 2
The hinterlands
b
0.367 temp. forest 5 0
The jade forest
a
0.7524 temp. forest 55 0
The storm peaks
a
0 Tundra 22 5
Thousand needles
c
0 no vegetation 4 20
Townlong steppes
b
0.269 Meadow 0 3
Uldum
a
0.2672 moist forest 28 7
Un’Goro crater
b
1 moist forest 15 19
Vale of eternal
blossoms
b
0.0642 Meadow 1 2
Vashj’ir
c
0.1474 no vegetation 17 59
Westfall
b
0.0324 Meadow 3 12
Wetlands
b
0.2098 Meadow 1 6
(continued)
SIGNIFICANCE OF VEGETATION IN ONLINE GAMING
ªMARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. VOL. 10 NO. 1 MARCH 2018 ECOPSYCHOLOGY 5
Naturalness of the regions (2): Ecological description
We also described each of the preferred and less-liked regions by
assessing the following biodiversity-related ecological criteria in every
sampled screenshot: (1) number of vegetation strata (from none to
4); (2) percentage of vegetation cover on the ground (divided in five
categories: 1 =no vegetation on the ground, 2 =between 1% and
25% of the ground covered by vegetation, 3 =25–50% covered,
4=50–75% covered, 5 =75–100% covered); (3) presence of water;
(4) presence of human-built structures; (5) type of landscape, using
the following descriptions:
(1) Meadow: habitat vegetated by grass species and other non-
ligneous plants (9 regions).
(2) Savanna: a mixed woodland/grassland habitat in which the
trees are sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does
not close, allowing sufficient light to reach the ground to
support an unbroken herbaceous layer composed mostly of
grasses (3 regions).
(3) Tundra: habitat where the tree growth is hindered by low
temperatures and short growing seasons. Its vegetation is
mostly composed of dwarf shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses,
isolated trees, and lichens (3 regions).
(4) Tropical and subtropical moist forests: a woodland habitat with
several vegetation strata, with tall trees that tower above a closed
Table 1. Continued
NAME VGI
LANDSCAPE
TYPE
SCORE AS
PREFERRED
ZONE
SCORE AS
LESS-LIKED
ZONE
Wintergrasp
b
0 temp. forest 1 1
Winterspring
b
0.0894 temp. forest 16 4
Zangarmarsh
a
0 temp. forest 26 6
Note. The most cited as the favorite (Nagrand) and as the least preferred (Hellfire
peninsula) are in bold type. Vegetation types: meadow, temp. forest =temperate forest,
moist forest =tropical and subtropical moist forests, tundra, savanna, no vegetation, city.
a
The 14 regions cited at least 20 times as preferred.
b
Twenty-seven randomly
selected regions.
c
The 18 regions cited at least 20 times as less liked.
Fig. 1. Transformation of two of the screenshots taken. In 1a, a region called the Jade Forest has important vegetation. In 1b, all the green
areas have been fused into one in order to calculate the VGI (here, VGI =0.679). On the opposite, in 2a, the region called the Hellfire
Peninsula has no vegetation at all. As a result, 2b is the same picture, and the VGI here is 0.
TRUONG ET AL.
6ECOPSYCHOLOGY MARCH 2018
canopy layer, smaller trees whose crowns do not join on the middle
layer, and a layer composed of shrubs and grass species (4 regions).
(5) Temperate forest: a woodland habitat that often has three
vegetation strata, with large and tall trees, large wild canopy
on the top layer, lichen, moss, ferns, and wildflowers on the
floor, and shrubs in the middle layer. All the nontree species
grow in the shade from the canopy (23 regions).
(6) Absence of vegetation: barren region, entirely aquatic zone or
cities without vegetation (15 regions).
(7) City: a human-built habitat that is mainly composed of houses,
paved streets, and only a few patches of vegetation (2 regions).
Then, from the five sampled units, we computed one mean value
for each of the four first ecological criteria and noted the landscape
type the most represented as the reference for the region.
