Walking as a dragon slayer: Analyzing online gamers make-believe discourse within a coordinated game activity

• Computer game activities can be mistaken for an easygoing and non-communicative form of entertainment. Such descriptions have shortcomings when seen in relation to what players do in an online game world. Knowledge about the game interface and game specific tasks within the game world is a starting point to act in such social world. As a social world the complexness originates from the multifarious activities players do together when playing and socializing. As such, online game worlds consist of communication mediated through typed text in chat channels (or voice-chat), and interaction between the player’s puppet (i.e. avatar), the game world and other players doings. Such avatar-mediated-interaction has been said to be insufficient in relation to what we do in face-to-face settings (cf. Moore, Ducheneaut & Nickell, 2007). The point of departure in this work concern the ways players actively maintain a role-play discourse concerning something else than is visible in the game space, while at the same time achieve a coordinated game activity. Instead of seeing this layered activity as insufficient or problematic, the material is seen as activities that players do as “visible-rational-and-reportable-for-all-practical-purposes” (Garfinkel, 1967, p. vii). The empirical material comes from naturally occurring video-recorded avatar-interaction within the online game World of Warcraft. Detailed transcripts have been transformed into sequential art to highlight aspects of the recordings to make the setting understandable for outsiders. Further, the empirical material is also used to raise issues in relation to how to collect and utilize transcriptions of such data.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Communication Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialantropologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Anthropology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Computer gaming

MMORPG

Role-Playing

Screen-captured data

World of Warcraft

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