Week 10: Social Gaming: Playing the crowd.
Source: http://onlinegaming.community/
This week, members of our group did a presentation on Social Gaming. It was fantastic. The theme and information looked like an actual online game. It was one of the best presentations I’ve seen throughout this unit.
They posed an interesting question… Is social gaming a benefit or a hindrance to the social world?
How do online games facilitate in digital communities and online publics…?
A few years ago whenever someone mentioned online gaming, visions of geeky looking boys in darkened rooms sitting in front of computers were brought to mind. It was nerdy. It was laughed at.
Source: http://www.thehealthygamer.com/2015/02/18/online-gaming-addiction-addicted-worried/
Now, games such as World of Warcraft is one of the most popular multiplayer online RPG’s (role playing games) of all time. It’s been around for the past 10 years and in that time “people have met through the game, married, and had children who are now old enough to play” (Byrne 2014).
The world of online gaming no longer hibernates the nerdy looking boy in his mother’s basement. It’s opened itself up to people of all genders, ages and walks of life. And all these people are able to come together and communicate through their love of the games they play via forums, chat rooms, social media and now, ever increasingly, conventions.
However, as with most things life there are rules and codes of practice that people must abide by. In the gaming world there are rules set up by gamers and rules set up by people who play the game.
De Zwart and Humphries (2014) explain this in more detail in relation to MMOG EVE Online;
“Game rules created by developers in the establishment of an online digital game space intersect and overlap with rules created socially by players, with cultural norms emerging from within the game space and from the contexts of play, with legal rules developed by lawyers managing the interests of publishers and with law and values originating in the real world contexts of players in whichever legal jurisdiction they are located”
Of course where you have a number of different people imposing different rules, conflicts can and will occur. Such as the dismissal of players from the game for harassment of other players, and breaching a games Terms of Service.
I’m not an online gamer. Never have been, never will be. I never got into the social gaming craze. I just couldn’t understand why or how so many people could spend so much time on their phones playing games, when life was just passing them by.
I found other ways of entering digital communities and online publics – through my love of pop culture. I attend various conventions when they’re in town, such as Supernova and Oz Comic Con. I’m not a cosplayer but I do appreciate and enjoy the effort some people put into their costumes, which include characters from the online gaming world.
My love of certain TV shows has allowed me to enter online groups and forums where I have been privileged to not only meet the stars of these shows but through it, made lifelong friends with like-minded people.
Source: www.thehubproductions.com
References:
Byrne, S 2014, A Massive Success: 10 Years of World of Warcraft, cnet, viewed 27 January 2017, <https://www.cnet.com/news/world-of-warcraft-ten-year-anniversary-interview-ion-hazzikostas/>
de Zwart, M & Humphries, S 2014, The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online, Cultural Studies Review, Vol 20, Number 1, pp77-99