Naturalness of the character: Score of Nature
Friendliness of Character
At the time we distributed the online questionnaire, a WoW player
that wanted to create a new character could choose between 12 different
Races (in virtual and nonvirtual role-playing games, the people, civi-
lization, or ethnic group to which a character belongs is very often
referred to as the character’s ‘‘Race’’), all of them with their own
background, graphic features, and gaming specificities. Once he or she
made his or her choice, the player had to pick between 11 Classes. A
character’s Class basically aggregates several abilities and aptitudes
players can use in game, but can also detail some background or as-
pects, or impose behavior restrictions. Races and Classes are described
in detail in the online Game Guide (Blizzard Entertainment, 2016) and
database (Wowwiki, n.d.). Using these webpages, we extracted
from every Race and Class description the words and expressions re-
lated to a positive link to nature. For example, among the different
available ‘‘Races,’’ the Night Elves are ‘‘devoted wholly to the natural
cycleoftheworld,’’themightyTaurens‘‘livetoservethenature,’’andas
a Class, the druids feel a ‘‘deep connection to nature.’’
All those words and expressions were compiled in order to obtain a
Nature Friendliness of Character (NFC) score. A player earned one
point for enacting a character from a nature-friendly Race and an-
other if the character chose a nature-friendly Class, so that each
player’s score could range between 0 and 2.
Computation of mean descriptors of the preferred
and less-liked regions
After editing based on spelling (singular/plural, verbs, etc.), we
collected 948 normalized words used by players to describe their
preferred and less-liked in-game region. For each region type
(preferred and less-liked), we then sorted them based on the
number of occurrences, and classified as being linked with veg-
etation or not.
Statistical Analysis
All the analyses were performed using R 3.3.0 (R Core Team, 2015)
and the packages car (Fox & Weisberg, 2016) and MASS (Venables &
Ripley, 2002).
As VG I is a proportional variable constrained between 0 and 1, we first
transformed it to let it vary normally, by using the following transfor-
mation (Crawley, 2007): VGI_transformed =asin(sqrt(0.01*VGI)). We
considered the personal variables Gender and Age categories as factorial
variables. The same goes for NFC (3 levels).
Naturalness of the regions as determinants in the choice
of a place as players’ preferred and less-liked regions
We used two negative binomial models to explore determinants
for a player to choose a region as his or her preferred (PS) and less-
liked (NS) one, with the respective scores as the response variable,
and the transformed VGI (VGI), the number of vegetation strata
(VS), percentage of ground covered by vegetation (GV), type of
landscape (LT), presence of water (W), and presence of human-
made buildings (B) as the independent variables. We also con-
sidered interactions between all these variables. For each analysis,
we proceeded a model selection based on the Akaike Information
Criterion (AIC; Burnham & Anderson, 2002), considering the best
model as the one with the lowest AIC (two models were considered
as significantly different when their AIC differed for more than 2
units). Then we conducted a type III ANOVA on the best model,
which calculates the statistical importance of each variable by
considering all other variables present in the model (Fox &
Weisberg, 2016).
Relation between connectedness with nature
and virtual experience
We first checked for the potential relations between VGI of pre-
ferred region and the gender and age of the player. We used linear
models and ANOVA for each variable separately.
We then tested the correlation between the declared level of
connectedness with nature of the player (INS) and (1) the level of his
or her nature-based motivation to play, (2) the VGI associated with
his or her preferred region, (3) the NFC score of his or her main
character. Because all these variables (but VGI) were ordinal, we used
Spearman rank correlations.
SIGNIFICANCE OF VEGETATION IN ONLINE GAMING
ªMARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. VOL. 10 NO. 1 MARCH 2018 ECOPSYCHOLOGY 7
Results
The results of our analysis are threefold, related to our research
questions.
How natural are the places preferred by the players?
According to the selected model (Table 2, R
2
=0.63), the score
of preferred regions increases significantly with VGI (w
2
=28.5,
df =1, p=9e
-8
) and decreases significantly with the number of
vegetation strata (w
2
=5.75, df =1, p=0.02) in the region. Regions
with human-made infrastructures tend to be less preferred than
regions without these infrastructures (w
2
=3.5, df =1, p=0.06).
