Social gaming: A systematic review

Digital games often constitute a shared activity where people can spend time together, communicate and socialize. Several commercial titles place social interaction at the center of their design. Prior works have investigated the social outcomes of gaming, and factors that impact the experience. Yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how social gaming has been approached and explored before. In this work, we present a systematic review covering 263 publications, gathered in February 2021, that study gaming experiences involving more than one person, with a focus on the social element that emerges among partakers (players and/or spectators). We contribute with a systematized understanding of (1) how the topic is being defined and approached, (2) what facets (mainly in terms of outcomes and determinants of the experience) are being acknowledged and (3) the methodologies leveraged to examine these. Our analysis, based on mixed deductive and inductive coding, reveals relevant gaps and tendencies, including (1) the emphasis in novel technologies and unconventional games, (2) the apparent negligence of player diversity, and (3) lower ecological validity associated with totally mediated evaluations and a lack of established constructs to assess social outcomes

Gaming and Gambling Disorders among Elderly and Challenges for Public Health Policy and Social Work

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Online Friendships and the Bird’s Nest Drawing in the Age of the Internet

This study was a qualitative exploration of friendships facilitated through the internet and online video games. The goal was to investigate how online friendships compare to in-person friendships in terms of quality. Three English-speaking participants who played an online video game and had an online friendship provided unique case studies describing the differences between an online and in-person friendship. The Bird Nest Drawing art assessment by Kaiser (1996; 2016) revealed themes of attachment security which helped explain the variations in the friendships. The findings of this study opened the topic of online friendships for further exploration in the field of art therapy, both in research and in a therapy setting

Virtual World Platforms End-User Motives

This study enlists four motive constructs (achievement, control, escapism, and friendship) to show significant differences exist across when applied to different VWs platforms, and shows VW platform studies need to be investigated in isolation, and not in combination. The four motive constructs differ, and in structural equation modelling they can be treated as a combined suite of input motives, and against one VW platform at a time. Such studies offer developers (and relational marketers) direction when formulating and building their VW platform’s sustainable positioning modelling outcome directions

Resources, capital, and players inside the game worlds: Bourdieusian approach to game cultures

