Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG)

In this article, based of qualitative methodology, was carried out the analysis of the content dynamics of communicative interactions in online games is. The article considers the motivation for communication in the game and also interpersonal communication in the space of network interactions. communitys of gamers in the game are analyzed through the theory of social groups of Charles Cooley.

Елютина М.Э., Неруш А.А., Бирюков Д.И. Содержательная динамика коммуникативных взаимодействий в онлайн-играх//Материалы научно-практической конференции Дыльновские чтения «Общество и личность в условиях информационно-цифровых трендов»: - Саратов: Изд-во «Саратовский источник», 2019. – 373с.: ил. ISBN 978-5-91879-923-9 Входит в РИНЦ®

This book is about the three identities of the videogame, the gamer, and Game Studies. I write that there are no definitive truths but rather discourses and constructions; ideas, actions, beliefs, and practices related to videogames are discourses that merge and shape our perception of videogames as an area of study of its own right. These discursive responses meet and clash creating what we call truths, which are temporary and negotiable.

This perspective is inspired by Foucauldian ideas and present few questions about videogame-related identities in and outside of academe. Does Game Studies have a conceptual core? What makes game studies difficult to be disciplined in academe? What do we learn from the scholarly and popular discourses on videogames that would help understand the identity questions related to games?

I go on to describe what makes the videogame identity according to game studies: aesthetics, fictions, meaning-making, performance, transformation, etc. and what makes it difficult for game studies being an open market of ideas and an academic "un-discipline". This leads me to the gamer's identity: an aficionado first, and a connoisseur of fictional worlds.

This article examines the democratic potential of online communities by investigating the influence of network heterogeneity on social tolerance in an online gaming environment. Online game communities are potential sources of bridging social capital because they tend to be relatively heterogeneous. Causal analyses are conducted using structural equation modeling with survey data collected in a three-wave panel of online game players in Japan. Results show that the heterogeneous composition of online community causally enhances social tolerance toward community members within the online gaming setting. Furthermore, results show that enhanced social tolerance toward online community members is generalized to offline settings. This causal process suggests that online communities provide access to bridging social capital by gathering heterogeneous populations around shared contexts.

Il contributo descrive la particolare tipologia di narrazione collettiva realizzata nei Giochi Di Ruolo (GDR) testuali, i cui partecipanti si ritrovano online per raccontare e vivere una storia: all'interno di una chat ogni utente interpreta un personaggio, ne recita il parlato e ne descrive le azioni in maniera coerente con la caratterizzazione scelta; l'agire è dunque prettamente verbale e si realizza all'interno di un mondo creato dalla fantasia e dalle parole dei giocatori stessi: tutto è racconto, e l'intrecciarsi dei messaggi inviati dagli utenti produce, in tempo reale, una storia scritta a più mani.
La narrazione nei GDR testuali non segue alcun canovaccio, e non sono ammessi riferimenti alla realtà esterna al racconto; pertanto, i testi non solo sono prodotto di una autorialità plurima ma si espandono attraverso l'accumulo di materiale narrativo composto in assoluta autonomia, senza il supporto di alcuna riflessione metanarrativa condivisa e di una successiva revisione. Spinti da tali considerazioni ci siamo posti il seguente interrogativo: come può una storia coerente scaturire dalla semplice giustapposizione di messaggi sincroni che si susseguono senza alcuna guida? La questione è stata affrontata attraverso una disamina delle strategie impiegate dagli utenti per conciliare l’improvvisazione nella scrittura con la necessità di un risultato coeso e coerente.
Nello specifico si è esaminato il ruolo cardine del ciberspazio, capace di trasformare la scrittura collettiva in una condivisione di esperienze e quindi in grado di offrire alla narrazione una significativa componente di spontaneità. Tra gli elementi che contribuiscono alla creazione di un mondo virtuale persistente ci siamo focalizzati da un lato sulle schede luogo e personaggio, dall'altro sulla serialità della narrazione; abbiamo inoltre approfondito l’uso della anafora quale ponte tra l’immaginario dei singoli autori.
Successivamente la ricerca ha messo a fuoco le norme, rigide e rigorose, che regolano l’ordine di invio dei messaggi da parte degli autori. I meccanismi di turnazione sono di capitale importanza in quanto loro è il compito di garantire che non vi siano prevaricazioni tra gli autori e che la consequenzialità logico-narrativa dei contributi sia rispettata, così da ridurre al minimo contraddizioni e incomprensioni.
Infine l’analisi si è rivolta alla descrizione degli indicatori metanarrativi, particolare tipologia di segnale discorsivo che realizza, sotto il livello letterale del testo, un costante confronto tra i giocatori; peculiarità di questi usi è la loro capacità di mascherarsi da passaggi descrittivi così da soddisfare la necessità da parte degli autori di veicolare e ricevere dei feedback, al tempo stesso non incrinando il senso di immersione nel mondo virtuale del quale i giocatori sono parte.

