Finally it argues that the relevance to the real world could see sociological experimentation within MMORPGs as a driving force for innovation in the future. This thesis argues that, while meritocracy is an unsustainable long term social structure, it currently provides to impetus for sustained competitive play within MMORPGs, and that further examination is required. Finally a case study of Singapore, one of the last remaining meritocratic societies in the developed world, is used to illustrate the relevance of the development of meritocratic societies within virtual worlds, to the potential for such developments in the real world. This thesis explores the historical development of the semantics of meritocracy, as well as the origin of how and why MMORPGs have come to take their current form, in order to provide the reader adequate context for the theoretical exposition of the problems evident within the foundations of an MMORPG society.
So then, what problems may this thesis be illuminating? This thesis argues that the cause for a recent sudden lack of growth in MMORPG subscriptions is a systemic ideological belief that mirrors the real world, though more intensely – meritocracy. The creation of this thesis has been motivated by the fact that the fate of these worlds has come to mean a great deal to a large number of people. There are now at least as many MMORPG accounts as there are people living in Australia, and hundreds of millions of personal hours spent online within the virtual worlds of these MMORPGs per week. They now occupy a prominent position within the public sphere, cropping up in art, music, media, literature, and, in this case, academia. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have now been around for over three decades, however, only in the last decade have they exploded in popularity.
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