Online gaming is all the time more ubiquitous. With the World becoming increasingly digitized and inter-connected, it is no wonder that the most popular pastime, gaming, is reachable quite literally anywhere. With this popularity comes the multitude of choices to fulfil any gamer’s needs and satisfaction for interactive media as companies are trying to tap into the ever-growing market. Some play to spend time with family and friends, some play to dominate others, some play to become rich, and everything in-between. The online game worlds, especially the games in the genre of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, can house inhabitants of all backgrounds, with all types of motivations, and offer more than enough activities for the inhabitants to enjoy. Despite the immense success of certain games that have defined the future of their respective genre, the research into the immersive and complex virtual worlds has been heavily focusing on aspects and effects external to the game and the act of gaming itself. There is a stern lack of focus on the happenings and lives of the inhabitants of the virtual worlds, apart from very few autoethnographies that attempt to go beneath the surface to explain the affordances that exists. Studies still largely focus on the players before and after they play the games where the in-game actions are rather nuance than the focus. This dissertation shifts the focus upside-down and explores, and explains, deeply through the resources circulating in and around the online multiplayer game worlds with the players themselves being rather side-lined. Used methods include quantitative survey, scoping review, qualitative, and frequency count. This dissertation shows that there just as many ways to live inside the game worlds as there are players. Thus, the main arguments of the work are related to: 1) socializing, the numerous ways to do so, and the importance of it inside the game worlds; 2) the ways avatars and players are able to, or willing to, accumulate resources; 3) using Bourdieusian approach to resources as types of capital is feasible and offers unique insight into the happenings of game worlds; 4) the types of capital as they have more nuance to them in the domain of video games than their broad definitions might let one expect. The results promote the view, that despite the sheer power of statistical analysis to categorize players, there can be found unique approaches to the games varying from the motivations and demographical attributes to focusing on the betterment of the game’s community through discussion forums. Every instance and every approach to gaming is just as valid as any other, which might seem like an obvious statement, but it is clear that the player-bases and sometimes even scholars forget about those playstyles that are in the margin. Further, the results increase the knowledge of how resourceful avatars can be, and what are possibly some intra-game and extra-game limiting factors on how well an entity can utilize the possible affordances. The academia has studies about the social life inside the game worlds, and studies about capital as resource around the game worlds, but they are rarely combined. Even more rare are the comprehensive studies taking a wider look on the life of the citizen of the game worlds with specific research aims or questions in mind. This dissertation gives multi-layered insight into this phenomenon with tangible examples to deliver a very precise message. For one to understand the avatars of games, one must think and approach them as conscious entities rather than only as tools for enjoyment. There is so much more going in the virtual worlds than one mere dissertation can ever include within its pages.Resurssit, pääomat ja pelaajat pelimaailmojen sisällä: Bourdieulainen lähestyminen pelikulttuureihin Verkkopelaaminen on enenevissä määrin kaikkialla läsnä. Maailman muuttuessa jatkuvasti digitaalisemmaksi ja verkostoituneemmaksi, ei ole ihme, että suosituin vapaa-ajan viete, pelaaminen, on saavuttanut lähes jokaisen kodin. Tämä kasvava suosio takaa sen, että jokaiselle pelaajalle on useita vaihtoehtoja, miten lähestyä ja käyttää interaktiivista mediaa, sillä yritykset taistelevat siivusta markkinoilla. Jotkut pelaavat viettääkseen aikaa kavereiden ja perheen kanssa, jotkut taas dominoidakseen toisia, joillekin rikkaus on ainoa tavoite, ja kaikkea tältä väliltä. Verkossa olevat pelimaailmat, etenkin massiivisten monen pelaajan verkkoroolipelien genreen kuuluvat, pystyvät tarjoamaan kodin pelaajille taustasta ja motivaatiosta huolimatta, sekä tarjoamaan heille enemmän kuin tarpeeksi aktiviteetteja ja tekemistä. Huolimatta tiettyjen pelien valtavasta menestyksestä, jotka ovat määrittäneet oman genrensä tulevaisuuden, tutkimus mukaansatempaaviin ja monimutkaisiin virtuaalimaailmoihin on keskittynyt voimakkaasti pelin ja itse pelaamisen ulkopuolisiin näkökohtiin ja vaikutuksiin. Virtuaalimaailmojen asukkaiden tapahtumiin ja elämiin keskittyvässä tutkimuksessa on suuria puutteita, lukuun ottamatta hyvin harvoja autoetnografioita, jotka yrittävät mennä pinnan alle selittääkseen kuinka erilaista kahden eri avatarin elämä voikaan olla. Tutkimukset keskittyvät edelleen suurelta osin pelaajiin ennen ja jälkeen itse pelisessioiden, jolloin pelin sisäiset toimet ovat enemmän vivahde kuin painopiste. Tämä väitöskirja kääntää painopisteen ylösalaisin ja tutkii sekä selittää syvällisesti verkkomoninpelien maailmoissa ja niiden ympärillä liikkuvia resursseja pelaajien itsensä ollessa melko sivussa. Käytettyihin menetelmiin sisältyy kvantitatiivinen kysely, kartoittava tarkastelu, laadullinen tutkimus sekä frekvenssilaskenta. Tämä väitöskirja osoittaa, että tapoja elää pelimaailmoissa on yhtä monta kuin pelaajiakin. Siten työn pääargumentit liittyvät: 1) lukuisiin tapoihin sosialisoida ja sen tärkeyteen pelimaailmassa; 2) tapoihin, joilla niin avatarit kuin pelaajat voivat, tai haluavat, kerätä resursseja; 3) Bourdieulaiseen lähestymistapaan, jossa pääomatyypit käsitellään resursseina, on käyttökelpoista ja tarjoaa ainutlaatuisen käsityksen pelimaailmojen tapahtumista; 4) pääomatyyppeihin, sillä niillä on enemmän vivahteita videopelien piirissä kuin niiden laajat määritelmät antavat odottaa. Tulokset tukevat näkemystä, että vaikka tilastollisen analyysin voimasta kategorisoida pelaajia, pelitutkimukseen voidaan löytää ainutlaatuisia lähestymistapoja, jotka vaihtelevat motivaatioista ja demografisista ominaisuuksista peliyhteisön parantamiseen keskustelufoorumeiden kautta. Jokainen tapaus ja jokainen lähestymistapa pelaamiseen on yhtä pätevä kuin mikä tahansa muu, mikä saattaa tuntua itsestään selvältä väitteeltä, mutta on selvää, että pelaajakannat ja joskus jopa tutkijat unohtavat marginaalissa olevat pelityylit. Lisäksi tulokset lisäävät tietoa siitä, kuinka neuvokkaita avatarit voivat olla ja mitkä ovat mahdollisesti joitain pelin sisäisiä ja pelin ulkopuolisia rajoittavia tekijöitä sille, kuinka hyvin he voivat hyödyntää resursseja. Akatemiassa on tutkimuksia pelimaailmojen sosiaalisesta elämästä ja tutkimuksia pääomasta resurssina pelimaailmoissa, mutta niitä yhdistetään harvoin. Vielä harvinaisempia ovat kattavat tutkimukset, jotka tarkastelevat pelimaailmaa asuttavien pelaajien elämää laajemmin erityisiä tutkimustavoitteita tai kysymyksiä silmällä pitäen. Tämä väitöskirja antaa monitasoisen käsityksen tästä ilmiöstä konkreettisten esimerkkien avulla. Ymmärtääkseen pelien avatareja, niitä täytyy ajatella ja lähestyä tietoisina kokonaisuuksina eikä vain viihteen työkaluna. Virtuaalisissa maailmoissa tapahtuu paljon enemmän kuin yksi väitöskirja voi koskaan pitää sisällään