Several factors contribute to an individual's experiences in computer-based environments. Previous research shows one such fact or, the degree to which users feel connected to a virtual environment, influences the actions of individuals within the environment . Additional factors, such as people's personality and the personality of their avatar, influence behaviors in virtual environments . The current study focused on the role of presence as it affects behavior within the virtual environment. Presence has been defined as the psychological state where virtual experiences feel authentic. However, the degree to which presence acts as a mediating variable in virtual environments is not well understood. The current study employed a combination of survey instruments and direct observ ation to explore the relationships among personality of self and avatar, presence, and behaviors within a virtual environment. Findings indicated that participant scores in the domain of agreeableness were a significant predictor of agreeable behavior in the virtual environment. However, with the exception of negat ive effect s (e.g., dizziness), presence does not appear to influence behavior. Overall implication s for these findings are discussed.

The paper makes some remarks about the language variety spoken and written in online gaming communities through a quantitative analysis of the lexicon composition, subsequently discussing the role of common words, toponyms, and anglicisms. Furthermore, the study highlights the extension of the technical terminology and the importance of the jargon: the technical terminology is needed to distinctly denote a large group of complex and exclusive referents, while the role of jargon words is to define and preserve the group identity; the combination of these two elements makes texts written by gamers hard to understand, and it forces new members of a community to follow a learning process based on prolonged social interactions.
The broadest part of the article consists of a glossary that gathers a selection of unique terms extracted from Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games chats. Each entry contains information about the meaning of the associated word, its formation, its distribution and, in some cases, a list of its variants and synonyms. The glossary exhibits a large amount of loanwords, both integrated and non–integrated, and calques, whereas derivatives and compound words are rare. However, the more common word–formation processes are the verbalization of English nouns and the contraction of words that causes a considerable linguistic variation.

This ethnographic study examines the belief system, social and political organization of Gaiscíoch, an online gaming community that exists within the simulated world of a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). It provides an ethnographic account of an online gaming community that is open to any player without skill or time commitment requirements, but still maintains high status within the game world. This project identifies eight elements that make this inclusive, friendly, and casual community successful in virtual worlds that tend to be dominated by communities that have a competitive, strict, and exclusive approach to online gaming. Lastly, this project inquires about the nature of the border between the virtual and the physical spaces and establishes that gamers can be considered pseudo-border-inhabitants that are in control of the community they place adjacent to them in the cyber world.

In this paper we articulate an empirical approach to the study of social action in digitallymediated contexts. Our approach extends Carl Couch’s theory of cooperative action, which is based on a set of “elements of sociation”: acknowledged attentiveness, mutual responsiveness, congruent functional identities, shared focus, and social objective. Three additional elements of sociation, adapted from studies of jazz performance, are added to the list of elements that characterize coordinated action: a formal theory of task performance, an informal theory of task performance, and synchronicity of individual actions. Using audio-visual recordings of gameplay, the minutiae of social action were captured and subjected to repetitive, reflexive and collaborative analysis in order to identify these patterns, including their potential causes and consequences. We use data from two games—the single-player real-time strategy game Eufloria and the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft...

Today's massively multiplayer online role-playing games are the direct descendants of the textual worlds of the 1980s, not only in design and implementation terms, but also in the way they are evolving thematically. Thus far, they have faithfully mirrored the path taken by their forebears. If they continue to do so, what can we expect of the graphical worlds of the future?

The growth in the populations of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) has stopped growing since 2009. The arguments for why this has happened typically focus on the humans that play them whether that be psychological, financial, or lifestyle factors. However, these previous enquiries have failed to address MMORPG players as both a result of not just the human and social, but also of technological actants. Through the semi-structured interviews of sixteen participants obtained through a snowball sampling strategy within the MMORPG of Final Fantasy XIV, this thesis uses a novel application of Actor Network Theory to trace their MMORPG play. This led to the uncovering of important non-human, technological actants, that formed an important part of the construct of MMORPG play and the player itself, and, have been underserved by previous research. The first finding is that humans, more specifically, those who study participants considered as “friends” throughout MMORPG play were actually found to be fragile and non-essential to sustaining that play; the second finding is that humans do not hold as privileged a position within the sphere of MMORPG play and development, and that non-human, technologies often have as dramatic an effect on play; thirdly, this thesis finds that the way in which MMORPG play occurred and MMORPG players came to be could not be classified with rudimentary taxonomies as had been attempted previously, rather each occurrence of play and each player construct was unique through formation; and, finally, the fourth finding is that how one eventually comes to be an MMORPG player is the realisation of a complex tapestry of potentialities, sometimes years in the making. These findings through the application of Actor Network Theory alter the current understanding of the MMORPG player and allow us to answer the thesis question of “how have we misunderstood MMORPG play?”

