Her friend used the “Ultimate Online” as a chat room in order to talk with his friends, which he had met online and in the “real world”. Apart from that he enjoyed the competition with other players and he was eager to collect as many goods as possible.
To be honest, I like to think of people, who play computer games, as some losers who don’t have a social life. Instead, they’re hanging around in virtual worlds where they don’t have to deal physically with other people. When I think of gamers I think of pale teenagers, who never see the sun and who leave the house only in order to buy frozen pizza. But is that true? And what are the general motives for playing online games? Does Lucy’s friend represent the average online gamer?
Scientists Sherry, Lucas, Rechtsteiner, Brooks and Wilson found the answer to those questions in a study. (2) The study was based upon the Uses and Gratifications Theory, which is a theory of mass communication. It is an audience-centered approach, which means that instead of focusing on the message itself it is asking “what people do with media” rather than “what media does to people”? (3) It assumes that the audience seeks out a media in order to gratify certain needs, to meet personal needs.
In their study, Sherry et al. wanted to examine why people enjoy video games. They were interested in their motives and how they affect the genre preferences and the amount of time they spent with playing online games. In order to find that out they interviewed almost 2.000 American students. They carried out group-interviews with students that were between 18 and 22 years old. Furthermore they developed a questionnaire and distributed it to 555 college students and 1.265 high school students. The questionnaire contained a scale for different gratification dimensions: Competition, Challenge, Social Interaction, Diversion, Fantasy and Arousal.
Well, consequently, I have to admit that the picture of a gamer as a sociopath in my head is wrong and that playing computer games can be referred to as a kind of sport. However, critics say that user emphasized more on the competitive, social character of gaming (instead of escapism) because it corresponds better with their self-perception.
In their paper, the researchers note that “despite this popularity, the study of video games is still in its infancy”, especially studies that focus on the gratification of video effects and not on the “traditional effects” such as aggression. (2)
(1) http://awarecrew.blogspot.com/2011/02/addiction-to-unreal-world-online.html
(3) Katz, E. (1959). Mass communication research and the study of culture. Studies in Public Communication, 2, 1-6.
Wooooo when I start reading your post I feel quite offended, gamers losers who don’t have a social life and prefer virtual worlds to not deal with other people!! That is quite a big statement to do O_o
ReplyDeleteI won't say that all the people that play video games are super social in real life, but in fact I think they have a very strong sense of community and they interact a lot with other gamers. Video games are just as any other social activity where people search for challenge and recognition just that different from sports we don't go to a stadium, get wasted and destroy things....
Of course, I was exaggerating. By writing that, I just wanted to say that many people actually think of gamers in that way. Anyway, as the study proved, this stereotype is not true and it confirmed that playing video games can in fact be seen as a kind of sport.
ReplyDeleteIt was the first study that looked at the motives for gaming and not on the "classical effects" of gaming such as aggression, isolation etc.
So in the end, my post is pro gaming, not against it.