Finally, regions with different landscape types differ signifi-
cantly in their preference (w
2
=40.9, df =6, p=3e
-7
). This result
suggests that the in-game regions presenting a large amount of
green vegetation and a certain type of vegetation and landscape
aremorelikelytobeenjoyedandchosenbyplayersastheir
preferred. More precisely, mixed landscapes (e.g., tundra and
savanna) with small numbers of strata are preferred by the players
in-game.
According to the selected model (Table 2, R
2
=0.34), the score of
less-liked regions differs significantly among landscape types
(w
2
=19.9, df =6, p=0.003). More precisely, the only landscape type
that is significantly more chosen as a less-liked region is the land-
scape type without vegetation. Accordingly, the score of less-liked
regions tends to decrease as VGI of the region increases (w
2
=2.98,
df =1, p=0.08).
Six out of the 20 most cited words to describe the preferred zones
referred to vegetation. On the other hand, none of the 20 most cited
words to describe the less-liked zones referred to vegetation (Table 3).
These independent results strongly suggest that the choice of
players for particular regions is highly influenced by the presence of
natural vegetation in these game regions.
Do players use the virtual environments to experience nature?
Is this experience a significant motivation to play?
Among the six proposed motivations to play, the motivation to
have access to virtual nature was ranked in the last position (Table 4),
and players ranked ‘‘escapism’’ first. People who ranked the nature-
linked motivation to play more highly did not cite as their preferred a
region with a higher VGI (Spearman correlation, p=0.38). They
tended to enact a less nature-friendly character (Spearman correla-
tion, rho =-0.05, p=0.07).
Is players’ personal connectedness with nature related to the
nature-closeness of their avatar, their nature-connected practices
in the game, and their motivation for playing?
We did not find any significant relationship between the VGI of the
preferred region and gender (Fisher test, p=0.4) and age class (Fisher
test, p=0.6).
Players with a higher INS score gave ‘‘access to virtual nature’’ a
significantly lower ranking as a motivation to play (Spearman cor-
relation, rho =-0.26, p<10
-11
). There was no significant correlation
between INS score and the VGI of the preferred region (Spearman
correlation, p>0.1). However, the players with higher INS were
significantly more likely to play nature-friendly characters (Spear-
man correlation, rho =0.08, p=0.007).
Table 2. Stepwise Model Selections Based on Akaike
Information Criterion (AIC) for Determinants of a Place
as a Player’s Preferred and as a Player’s Less-Liked
DETERMINANTS IN THE CHOICE OF A PLACE
AS PLAYERS’ PREFERRED AIC
FS*VGI+GV+VS+LT+W+B+VGI:LT+VGI:GV+
VGI:VS+GV:W+GV:B
406.94
FS*VGI+GV+VS+LT+W+B 401.73
FS*VGI1LT1VS1B 398.61
FS*VGI+LT+VS 399.98
FS*VGI+LT+B 402.10
FS*VGI+VS+B 417.14
FS*LT+VS+B 419.57
DETERMINANTS IN THE CHOICE OF A PLACE
AS PLAYERS’ LESS-LIKED AIC
NS*VGI+GV+VS+LT+W+B+VGI:LT+VGI:GV+
VGI:VS+GV:W+GV:B
446.57
NS*VGI+GV+VS+LT+W+B 440
NS*VGI+VS+LT 434.87
NS*VGI1LT 432.91
NS*VGI 438.01
NS*LT 433.82
Note. The selected model is in bold type. B =presence of human-made buildings;
FS =score for the preferred zone; GV =percentage of ground covered by
vegetation; LT =type of landscape; NS =score for the less-liked zone; VGI =
transformed VGI; VS =the number of vegetation strata; W =presence of water.
TRUONG ET AL.
8ECOPSYCHOLOGY MARCH 2018
Discussion
This study provided some innovative inputs to understand virtual
experiences of nature and how technology may reflect biophilic
impulses.