In 2016, Hillary Clinton was nominated as the first female presidential candidate of a major party in a United States election and Sylvanas Windrunner was appointed as the first female Warchief of the Horde in the fictional land of Azeroth in which the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft is set. This article is a rhetorical analysis of how authority and ethos were constructed by, respectively, Lady Sylvanas and Garrosh Hellscream in the World of Warcraft and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 United States election. As well as investigating issues of race and gender, it explores how these four figures deploy what Richard Weaver has termed "charismatic" and "ultimate" terms to establish the legitimacy of their actions and positions. This paper was published in Popular Culture Review 29.1 (Spring 2018): 31-50. It is an open access journal; the link is posted below.

Le jeu vidéo est un monde complexe où figure d’innombrables joueurs, installés dans des jeux et dans des pratiques aux orientations diverses qui témoignent d’un engagement précis. Mais c’est grâce à Internet, au jeu vidéo en réseau que les joueurs sont alors capables de se regrouper au sein d’univers virtuels plus grands les uns que les autres. Parmi ces individus avides d’expériences fictionnelles, on y retrouve des femmes soucieuses aussi de vivre des aventures entre passionnés de jeu vidéo. Population spécifique, elle y trouve aussi un monde qui ne se révèle pas des plus égalitaires envers les femmes, et qui peuvent les ramener à des obstacles déjà rencontrés dans la vie quotidienne. Il faut alors s’interroger sur leur position dans la lutte pour la reconnaissance, les stratégies et réponses qu’elles peuvent mettre en place face à un sexisme présent dans le jeu vidéo. Le présent ouvrage vient alors dans une quête de réponses sur les expériences des joueuses régulières de jeu vidéo en ligne, en s’intéressant aux épreuves qu’elles doivent affronter, aux réponses envisagées et envisageables, mais aussi aux représentations vidéoludiques qui sont loin d’être complètement à l’écart des représentations sociétales.

Mots clés : reconnaissance, monde social du jeu vidéo en ligne, joueuses régulières de jeu vidéo en ligne, pratique compétitive, représentations vidéoludiques, sexisme hostile, sexisme bienveillant, groupement, avatar, rôles sexués, représentations stéréotypées, épreuves générales, épreuves sexistes, prise de parole, défection, ressource, masculin, féminin.

Online computer games are increasingly seen by game studies and industry as `more than games', i.e., places where players form and maintain relationships by playing together. However, currently, these practices of playing together and their roles for gameplay and the relationships of the players are not presented and explained in an integrated manner. In this context, my research focused on exploring social aspects within and around two online games, World of Warcraft and Star Kingdoms. Specifically, I investigated the emerging practices of playing together with fellow players, friends, family and romantic partners and their functions in an integrated fashion. To achieve this aim, an ethnographic study was conducted (using participant observation and semi-structured interviews) and the data were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively through a ritualisation framework inspired by a multidisciplinary perspective on secular ritual (coming from anthropology, communication and media studies and social psychology). Within this framework, ritual and ritualized play (but also ritualization as a process) were defined as referring to practices through which the game is enriched with new meanings that go beyond the game being `just a game'. These new meanings include those centered on relationships/social interactions and identity. Thus, many gamers play computer games not only for their gameplay, but also for the relationships/interactions established and/or maintained through them. In addition to their value for anthropology, social psychology and communication studies, these findings are particularly useful for game developers and UX designers, who have to find ways to accommodate and support these relationships/interactions via game design, alternative media or marketing strategies.

This research aims to understand how gamers redefine their identity by extending, aggregating, and assembling the different dimensions of the self in experiential online communities. The authors conducted a series of filmed in-depth and in game individual interviews, group interviews, informal conversations, and observation of online game sessions. A framework of online identity construction shows how gamers assemble their identities combining different self-dimensions, using two different strategies: self-extension and self-aggregation. Self-extension strategies consist in the idealization, development, and manipulation of avatars (their digital self). Self-aggregation strategies refer to group participation and sharing virtual possessions within groups of players. To bring their identities from the experiential community to the real life, gamers combine these strategies by assembling and materializing identities. This framework has theoretical implications for the self, identity, and sharing in online contexts. Finally, the paper considers managerial implications and future research directions in online communities.

Video games provide unique interactive player experiences (PX) often categorised into different genres. Prior research has looked at different game genres, but rarely through a PX lens. Especially, PX in the emerging area of massive online battle arena (MOBA) games is not well understood by researchers in the field. We address this knowledge gap by presenting a PX study of different game genres, which we followed up with a second semi-structured interview study about PX in MOBA games. Among the results of our analyses are that games that are likely played with other players, such as MOBA games, stimulate less immersion and presence for players. Additionally, while challenge and frustration are significantly higher in this genre, players get a sense of satisfaction from teamwork, competition and mastery of complex gameplay interactions. Our study is the first to contribute a comprehensive insight into key motiva-tors of MOBA players and how PX in this genre is different from other genres.

