Research topic:
In my final project for this class, I intend to investigate to what extent college-aged males use accomplishments in video games as a form not only of social acceptance, but also of social posturing among friends.
As of this writing, video games have become an accepted, mainstream part of American culture. In contemporary society, they permeate American households, are sold at many mainstream retailers; a concrete percentage of American households that partake in video games could not be found, but ranged between the high sixties and low seventies for percentage depending on survey source. They are still not usually as celebrated as other forms of social activities. An individual who play sports well, or is prestigious in an academic field is still going to be more widely acclaimed than someone who plays video games well. And yet, video games have become a focal point of many people’s social circles, not merely for acclaim, but because these individuals find video games legitimately fun. Further, it follows that certain people in these gaming circles will be better at certain games than others. As such, it is worth exploring to what extent accomplishments within a game by a stronger player will be admired by a weaker player of that same game. One can then use this data to examine to what extent those same accomplishments will elevate the stronger player’s social standing. It is also worth examining to what extent the stronger player will draw the attention of weaker players in his social circle to his or her feats. Ultimately, this study will suggest that gaming, and especially gaming in a group setting occurs primarily for social reasons, and is evocative of Uses and Gratification theory.
Scope:
This study will examine various gaming social groups, with each group assigned to a particular game genre. Game genres to be incorporated in this study are fighting, shooting, sports, and massive multiplayer online role-playing games. This study will use exactly one contemporary game in the first three genres. For this study, a contemporary game will be defined as any game that has come out in the last three years. An exception will be made for the group whose focus is massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGS); the only game to be used in relation to that group is World of Warcraft, originally released in 2004. This exception will be made because World of Warcraft, in addition to being one of the more popular MMORPGS, is also best known to a wide variety of individuals. The researcher will observe approximately five meetings per group to ensure accuracy of findings. This will allow sufficient time to identify the levels of skill exhibited by each individual player, as well as each player’s social position within the game group.
Finally, groups must consist of at least four individuals, and no more than eight. Any fewer than four would make it difficult to determine the relationship between player skill level in relation to one another; it would be especially difficult to track social standing among so small a number of people. Groups consisting of more than eight individuals would run into the opposite problem. There would be too many individuals to keep track of all at once, or more specifically, it would be very difficult to track each person’s respect level for every other person in the group. It would also be difficult to keep track of each player’s reactions to each other player’s bragging. Finally, for a group to be considered as such, the individuals within it will need to meet fairly consistently, at a minimum of at least once every week. Any period longer than that would make data collection sporadic and unreliable; it would become very difficult to track bragging and its results on feelings of respect among players with meetings occurring so infrequently.
Background context/How did this research question emerge?:
Research hypotheses:
In this study, bragging will be defined as an individual who draws consistent attention to his actions within a game with the intent of demonstrating a difference in skill between himself and another player who is unable to perform those same feats.
H2: The amount of admiration expressed for the stronger player’s feats by weaker players will vary depending on genre. However, weaker players will always attempt to emulate stronger player’s actions regardless of genre.
Considerable past work has been done with a focus on video games. However, it should be said that no studies could be found that covered the exact material found in this project. What follows is a literature review utilizing studies whose findings can be related to the idea of bragging and social hierarchy, as well as used to draw general inferences about the same. It is ultimately meant to establish a ground for this project to work off of.
It is first worth noting that video game groups have been studied for the purposes of tracking aggression and hostility. Matthew Eastin, whose study engages hostility between competitive and team based gaming, notes that males tend to be more competitive when playing in larger groups. Further, players who were verbally more aggressive while actually gaming displayed great hostility after the fact. Accordingly, larger groups examined in this study might display more hostility or verbal aggressiveness while gaming. However, Eastin also notes several previous studies that posit that “group gaming produces positive social effects” (Eastin, 2007, p. 462). This would be in line with the Uses and Gratifications theory that this study uses as its framework; more specifically, the fact that gaming does produce “positive social effects” (p. 462) supports the idea that groups will meet with sociality as a primary motivating factor.
Scholar Hou Jinghui, in a study presented in 2010, examined social games, which he defined as games played specifically through a browser. By observing social game players, Jinghui was able to discover that “the gratifications of being a popular figure among friends predicted increased playing” (p. 17). This means that the motivation of being socially popular will probably be present in games played within a group setting. This will hold true even though these games are played offline.
Jinghui’s study was able to discover a large correlation “between the amount of game play and the expected game gratifications for competition and challenge” (Jinghui 2010, p. 17). This supports the idea that the gratification one expects to receive via any given media plays a large role in selecting to peruse it, which again is relatable to the Uses and Gratifications theory. This is corroborated by Lucas and Sherry’s discovery of the six primary factors that motivate game engagement, cited by Jinghui as “competition…challenge…social interaction…diversion…fantasy…[and] arousal” (as cited in Jinghui, 2011, p. 12). Given this, it is very likely that the relation between game play and expected gratification will translate to games played in a group setting. Finally, Jinghui discovered a positive correlation between game play intensity and popularity, which can be connected to social standing.