Playing allows escape from everyday life in virtual nature
We confirmed that players’ main motivation to play is to escape
their ordinary life, as described by Yee’s motivations to play virtual
games (Yee, 2006). Originally, we showed that players prefer regions
with vegetation index. This is strongly consistent with the restoration
theory proposed by Ulrich and Parsons (1990). According to these
authors, exposure to ‘‘natural’’ environments, that is, predominantly
constituted of vegetation, trees, and/or water (Ulrich, 1983), tends to
foster psychological well-being and produce restoration from the
stress of everyday life. The preference the players demonstrated for
virtual experiences of reality-like vegetation suggests they were in-
stinctively choosing regions with high nature potential because it
helps them escape from their everyday life, which may be situated in
a more urban context.
Players prefer certain types of landscapes
In raw data, the landscapes displayed in the preferred regions were
different from those displayed in the less-liked regions. First, 13 out
of the 18 most disliked regions were without vegetation, contrasting
with the absence of any region without vegetation in the 14 most
preferred regions. This is consistent with Ulrich’s (1983) proposition
that ‘‘one of the most clear-cut findings [.] is the consistent ten-
dency to prefer natural scenes over built view, especially with the
latter lack of vegetation or water features’’ (p. 110). In contrast, 8 out
of the 14 most preferred regions displayed forests. This result could
refer to previous studies on landscape preference, which suggest that
familiarity (Svobodova, Vondrus, Filova, & Besta, 2011) or people’s
ability to understand the landscape (Kaplan, Kaplan, & Ryan, 1998)
explain the landscape preference. Indeed, in France, the natural place
where people declare they go most often is the forest (Colle
´ony,
Pre
´vot, Jalme, & Clayton, 2017). This real-life landscape configura-
tion could explain why the respondents referred to forests as their
preferred region. However, the preferred region (Table 1: Nagrand;
245 citations as favorite) was a savanna type of grassy landscape,
dotted with scattered trees, consistent with the so-called ‘‘Savanna
Hypothesis’’ ( Joye, 2007).
In addition, when included together with other ecological vari-
ables in a statistical model to explain the choices of the players,
and after therefore having integrated the VGI and the number of
strata as explaining variables, the preferred landscapes appeared to
be savanna and tundra. According to Kellert’s biophilia hypothesis,
humans’ ‘‘aesthetic attraction to certain species, landscapes and en-
vironmental features has [.] made an important contribution to
human sustenance and security over evolutionary time, and this
function continues to find expression in today’s world’’ (2012, p. 9).
Both these types of landscape present some of the main environ-
mental features able to fulfill human’s needs to survive, as described
by Kellert and Wilson’s work (1993), notably the long view.
Table 3. Twenty Most-Used Words to Describe
Preferred (a) and Less-Liked (b) Regions,
and the Number of Occurrences
TERMS OCCURRENCES TERMS OCCURRENCES
(a) Preferred regions
Magnificent 83 Relaxing 30
Beautiful 68 Dark 28
Green 64 Mysterious 27
Calm 54 Large 27
Wild 47 Forest 26
Verdant 43 Soothing 26
Ambience 35 Nature 25
Peaceful 33 Snow 25
Luxuriant 32 Scenario 24
Music 31 Natural 23
(b) Less-liked regions
Empty 119 Uninteresting 36
Ugly 76 Red 31
Hollow 69 Desolate 24
Dark 68 Insect 23
Boring 65 Monotonous 23
Sad 60 Long 21
Arid 57 Unsightly 20
Desert 55 Sand 20
Dry 43 Cold 18
Dead 41 Grey 17
Note. Words that refer to vegetation or nature are written in italics.
SIGNIFICANCE OF VEGETATION IN ONLINE GAMING
ªMARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. VOL. 10 NO. 1 MARCH 2018 ECOPSYCHOLOGY 9
More, we showed that the preference of players for a virtual green
environment was not related to any individual characteristics, no-
tably his or her connectedness with nature. This general attractive-
ness for green regions is also consistent with the biophilia hypothesis
(Kellert & Wilson, 1993; Wilson, 1984), which argues that human
beings inherently tend to have an affiliation with nature, which may
be nearly universal.