This study entitled, “Online Gaming: Influence on the Social Behavior and Psychological Well-being”, discusses on the effects caused by the practice of online gaming to the students’ social and psychological behavior. It will center on the relationship of gaming engagement to the interpersonal social behavior of gamers and the influence it has to psychological well-being. The main purpose of this research is to determine how online gaming influences the social behavior and psychological well-being of students by measuring their perceived gaming engagement, social behavior and psychological well-being. In order to test the hypothesis, 230 grade 12 ENGTECH and ACCESS students from Baliuag University participated in this study. Descriptive-correlational design was used in this study with the help of SPSS statistics. To test the significance of input and output variables, Pearson r Correlation analysis and Independent Sample T-test were used. Based on the findings, online gaming has a positive relationship with social behavior. Online games can also be an avenue of socially interacting with other people. It was also found that playing online games can help improve one’s psychological well-being if done moderately.

Abstract This research expands on the work of Goffman (1959) in seeking to examine how players of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) use virtual environments as a mechanism to explore their own offline identity, through the use of multiple characters and gender swapping. Using Thematic Analysis of four interviews, five themes have been identified which will inform a larger Grounded Theory study. It is argued that these themes provide the foundation for the construction of solid theoretical constructs which will inform ...

As a discipline, anthropology is uniquely situated to trace transformative shifts in human sociobiological processes over time. As environments and resources change, human ingenuity responds with increasing technological sophistication and variations in accumulative behaviors. As technologies integrate and connect global populations, the accumulation of wealth and resources likewise shifts from the natural to the digital worlds. While many anthropologists look to the past and to processes of globalization to sketch these shifts in the natural world, there is a growing trend researching these transformations in digital spheres. Here, I examine the ways players in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor marshal social and economic resources in both the natural and digital worlds to accumulate power and prestige in order to overcome in-game challenges and garner out-of-game financial benefits. Based on ethnographic methods including participant observation, document analysis, and concentrated interviews, I examine how players leverage resources to negotiate, resist, and overcome conflicts and challenges in order to be successful in competitive gaming. Findings demonstrate that players utilize out-of-game resources such as gaming hardware systems and leisure time, while in-game, players use their skill and expertise to establish social relationships that can be leveraged for competitive play. In constructing their reputations and accumulating prestige, players integrate online and offline resources, traversing the natural/digital divide in their pursuit of achievement. As this research primarily focuses on the online and in-game aspects of building these reputations, future research needs to include offline impacts and official game competitions.

In tandem with technological advancements in virtual world design, video games have evolved from turn-taking affairs where individuals or groups hoped to clear the screen in record time or better a previous performance, to immersive, interactive environments where hundreds or even thousands of players acting in concert develop expertise in a variety of semiotic domains as they strive to achieve individual- and group-oriented goals. The newest generation of video games, Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), has exploded in popularity in the past decade along with advances in graphics technology, computer processing power, and the continual spread of highspeed internet access. MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft (WoW) are popular virtual environments of epic scope where people engage in distinctly social play. MMORPGs are culturally-rich virtual environments that persist 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and are populated by unique 3-D characters that players control...

Although researchers have discussed the existence of a virtual self, or embodiment of human characteristics within an avatar, little known about how the virtual self influences a player's behavior within a virtual environment. To better understand this relationship, World of Warcraft game players were asked to complete personality-rating scales for both themselves and their avatars. In addition, in-world behavior was recorded and then analyzed using a behavioral assessment checklist. Results suggested a relationship between personality and behavior within the domain of agreeableness. Based on these findings, the researchers discuss implications for the construct known as the virtual self, as well as the inclusion of psychological systems design into the overall game design process.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are a popular form of entertainment used by millions of gamers worldwide. Potential problems relating to MMORPG play have emerged, particularly in relation to being addicted to playing in such virtual environments. In the present study, factors relating to online gaming addiction and motivations for playing in MMORPGs were examined to establish whether they were associated with addiction. A sample comprised 1167 gamers who were surveyed about their gaming motivations. Latent Class Analysis revealed seven classes of motivations for playing MMORPGs, which comprised: (1) novelty; (2) highly social and discovery-orientated; (3) aggressive, anti-social and non-curious; (4) highly social, competitive; (5) low intensity enjoyment; (6) discoveryorientated; and (7) social classes. Five classes of gaming addiction-related experiences were extracted including: (1) high risk of addiction, (2) time-affected, (3) intermediate risk of addiction, (4) emotional control, and (5) low risk of addiction classes. Gender was a significant predictor of intermediate risk of addiction and emotional control class membership. Membership of the high risk of addiction class was significantly predicted by belonging to a highly social and competitive class, a novelty class, or an aggressive, anti-social, and non-curious class. Implications of these findings for assessment and treatment of MMORPG addiction are discussed.

