Negotiating Legitimate Play:A Critical Code Study of Automation Bots in World of Warcraft

Xu Honglan

This project studies open-source World of Warcraft bots not just through interviews, but by critical code studies on their actual code and GitHub repositories. It shows how “power gamers” frame botting as non-malicious optimization to escape tedious grind, design their scripts to prioritize safety over raw efficiency, and use platforms like GitHub to collaboratively refine and normalize these cheating practices.