Our results are preliminary, and further studies in other geo-
graphical and cultural contexts could help understand more thor-
oughly the landscape preferences in virtual nature.
Player’s connectedness with nature is not directly correlated
with his or her in-game choices
We showed that, without preferring more green regions, indi-
viduals who declared a high level of connectedness with nature are
more likely to enact a nature-friendly character. This is consistent
with a growing body of research suggesting that character choice is
related to one’s actual personality (Fong, Mullin, & Mar, 2015; Park
& Henley, 2007) and that self-presentational motives function
online as well as in the nonvirtual environment. Indeed, although
people may use online character choice in a strategic way to fulfill a
certain goal or compensate for a perceived deficiency, Bullingham
and Vasconcelos argue that the key motivation for a player’s online
presence is to recreate his or her offline self online (2013). The
effect, though significant, was quite small; this is unsurprising gi-
ven the wide range of other psychological and sociological influ-
ences on the choice of an avatar.
Finally, we showed that players declaring a strong connectedness
with nature declared less often that they play to encounter nature in-
game. This result could indicate that they are less satisfied than others
with a technological substitute for real nature. Further research
should examine this hypothesis.
Limits and perspectives
Our study had a few limitations. The first is methodological, based
on the characterization of the VGI. Indeed, the selection of green
pixels in the pictures before automatically computing the VGI in each
sample was handmade, leaving potentially tiny green fragments
unconsidered. However, all these procedures were conducted by a
single person, one of the authors, who trained in the technique on
pictures before dealing with the samples. This led to homogeneous
methods in VGI assessing, which gives us confidence in the robust-
ness of our comparative analysis.
The definition of the VGI based on the green percentage of the
screenshot may have some limitations. For instance, players may
prefer the green color by itself and not the natural aspect of the
region. Several authors previously showed that the green color by
itself tends to evoke positive emotional responses, such as calmness,
happiness, comfort, peace, as well as feelings of relaxation and
tranquility (Kaya & Epps, 2004; Mahnke, 1996; Wexner, 1954). In
addition, the green color also evokes elements of natural environ-
ments: forests, trees, grass, outdoors, and nature (Hemphill, 1996;
Kaya & Epps, 2004). However, in our results, the VGI appeared
combined with other environmental characteristics, making us
confident in our interpretations.
As this study’s first goal was to assess players’ in-game choices and
virtual environmental preferences, we did not question whether
the virtual environment of the video game can have the same, or a
Table 4. Motivations to Play That Players Had to Rank in the Questionnaire, Together with Mean Scoring
(Mean, from 1 [Best] to 6 [Lowest]) and Standard Deviation (SD)
FORMULATION IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE ABBREVIATION MEAN SD
I play to escape from my daily life Escapism 2.51 1.53
I play to meet some of my friends in-game Social 3.16 1.76
I play to feel a sense of personal or group achievement Achievement 3.57 1.54
I play to be the master of my own adventure / virtual experience Control 3.64 1.62
I play to pass the time Pastime 3.71 1.75
I play to have access to a world with a predominant Nature Nature 4.41 1.42
Note. These motivations are ranked from the highest to the lowest.
TRUONG ET AL.
10 ECOPSYCHOLOGY MARCH 2018
similar, impact on well-being that has been demonstrated in real
environments. This should be addressed in future research.
A last limit of our study is that we only addressed the questionnaire
to the French-speaking community, restricting potentially our results
to the French culture. In future research we plan to extend the
questionnaire to the English-speaking community of WoW players
and from different MMORPGs in order to test any effects of culture on
the relation to virtual nature.
As a perspective, we could propose to consider more parameters
when asking players about their preferred and less-liked regions and
these regions’ characteristics. In this study, we chose to focus on the
potential of virtual nature players could encounter and see while
traveling the map from one border to another, completing quests.
