Slides for lesson one in online gaming culture

1. Online Gaming culture
Wk 1

2. What is online - what is a game
Suits Definition of a game -
"the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" - Lusory contract

3. What is Culture?
Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed
down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes
codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, art

4. Competition
Caillois - 4 game factors - Competition/Chance/Mimicry/Mimicry
New games Movement - co-operative play

5. TAYLOR Play Between Worlds
Exploring Online Game Culture
IIn Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps—as
players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common
assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys.
Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in
real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are
fundamentally social spaces.
Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an
Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)—including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its
blurring of online—and offline life—and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but
raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and
examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play—and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be
painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow
stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And
she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the
major corporation behind the game.

6. What is a sport -
Compare sport to games - sportification - facilitation theory
Sportificiation - ‘Sportification means to either: (a) view, organize, or regulate a non-sport activity in such a way that it
resembles a sport and allows a fair, pleasurable, and safe environment for individuals to compete and cooperate, and compare
their performances to each other, and future and past performances; or (b) add a sport component to an existing activity in order
to make it more attractive to its audiences. As the sport industry itself is embracing e-sports as a sport, scholars should embrace e-
sports as a manifestation of sportification and examine their negative and positive effect on our industry.’ Bob Here
Social Facilitation theory - ‘One of the most established, long-standing theories in the field of social psychology is the theory
of social facilitation (Allport, 1924; Zajonc, 1965), positing that the presence of others influences – and typically improves –
physical and cognitive performance. The very first study documenting this effect – often regarded as sport psychology's founding
experiment (Aiello & Douthitt, 2001; Weinberg & Gould, 2014) – was carried out by Triplett (1898). In his seminal study, the
presence of other co-acting individuals yielded increased performance in cycling competitions (which Triplett ascribed to the
arousal of individuals' competitive instincts), thereby providing first evidence for the effect of others on physical performance.’

7. Casual Revolution
‘There is a new wave of video games that seem to solve the problem of the
missing pull; games that are easy to learn to play, fit well with a large number of
players and work in many different situations. I will refer to these new games using
the common industry term casual games.’ Jesper Jules

8. Calleja - Incorporated player
‘Immersion refers to a player’s sensation of inhabiting simulated space. Precursor attention and
involvement.
This model encompasses two constituent temporal phases: the macro, representing offline
involvement, and the micro, representing moment-to-moment involvement during gameplay, as well
as six dimensions of player involvement: kinesthetic, spatial, shared, narrative, affective, and ludic.
Incorporation, I argue, is a more accurate metaphor, providing a robust foundation for future
research and design.’
Calleja In Game

9. Bart Simon
Wii are out of control
Gestural Excess - play as performance
to be watched.
Play as performance, watching others play.

10. Esports Tournaments
Twitch
Live
Tournaments.

11. Hard and Soft Mastery
Chaim Gingold (2003),

12. Virtuosity
The communication of an idea of another through the way you interpret a score.

13. TASK
Design an infographic showing facts across online games
Design an infographic showing the facts for one online game

15. Infographic
‘a chart, diagram, or
illustration (as in a book or
magazine, or on a website)
that uses graphic elements
to present information in a
visually striking way … an
infographic showing how
much time the average
person spends reading
some popular novels.’