Playing interactive games, both online and offline, might pose risks leading to poor academic achievement. This alarmed parents and school authorities especially that the difference between game engagement and addiction has not been fully understood. The present study determined the influence of interactive games on the mathematical aptitude of secondary school learners. It was conducted at Halapitan National High School, Division of Bukidnon, for the school year 2018-2019, with 208 respondents from Grade 10 and 11 learners. The study utilized descriptive-comparative research design, while employing researcher-made survey questionnaire and National Career Assessment Examination results as main data gathering tools. The appropriate statistical techniques like frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to treat the data. Results revealed that the mathematical aptitude of the respondents was at Low Average, showing that the learners showed little knowledge and understanding in the mathematical concepts tested. Moreover, the extent of exposure of the learners in the study is Slightly Exposed to the different levels of interactive games. Further, there is no significant difference in the mathematical aptitude of secondary school learners when grouped according to the levels of interactivity of games they play and their extent of exposure.

Nonostante l'interesse sorto negli ultimi anni per i linguaggi di Internet, l’ambito relativo alle ampie e numerose comunità videoludiche online risulta essere poco esplorato dalla linguistica italiana. La lingua in esse impiegata è tuttavia meritevole di una approfondita analisi per varie ragioni, tra cui almeno:
- ampia diffusione: il gioco online coinvolge quasi 11 milioni di italiani, una porzione notevole della popolazione fa quindi uso dei particolari linguaggi che lo caratterizzano;
- notevole originalità: tale lingua non è valutabile secondo i criteri della “tradizionale” comunicazione mediata dal computer per differenze sia superficiali, sia strutturali, derivanti dalle peculiari necessità comunicative e dalla introduzione di diversi ambiti di variabilità.
Il presente contributo, che poggia le sue basi sull’osservazione partecipante e sul coinvolgimento diretto dei parlanti nella riflessione metalinguistica, intende dimostrare l’inequivocabile natura di gergo della lingua in esame: nelle comunità videoludiche le dinamiche di coesione ed esclusione si realizzano infatti attraverso l'impiego di una lingua peculiare, volutamente criptica e di difficile interpretazione per chi la osserva dall'esterno; è attraverso l’adozione di un gergo rigoroso che esse fondano la propria identità e legano le molteplici individualità del gruppo che appaiono prive di tratti uniformi per quanto concerne approccio all’attività ludica e collocazione sociale e geografica.
La piena multimedialità dell’interfaccia di gioco crea un ciberspazio la percezione del quale si vuole qui mostrare nel suo emergere in scelte linguistiche esprimenti telepresenza e coinvolgimento sensoriale; lo stesso aspetto proteiforme del gergo verrà descritto nella sua dipendenza dalla ricchezza di dinamiche e situazioni determinate dagli ambiti in-game, off-game e di socializzazione o miranti a una comunicazione emozionale o emotiva: primariamente definita dalla individualità del parlante, sulla lingua incidono profondamente la fisionomia del gioco e dei personaggi.
Si tenterà inoltre di dimostrare inoltre come la notevole varietà di situazioni comunicative abbia portato allo sviluppo di differenti registri linguistici e di una affinata competenza comunicativa nei parlanti, spingendo così il repertorio lessicale a estendersi oltre il sostrato tipico di Internet attraverso l’introduzione di un corposo lessico specialistico e gergale composto di neologismi, prestiti, tecnicismi ed arcaismi.
Segnaliamo infine che tutte le considerazioni relative al gergo delle comunità videoludiche saranno avanzate tenendo conto della sua non collocabilità sull’asse scritto-parlato: tale premessa sarà dimostrata individuando sia tratti dell’oralità, quali le numerose forme allocutive, la ricchezza della deissi e l’ampio uso di fatismi e segnali discorsivi, sia espedienti radicati nella scrittura e tracce di processi di revisione.

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. They now occupy a prominent position within the public sphere, cropping up in art, music, media, literature, and, in this case, academia. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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 it argues that the relevance to the real world could see sociological experimentation within MMORPGs as a driving force for innovation in the future.

Les MMORPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, sont apparus fin des années 90. Fondés sur des jeux de stratégies et un univers heroïc fantasy, ils proposent un même environnement imaginaire et guerrier à des joueurs connectés à travers le monde. De nombreux joueurs y ont aujourd'hui passé des milliers d'heures de jeu. Derrière leurs ordinateurs, mains sur leurs claviers et leurs souris, casques aux oreilles et micros à la bouche, ces joueurs ont appris à interagir en nombre pour remplir les « challenges » offerts tous les jours par ces jeux : vaincre ce gros dragon perché dans son donjon (Player versus
Environment) ou prendre en embuscade ce groupe de joueurs ennemis qu'ils viennent d'apercevoir (Player versus Player). Cette recherche explore la coordination des joueurs durant ces activités au sein de ces espaces sociotechniques et ludiques. Elle s'intéresse spécifiquement aux activités collectives de combat proposées par ces systèmes de jeu et à la façon dont les joueurs s'y investissent passionnément, intensément, collectivement. Notre étude envisage la coordination des joueurs du point de vue de la tâche cognitive requise par le
système sociotechnique distribué qu'ils forment avec les autres joueurs. Pour pouvoir se coordonner dans ces jeux, les joueurs ont dû apprendre à maîtriser les règles (culture), à optimiser leurs dispositifs (technique) et à communiquer efficacement « à distance » (social). De cette manière, ils ont appris à se coordonner dans ces environnements mais surtout à jouer ensemble. Finalement, ils ont appris à rendre cette expérience collective jouable. Dans ces univers, apprendre à se coordonner, c'est apprendre à jouer.

