What does it take to 'be' a player? The skilled work of role-players in an online game space

• This paper takes departure in arguments and beliefs of playing activities within fantasy role-play and information- and communication technology. Opinions on how to play a fantasy role-playing game have been active since the 70s. The tension stem from, on one side, to play a game with rules and specific outcomes (instrumental play). On the other side, living and breathing as a fantasy character. Also, interactive media, as digital games, have been assumed to diminish the gap between representation and represented phenomena. Such arguments and assumptions can be seen in relation to online game environments, such as World of Warcraft, where computer game rules exists side-by-side with social norms. On certain game servers, role-playing rules exists on a meta-level. In other words, how to be and act as a role-playing character are only regulated within the community of role-play members. The paper describes and analyzes one sequence of screen captured video-data of players’ management of player characters – so called avatars – in interaction with other avatars, focusing both role-play and instrumental play. The work is based on interaction analysis, with influences of methods used in conversation analysis and ethnomethodology. What will be highlighted through the analysis of player actions when managing the tools at hand, i.e. the avatar, the game environment and the discourse produced by text in chat windows, are the ways in which players achieve role-play and instrumental play. The norms and values in online games can be regarded as institutionalized ways where members make visible role-playing phenomena. The players’ avatars are seen to use methods to manage and maintain a role-play focused discourse and perception. And at the same, through movements and actions of avatars, players conduct coordinated instrumental play. What is investigated in this study is the work that is needed to become, what some would call, immersed, and others being ‘in-character’. Thus, players are not per se absorbed in the game experience. As such, the paper investigates the skills needed and used to achieve such play. Using Goodwin’s concept of professional vision when scrutinizing the players’ accomplishment, the activity consist of a practice where discourse, perception and practical action are meshed. The competences players present through their avatars actions is seen as intertwining creative discursive activities with perceptual awareness of the game space.

Subject headings

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

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

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

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

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

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

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

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)