5. Gaming and Game Culture

5.     Gaming and Game Cultures

With traditional media, such as broadcast and print, the consumer gets little choice or control over what is offered to them and thus, audience were considered to be passive consumers of media texts; However with new media, interactivity in a key concept because it enables a high degree of choice by the user. Players become not just the consumer of the media text, but the creator of their own media as well. New media texts make possible a highly customised and personalised experience.   

In games the player takes control of the playing conditions, some games can customise and personalise the playing character with choice of appearance, down to gender, ethnicity, and the attire they want their character to wear. In combat games, one is given the choice of weaponry, through to affiliations and locations to hang out in. Some games give complete creator control to the player where they have to build everything from the ground up (as done on sim games).  The character/avatar in the game becomes more than just a character, it embodies the players tastes, interests, personality and preferences, it can also satisfy curiosities or give players the chance to interact with and explore things (such as changing gender) with their characters/avatars that one could not easily do in real life. The choice is placed in the players hands from crucial decisions through to the trivial. Flew (2005) contends “Because of the goal-driven nature of games, the emotional engagement with the text comes, not from the engagement with characters and events, such as occurs in conventional narratives, but because the player is the performer, and the game evaluates the performance and adapts to it.” (P. 112). 

 Another form of interactivity is the actual communication that takes place and that is due to the game. Player-to-player communication is seen as a key variable in multidimensional models of video game enjoyment. Receiving information from other players helps complete quests/tasks in the game and increases one’s success. Players may also regard the messages they produce as part of their influence on the game world which also renders this type of player-to-player interaction as a facilitator of experience. Communication with other players or their avatars may also serve to identify with one’s own role or character in the game and giving encouragement and support helps esteem. Another type of communication that can take place is dialogue between the game industry and players where the player enters into ongoing interactive dialogue about the nature of the game and the player can become what is known as a 4^th party developer of the game’s content, design, and engineering.

 Interactivity can also go one step further where players create communities around their game activities such as what one sees in sports and clubs. New media games have become very interactive and social to the point where teams are formed and play against other teams across local area networks, homes, or in public places often reported by the media. An example of interactive games I have personally played are the one’s found on facebook such as Mafia Wars and Vampire wars where a big part of the experience is playing with other friends (named your mafia family, or vampire clan) you can work with these members to improve your skill and status and fight battles with other players.

 

As you have seen the concept of interactivity is significant in the analysis of new media texts because it helps define the new qualities of new media technology. Interactivity greatly contributes to not only a game’s success and popularity but in its very creation of and the relationship between player and the game.  

References

Flew, T., & Humphreys, S. (2005). Games: Technology, Industry, Culture. New Media. (Flew, T. Ed.). Australia: Oxford University Press.