Uses grounded theory to analyze hundreds of forum posts on the male bodies of avatars and the appearance of the equipment for those avatars in an MMORPG. Published in: Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian. Ed. Jonas Prida. NC: McFarland Press, 2013. 144-73.

A 30-minute recorded presentation that builds on this essay can be viewed here:
https://lifesize.msstate.edu/videos/video/40/?access_token=shr00000000407625973593822908073558369013072

Purpose of Review: There are many different factors involved in how and why people develop problems with video game playing. One such set of factors concerns the structural characteristics of video games (i.e., the structure, elements, and components of the video games themselves). Much of the research examining the structural characteristics of video
games was initially based on research and theorizing from the gambling studies field. The present review briefly overviews the key papers in the field to date. Recent Findings: The paper examines a number of areas including (i) similarities in structural characteristics of gambling
and video gaming, (ii) structural characteristics in video games, (iii) narrative and flow in video games, (iv) structural characteristic taxonomies for video games, and (v) video game structural characteristics and game design ethics. Many of the studies carried out to date are small-scale, and comprise self-selected convenience samples (typically using self-report surveys or non-ecologically valid laboratory
experiments). Summary: Based on the small amount of empirical data, it
appears that structural features that take a long time to achieve in-game are the ones most associated with problematic video game play (e.g., earning experience points, managing in-game resources, mastering the video game, getting 100% in-game). The study of video games from a structural characteristic perspective is of benefit to many different stakeholders including academic researchers, video game players, and video game designers, as well as those interested in prevention and policymaking by making the games more socially responsible. It is important that researchers understand and recognize the psycho-social effects and impacts that the structural characteristics of video games can have on players, both positive and negative.

Although adventure video games have been identified as effective tools
for education, few studies have examined the usefulness of such games
for language learning. The present classroom-based investigation,
therefore, examined the possibility of exploiting commercial adventure
video games for improving vocabulary recall of second language
learners by designing pedagogical supplementary materials. In so doing,
30 lower-intermediate English as a Foreign Language students were
randomly assigned into two control and experimental groups. Both
groups took a pre-test consisting of a list of words from an English
adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island – Special Edition™ to
determine the words they did not know. All the students took two
post-tests containing the extracted unknown words: one examining their
immediate receptive and one testing their delayed productive
vocabulary recall. The results indicated that the students who played the
game significantly outperformed the learners in the control group on
both post-tests. The players expressed positive perceptions toward the
game and reported it as helpful for language learning in general, and
vocabulary learning in particular. The findings suggest implications for
language teachers, learners, materials writers, and syllabus designers to
employ these games as interactive multimodal supplementary tools for
language education.

This paper examines the variety of language used by the community of Twitch.tv with the application of descriptive and corpus-based methods. Twitch.tv is one of the world's most visited websites for live broadcasting of video games; the unusual conditions under which the website's users engage in discussions and express themselves gave birth to a language variety which only very remotely resembles any other internet-specific way of communicating. Twitch.tv is a website accessible from all the European, South/North American and East-Asian countries and the main language used by the majority of the site's users is English. The most fascinating aspect of the site from the linguistic point of view is the possibility for all its users to write on the chat. Approximately 400 000 users are logged in at any given time and during major broadcasts more than 100 000 users are often talking simultaneously on the same chat. These factors had an immense impact on the nature and structure of the messages. The huge interlingual gaming community (aged 16-26 on average) developed a very peculiar way to comment on the broadcasts and discuss the games being played. The language used on Twitch.tv chats is abundant in neologisms and meaningful site-specific emoticons. The corpus-based study I conducted indicates that the messages are extremely context-dependent and follow certain syntactic patterns.

As a result of technological advancement and exponential increases in global access, cross-disciplinary research has recently turned to digital online video games. Most anthropological research within this area has centered around player self-identification, gender construction, and gaming communities. Yet many interactions occur at nodes of dynamic conflict where agentic players navigate intersections of power, which are unaddressed in the scholarly corpus. By utilizing ethnographic methods in World of Warcraft’s player versus player events, I examine resources, relationships, and tools that underpin player actions and understandings. My findings reveal layered and dynamic patterns of sociotechnical conflict. Players’ geographical location impacts access to infrastructure while hardware and software constrain in-game action in fundamental and inescapable ways. Player versus player events add additional restrictions and create fluid situations where players continually negotiate fluctuating social tensions while event-dependent dispersions of power fluctuate between groups and individuals. Players become leaders by legitimizing power in contextually unique ways, and competing imaginaries generate conflicts that are interpreted through game-specific subjectivities. In exploring these occurrences and utilizing theoretical explanations within World of Warcraft contexts, this research contributes to disciplinary understandings and discussions addressing conflict, leadership, and power, and to methodological techniques utilized in virtual world study. By foregrounding how players navigate power differentials in conflict situations, this research informs broader conceptions of how individuals and groups manage social disputes within and outside digital social events, informs game design, and has policy implications for resolving virtual world conflicts in real world courts.