However, as Nardi wrote, ‘‘the gaming experience [is] woven of so-
ciality, the visual beauty of the game world, and a sense of perfor-
mative mastery’’ (2010, p. 40). In order to grasp a more complete
representation of players’ preferences, we could have questioned
game mechanics, such as the quest-and-reward system, treasures,
zone bosses, and in-game threats, but also nonvisual environmental
representation, such as the soundscape, the music, the atmosphere,
and WoW’s scenario itself. However, the game itself was modeled to
attribute to every zone a very distinctive visual identity, as well as
very homogeneous environmental features.
Conclusive Thoughts
Our results suggest that inherent biophilic preference for
vegetation-based landscapes could encourage people to search for it
in virtual environments when they are no more connected with na-
ture in real life. Further research is needed to strengthen these results,
but our findings raise provocative questions about human–virtual
nature relationship, in a context of biodiversity crisis. There is a
danger that people may come to rely on virtual nature to satisfy
biophilic impulses, as suggested by the negative correlation between
INS and the motivation to encounter virtual nature. In that case, what
might have been a solution would only be another phase of gener-
ational amnesia, as children learn to connect to virtual nature but
remain disconnected from the real world. Virtual environments,
however rich and detailed, may not have the positive consequences
associated with experiences of real nature. Kahn’s research (e.g.,
2011) suggests that technologically mediated nature is not as effec-
tive at reducing stress, for example. Increased exposure to virtual
nature could also create an unwillingness to leave its safety for the
real world; real nature could be less rich and exciting, or alternatively
too dangerous or unfamiliar to our senses, which are barely or less
used in the virtual experience. Virtual nature may give a satisfactory
visual or sound experience, but what about the feeling of air hu-
midity on the skin, the ambient temperature, the birdsong, the
subtlety of smells and tastes, or the physical sensation of feeling
our body walking barefoot on grass or hiking on a rocky hill? All
these sensory feelings take an important part in one’s experience
of nature (Franco, Shanahan, & Fuller, 2017; Goldstein, 2010;
Grahn & Stigsdotter, 2010; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989), but are not
(yet?) met in virtual realities. As long as technology is unable to
equal this direct experience of nature, virtual experience will be
insufficient to fulfill humanity’s need for nature. As Kahn pointed
out, technology could impoverish human life, and specifically, its
relationship to nature.
Can we awaken gamers’ ecological awareness building on their
passion for the game and their biophilia? Some video game pub-
lishers, such as Ankama studio, have already integrated ecology and
biodiversity conservation in their games. For example, the MMORPG
Wakfu comes with the warning about the game’s ecosystems: ‘‘Kill
too many [animals] without giving them a chance to reproduce, and
they’ll disappear forever. Reap too much wheat without sowing, and
it’ll be your last harvest.You’re free to protect the local species or
exploit them to extinction. Your world, your decisions.Which
means it’s also your responsibility to deal with the consequences’’
(Ankama, 2017).
Will virtual experiences and technology be used as a catalyst to
discover or re-discover the nature we are progressively losing contact
with, or will they only enhance the separation between humans and
the natural world? The challenge for scientists and environmental
education is to find a way to bring those people connected to nature
through virtual worlds back to the real world. This work starts with
children, who may primarily encounter a technologized and con-
nected world. The educational aspects of technology toward nature
should be developed to create interest but also to teach children how
to disconnect. The hope is to ensure that nature in the virtual world
will become the starting point to experiences they will look for in the
real world, experiences of real nature that will encourage them to
value, protect, and restore it.
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Address correspondence to:
Minh-Xuan Truong
Muse
´um national d’Histoire naturelle
Department Homme et Environnement
43 Rue Buffon, CP135
75005 Paris
France
E-mail: Mxuan.truong@gmail.com
Received: July 25, 2017
Accepted: November 24, 2017
SIGNIFICANCE OF VEGETATION IN ONLINE GAMING
ªMARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. VOL. 10 NO. 1 MARCH 2018 ECOPSYCHOLOGY 13
