World of Warcraft is one of the most popular online video games in the United States, with millions of players who log on every day to play with others in an imaginative high-fantasy universe. This research examines the practice of 'raiding' in World of Warcraft, in which groups of 25 people engage in half-hour long epic battles with computerized opponents called âbossesâ. In raids players carefully coordinate their activities according to a preset strategy in order to defeat a boss. Raiding is thus a performances: a worldly instantiations of generalized scripts for action. This paper examines how players âshowâ (evince) their potency in and through raiding despite the fact that none of the participants are visible -- and hence available to the gaze of -- the others. It examines how the virtual world of World of Warcraft enables and forecloses various sorts of self-realizations, desires for which derive from the actual world of their primary socialization: The United States. The event of raiding thus becomes a virtual locus for real concerns with authenticity and sincerity, teamwork and success, and potency, personal integrity and achievement. A complete analysis of Warcraftâs economy of showing, I conclude, must examine both the spectacle itself (the virtual worlds) as well as itâs wider context (the actual world) in order to understand how performance is both an exaggerated representation of masculine control of violence as well as deeply compelling referendum on who they really are. In this way, raiding becomes a high stakes arenas in which raidersâ sense of self and competency is established through public demonstration of virtuosic mastery of game mechanics.

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