We explore the problem of distinguishing the relatively constant versus culturally variable dimensions of mental suffering and disorder in the context of a cross-cultural study of Internet gaming-related distress. We extend the conceptual contrast of “core” and “peripheral” symptoms drawn from game studies and use a framework that synthesizes cultural and neurobiological understandings of emotional distress. In our framework, “core” symptoms are relatively constant across cultures and therefore presumed to be more closely tied to a neurobiological base. By contrast, we treat as “peripheral” symptoms those that are more culturally variable, and thus less directly tied to the neurobiology of addiction. We develop and illustrate this approach with a factor analysis of cross-cultural survey data, resting on previous ethnographic work, through which we compare online gaming distress experienced in North America (n=2025), Europe (n=1198), and China (n=841). We identify the same four-factor structure across the three regions, with Addiction always the first and most important factor, though with variability in regional factors’ exact item composition. The study aims to advance an integrative biocultural approach to distinguishing universal as opposed to culturally contingent dimensions of human suffering, and to help resolve debates about whether problem gaming represents a form of addiction.

PKV GAMES 162.241.43.157 saat ini banyak sekali Peminat nya karena dengan majunya Teknologi Smartphone baik di Indonesia pada khususnya maupun di Dunia pada umumnya. Maka dari itu ini menjadi Tolak Ukur Peminat Games Online. Di mana dengan adanya GAMES PKV ini semuanya menjadi serba praktis karena kita dapat memainkan Games Online Kesayangan kita di Play Store atau di HP Aplle Iphone kita. Dengan di dukung oleh Smartphone yang semakin pintar dan canggih saat ini dengan RAM yang tinggi maka Permainan JUDI ONLINE yang mengasyikkan ini dapat Anda Download setiap saat. Di dalam Permainan denganSERVER PKV ini Anda semua akan di manjakan dengan beberapa Permainan Judi Kartu Poker dan Judi Kartu Domino yang dapat di mainkan dengan Pemain lain. Dan kami setiap puteran akan memberikan Jackpot Permainan di mana Anda haru smembayar Rp. 1000,-setiap Puteran Permainan jikalau ingin Bonus Jackpot dari AGEN PKV turun ke Akun ID Member Anda. BANDARQQ BANDARQQ ini merupakan salah satu Kata Kunci / Keywords yang banyak di cari oleh setiap Penggemar BANDARQQ. Di mana biasa Para Penggemar untuk saat ini selain memainkan BANDARQQ atau BANDAR QQ di Desktop Komputer atau Laptop. Biasa nya mereka juga ketika mendaftar DAFTAR BANDARQQ atau DAFTAR JUDI QQ sudah terbiasa memainkan Games Online ini dengan HP ANDROID atau HP IPHONE. Oleh sebab itu Para AGEN JUDI QQ ONLINE dan BANDAR JUDI QQ 2 Tahun terakhir ini demi memanjakan Para Gamers Mania. LOGIN PKV LOGIN PKV ini merupakan salah satu Kata Kunci Terbaik ketika Anda ingin menemukan AGEN JUDI QQ TERPERCAYA di Pencarian Google SERP. Karena saat ini banyak sekali Gamers Mania yang mencari-cari AGEN GAMES PKV yang terbaik untuk mereka percaya sebagai Mitra Permainan Judi Online. Di sini PenguinQQ justru mengajak Para Gamers Mania dan Para pengunjung Online untuk setiap mengikuti Perkembangan Situs Resmi kami ini. Di sini akan kami sajikan beberapa Pengertian dan Keterangan mengenai pentingnya PKV GAMES di dalam MAIN JUDIQQ. GAMES PKV GAMES PKV dari SITUS JUDIQQ sangat di perlukan di dalam suatu wadah Directory Listing dan Iklan Listing. Sehingga dengan adanya Situs tersebut kita akan mudah melihat suatu kredibilitas dari Perusahaan-Perusahaan Judi Online yang semakin banyak menjamur di Dunia Online. Dengan mengunjungi Situs Resmi PenguinQQ maka Anda semua dapat mengetahui AGEN JUDI Q dan KUMPULAN JUDI Q yang cukup di minati Penggemarnya ataupun di sini Anda dapat menambah Wawasan tersendiri dan memilih Games PKV yang cocok buat Anda mainkan sebagai Hobby dan Uji Kemampuan bermain Games Online Anda. JUDI PKV GAMES JUDI PKV GAMES ini nama yang sangat unik di mana kita akan membahas JUDI QQ dan JUDI QQ ONLINE. Di mana kita tahu bahwa saat ini JUDI ONLINE sangat menjamur di Internet. Berdasarkan Data Statistika Penggemar Judi Online saat ini semakin menggila di Dunia Online. Mereka tak segan-segan memilih semua Permainan Online yang berhubungan dengan Uji Ketangkasan dan Uji Keterampilan tapi mereka ingin menghasilkan uang dari Dunia Online. Oleh sebab itu hadirlah banyak sekali AGEN JUDI Q yang menyediakan wadah inspirasi bagi Para Penggemar Judi. Di mana di sini kita mengetahui bahwa di dalam Permainan Judi Online ini kita mengenal 2 SERVER GAMES JUDI yang cukup terkenal di Indonesia dan di Dunia pada umunya yaitu SERVER PKV dan SERVER IDN.

