Leet Noobs documents for over 10 months a group of players in the online game World of
Warcraft engaged in a 40-person joint activity known as raiding. Initially the group was
informal a «family» that wanted to «hang out and have fun.» Before joining each player had
been recognized as expert in the game within the group they had to adapt their expertise for
the new joint task and align themselves to new group goals. Through their shared activity
members successfully established communication and material practices that changed as they had
to renegotiate roles and responsibilities with new situations and as the larger gaming
community evolved. Players learned to reconfigure their play spaces enrolling third-party game
mods and other resources into their activity. Once-expert players became novices or «noobs» to
relearn expert or «leet» gameplay. They became «leet noobs» who needed to reconfigure their
expertise for new norms of material practice. Ultimately these norms also changed what it
meant to play World of Warcraft some group members no longer wanted to just hang out and have
fun and eventually the group died in an online fiery meltdown.
