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Master Thesis DIGITAL SYMBOLIC ARENAS Reinventing youth identity and emerging forms of play Erik Bredal Master’s Thesis Department of Social Anthropology UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN JANUARY 2020 This thesis will ethnographically analyze the interrelationships between gender, class, and subcultural styles using different video gaming groups primarily located in Bergen, Norway. I will discuss the structures of the groups and the video-game organizations that they participate in so as to examine how the games fit in with the players’ wider social and cultural life. The digital gaming scene provides a new arena for the articulation and reinvention of youth identity in its various contemporary forms. Alongside the game itself other things are being played out, such as cultural-social experimentations in social relations, forms of communication, and symbolic iconography. I unpack the interplay between users and technology by studying how game design works through its ability to organize aesthetics, narratives, and reward structures within virtual worlds. The genre preferences and gaming habits of different individuals are analyzed so as to examine the varying degrees of devotion to a game and indeed sometimes addiction to it. The increased accessibility of digital games has transformed the sociocultural context surrounding gaming activities making it part of new forms of mass consumption. New marketing strategies and ways of generating revenue are emerging, most prominently often employing chance-based game rewards that sometimes obscure the line between gaming and gambling. Due to increased consumer possession of technological devices, such as personal computers, gaming systems, and smartphones, the gaming market has become highly lucrative, for advertisers, those selling goods and for game developers. The later rely increasingly not on large single initial purchases but a continual stream of seemingly small insignificant purchases that often promise participation in the chance to win something big and in doing so further blurring the lines between gaming and gambling. iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................ III CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................... IV PREFACE ................................................................................................................................. VII CHAPTER I: EMERGENT GAMING COMMUNITIES AS SUBCULTURES ....................................... 1 A volunteer organization for digital gaming activities ...................................................... 2 The youth gaming club ...................................................................................................... 3 PC gamers .......................................................................................................................... 5 Console gamers ................................................................................................................ 11 Language and code of conduct ........................................................................................ 14 Gender disparity ............................................................................................................... 17 Masculinity in games ....................................................................................................... 19 Virtual fighting and violence ........................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER II: GAMING ADDICTION AND ESCAPISM ................................................................. 25 Escaping into fantasy ....................................................................................................... 27 Becoming someone else ................................................................................................... 29 Designing incentives to stay ............................................................................................ 37 When habit becomes addiction ........................................................................................ 39 A moral crisis ................................................................................................................... 41 CHAPTER III: MOBILE GAMING ACTIVITIES .......................................................................... 45 Gamer identity ................................................................................................................. 46 History of gaming ............................................................................................................ 49 iv Ethical issues in game design .......................................................................................... 53 A local game studio ......................................................................................................... 55 QuestLife.................................................................................................................. 56 Iconography and narrative setting ............................................................................ 59 Gameplay mechanics ............................................................................................... 60 Ranking hierarchy .................................................................................................... 62 Reward structures..................................................................................................... 63 Loot box controversy ............................................................................................... 64 Social mechanics ...................................................................................................... 74 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 79 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................ 81 v This ethnographic study is based on eight months of fieldwork primarily in Bergen, Norway between January and July 2017. The data was collected at various field sites including: a youth organization, a video game workplace, various online gaming communities, and a few other locations used for meeting interviewees. I will make use of pseudonyms for all participants and avoid using any identifiable personal details about them. The ethnographic research comprises a selection of unstructured interviews, field notes from observation, transcribed notes from recorded interviews, and computer chat logs and notes from online play sessions. Using the qualitative research method of participant observation, my data was gathered not only by observing but also by actively engaging in gaming activities. This meant not just online activities but also offline gaming activities that included how game participants socialized both before and after games where they planned and discussed game strategies and team approaches. I also interviewed game developers and promoters about the logic underpinning the sale and design of modern games. The earliest challenge I faced was finding a local gaming community willing to accept an outsider wanting to study them. Initially, I struggled to locate any public gaming gathering in Bergen. Fortunately, a fellow student offered me contact information for one of his friends who founded and ran a youth gaming venue. Its aim was to provide a social arena for the young gamers to meet “face-to-face”. A few weeks later I was equally fortunate to be hired in a part- time position as a support representative for a Norwegian game developer company. Participating in these two networks of gaming enthusiasts led to a snowball effect which provided me with opportunities to gather ethnographic data from both a consumer and developer standpoint. I have since been able to revisit some of my interlocutors at different times after the end of my fieldwork as I have been staying in Bergen while working on the thesis. Two of my interlocutors invited me to become a member of their online gaming group. I found these online communities to be a great additional source of ethnographic material. vii These online gatherings involved several individuals speaking into microphones on the computer, similar to conference calls, where they discussed not just games but also their relationships to each other, opponents, and the virtual world. This was done through a computer software called Discord, which allows users to create or join groups to chat with members who are online either by typing in text chat or speaking in voice chat. The notification sound of a new message appearing in the group chat often meant a request from a member asking if anyone would join them in playing a game. This allowed me to accompany some of my Bergen interlocutors into the online game worlds outside of work hours and the youth club gatherings where I could explore what kind of sociality and culture they were developing in this virtual space between other spaces. My interest in gaming activities in a Norwegian context originates from a desire to understand what the games mean for different individuals – how the games fit in with their other activities, interests, obligations, relationships, and forms of identification. Without intimate detailed knowledge of a game, it is difficult to grasp the significance of events that occurs within it. Likewise, I believe to
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