Excerpt from the introduction:
"ENHAGA  is  a  cutting  edge  two-year  project  that  aims  to develop  and implement  innovative  practices  to  eliminate cyber  harassment  for female  gamers  through  the development  of  an  online  game  and associated  tools.  The project  also  aims  to  promote  awareness  raising activities about  the  need  to  ensure  harassment-free  gaming environments  for  all.  The  ENHAGA  consortium  is  comprised of partner organisations  in  Italy,  Greece,  Cyprus  and  the UK. Between  April  and November  2020  the  ENHAGA  consortium conducted  desk  research and  qualitative  field  work  to assess  the  situation  in  each  of  partner countries  regarding online sexual harassment of girls and young women in video gaming,  as  well  as  online  harassment  and  cyber  bullying more  broadly.  This  report  provides  a  summary  of  these research findings.  As  such,  we  have  included  only  the  key findings  from  each country".

The article focuses on the social function of spelling alteration in online gaming communities, considering both technical terms and common words. In Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, word shortening is not simply a consequence of fast typing, it is an instrument members of the community unwittingly use to create a jargon that defines the group identity: therefore employing modified words determines their membership in the community and the hierarchical position within it.
The investigation of modified common words distribution reveals that abbreviations are more commonly used by people inexperienced in traditional and digital writing: there is a strong correlation between grammatical errors, typing mistakes, and abbreviations. In addition, abbreviations are largely used by people who rarely write in chat, therefore by people less skilled in computer-mediated communication. The analysis of technical terms shows that the ability to modify them is a trait of experienced members of the gaming community and a sign of social prestige.
In the final section we look at the complex relationship between the need to write quickly and the need to send clearly intelligible messages.

This study examines the social organization of Gaiscíoch, a large online gaming community that exists within the simulated world of a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). It provides an ethnographic account of an online gaming community that is open to any player without skill or time commitment requirements, but still maintains high status within the game world. This project identifies eight elements that make this inclusive, friendly, and casual community successful in virtual worlds that tend to be dominated by communities that have a competitive, strict, and exclusive approach to online gaming (social interaction, code of values, leadership, rank system, events, community building, population size, gameplay). Lastly, this project briefly inquires about the nature of the border between the virtual and the physical and establishes that gamers can be considered pseudo-border-inhabitants that are in control of the community they place adjacent to them in the cyber world.

The following article is an account about my experiences in the game world of Lord of the Rings Online aka LOTRO. I try to put on a game scholar hat and write a review of this game as if entering it for the first time, to explore what the game has to offer LotR and 'MMO'massively multiplayer online-fans alike.

By the term “personality” is defined in law the most coherent quality of empowered and protected subjectivity. As post-modernity features the division of the individual self, utilising in addition the intervention of technological themes to explore variants of activity and expression, contemporary legal science is challenged, on frequent occasions, with assessing the parameters of subsequently emerging trends and clearing the reshaped landscape by defining in its language the characteristics of advancing practices. With all these in mind, and overwhelmed by concepts of scattered identity as appearing within the ICTs context, we are facing a new problem of potential fallacy: could permanent manifestations of the person be accepted as extensions of the legally protected personality? Are e-mail accounts, online game characters and others similar projections of the individual on the information streamline, parts of the natural self that law enshrines or, simply,an enthusiastically overrated deception? Taking into account instances of legal persons contesting human rights in court and proprietary items being addressed-for functional purposes- by national legislations as persons, we may imagine the importance of granting personality rights or, at least, conceding to a limited ground of thereupon set line of defence. Opposite to the growing overpopulation of laws, which results in sluggish administration of justice, we need to reach to conclusions while carefully dealing with the conflict between legal and societal realism: the first calls for symmetry and prudence; the second demands for seeking out to preserve the most threatened value in our age of advancing commercialism and thin identity: the human individual.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) constitute virtual environments rich in task-oriented and social interactions among players. These interactions are directed both by the design of the environment as well as by the community of the players. There are strong indications that these environments constitute, beyond of environments for fun, environments of collaborative learning through interactions with peers. Through this paper, we review research in the area of collaborative learning and relate it to relevant findings from the area of research in MMOGs and findings from our own research, in an attempt to formulate a conceptual model for the investigation of collaborative learning processes in MMOGs.