Time Spent Gaming and Marital Quality: The Effect of MMORPGs

It is not known if, or to what degree, time spent playing massive multi online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) and adult attachment style affect marital quality. This study attempts to deliver a clearer image about the statistical links between MMORPGs and marital quality to better understand how MMORPGs can affect this relational area. Attachment theory is the theoretical model used in this study. The Hayes mediation analysis was used to answer the research questions. However, correlations were performed initially, to evaluate the suitability of the mediation analysis. The 240 respondents were selected using a convenience sampling approach, through the use of Amazon’s MTurk. It was predicted that adult attachment style would correlate with time spent playing MMORPGs and marital quality. Results indicated that the null hypothesis was rejected for the first three research questions (whether adult attachment style correlated with marital quality operationalized as conflict, neglect, affection, or intimacy; whether adult attachment style correlated with time spent playing MMORPGs; and whether time spent playing MMORPGs correlated with marital quality operationalized as conflict, neglect, affection, or intimacy. and was not rejected for the fourth research question (whether time spent playing MMORPGs mediated the relationship between adult attachment style and marital quality operationalized as conflict, neglect, affection, or intimacy). A professional, in practice, would benefit from knowing the research and acquiring the appropriate tools and resources that provide a competent understanding of gaming, specifically, MMORPGs resulting in positive social change

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Player Motivations and Problematic Involvement in Multiplayer Online Games: Exploring an Alternative Diagnostic Approach that Minimizes the Risk of Pathologizing Healthy Gaming Behaviors

More than 80 million people in the United States play online video games, and this prevalent form of entertainment has enabled players from various geographic settings to interact in highly complex and realistic virtual worlds. However, despite the popularity of online gaming and the evolution of a socially oriented culture, the rapid growth of the industry has raised concerns among parents, educators, clinicians, and the general public about the potential consequences of online gaming. The proposal to classify Internet gaming disorder as a behavioral addiction has produced considerable debate as to whether the classification is empirically justified. Evidence suggests that problematic online gaming cannot be measured using addiction criteria because of its inability to distinguish problematic usage from high levels of healthy engagement. The purpose of this study was to explore an alternative, non-addiction approach that would minimize the risk of pathologizing healthy gaming behaviors. A systematic review and random-effects meta-analysis was conducted to measure the relationships between player motivations and gaming-related problems. Results indicated that escapism and advancement were strongly associated with gaming-related problems. Teamwork and discovery were found to be unassociated with gaming-related problems. Implications regarding the complexity of the escapism construct, the need for a deeper understanding of advancement, the relevance of motivations that are unassociated with problems, and methodological issues within the literature are discussed. Recommendations for researchers, parents, gamers, clinicians, policy makers, and executive leaders are also provided