Some work has also been done on the effects of audience presence of video games and how the same can change in relation to players of high and low skill. In 2011, Nicholas Bowman and Ron Tamborini presented a paper with this subject as its thesis. It was found that the presence of an audience, as well as the overall challenge of the game being played had considerable effects on players while gaming. In particular, players of low skill were found to enjoy a game less when an audience was observing, although their actual performance did not suffer. Players of high skill were also found to enjoy games less. However, Bowman and Tamborini were able to demonstrate that under certain conditions, the score difference between high and low skilled gamers would increase when an audience was present. Because the performance of low skill players was not shown to be affected by an audience, it can be derived that highly skilled gamers will perform better in front of an audience, even if their overall enjoyment went down. It is possible that the dynamic between player skill and game enjoyment will be re-created in this study, although it is not being specifically searched for. Further, because prior studies have shown that nearly half of all college students play video games as a form of relaxation, it is possible that this relationship between player skill and game enjoyment is consistently re-created on a large scale.
Work has been done studying specifically MMORPGS. Williams, Consalvo, Caplan and Yee published a study with this genre at its focus. Of the four types of games examined herein, MMORPGS are the only one that specifically requires sociality. The MMORPG genre requires a player to log onto servers, which will inevitably be populated by other players of the same MMORPG. World of Warcraft, examined in this study, has several million users. The end result is that even if one does not play an MMORPG with friends, one will be forced to interact with other individuals. However, players of MMORPGS showed “a systematic underestimation of playing time among all players” (Williams et. al, 2009, p. 712). The fact that the researcher will be sitting in on MMORPG gaming sessions directly, for a predetermined amount of time, should mitigate this possible issue.
Further, Williams et. al cited their own previous work which showed that males were more likely to play a game for achievement oriented reasons. This is very significant to the idea of player bragging. If a male player is expected to place a high value on in-game achievement, it might be expected that he would draw other player’s attention to that same achievement. The extent to which a player does this, and the way in which others respond is the very focus of this project.
Work has also been done connecting masculinity and gaming. More specifically, Eden, Nicholas, and Maloney in a study presented in 2009, found the level of masculinity attributed to a given player could vary based on game genre. Players were “rated…as more ‘male’ when the clips featured a shooter game than when the game being played was an MMO or a puzzle game” (p. 16). Participants regardless of game genre also assumed a male player, correlating findings by other studies that put forward gaming as a primarily masculine arena. However, the same study also found that perceptions of player masculinity did not go up or down in correlation with the player’s skill as a gamer. These findings are particularly relevant to Hypotheses One and Two of this study. There is a possible correlation between the “manliness” of a game, and the amount of bragging it could produce. Moreover, it is possible that admiration for highly skilled players will be less present in games that are typically thought of as being less male; in the context of this study, this would mean that one would see less admiration for skilled actions taken in an MMORPG setting. The implications of these possible links are discussed more fully in the expected results section.
Lastly, Steve Jones (2003) published a study dealing specifically with college-aged students and gaming. Several of his findings are extremely pertinent to this project. He discovered that “65% of college students [were] regular or occasional game players” (Jones, 2003, p.2). Significantly, students cited social activity as a large reason for gaming, corroborating Lucas and Sherry’s idea that sociality is a primary factor in video game usage. Of all the students involved with Jones’ study, “[o]ne out of every five gaming students felt…that gaming helped them make new friends as well as improve existing friendships” (p. 2). It is highly likely that such a mentality will lead to the creation of gaming groups. Perhaps most importantly, Jones’ study reveals gaming as a legitimate pastime that college students consistently make time for, and even build schedules around.
Subjects and Methodology:
The subjects of this study will be college attending males from age 18-22. As mentioned Jones’ study found that sixty five percent of college students played games consistently as of 2003. The video game industry has stayed strong since that time, and there is no reason to believe this statistic would have significantly decreased in recent years. As such, students who fit this study’s target demographic should be relatively easy to locate in keeping with this statistic. Moreover, college students lead relatively stressful lives, and will turn to various activities to de-stress or unwind. Video games are one such distraction. Flyers and campus email could be utilized to advertise the study and specifically request that any gaming groups that fit the specifications of the study and are interested in participating contact the researcher. The ease of contacting the researcher and setting up time(s) to participate in the study will also attract subjects in the targeted demographic. The actual composition of each gaming group is not controlled beyond the aforementioned age and gender specifications, and will thus largely depend on the natural breakdown of each group.
This research project will include a combination of survey and field observation research methodology. A set procedure will be followed for each gaming group that participates. To begin with, each player in the group will be given a survey in which they rank the skill of each player in their group -including themselves- on a 10-point scale (extremely unskilled to extremely skilled). The researcher will then sit in on each groups gaming session, and assign each player a number value 1 through 8, depending on the number of players in the group. Whenever a player brags during the gaming session, the researcher will make a tally under the corresponding number. If the players with a higher skill ranking brag more than players with low skill rankings in the majority of cases, Hypothesis One will be supported.
The researcher will also watch for advanced techniques or actions performed by stronger players in the game. As these techniques are identified, the researcher will observe the actions taken in the game by weaker players, specifically to see if they attempt to emulate actions taken by the stronger gamer. If emulation occurs in the majority of cases, than Hypothesis Two will be supported.
Participants will be given an additional questionnaire at the end of each of their group’s gaming sessions; this questionnaire will test for both Hypothesis Three and Four It will ask players to rank each player in their group, excluding themselves, by level of respect held for them. If players that are ranked as highly skilled are also given the highest respect ranking, then Hypothesis Three will be supported. Finally, the same questionnaire will also ask the players to rank the importance of the six primary factors that motivate individuals to play a game. They will also be asked to rank the importance of their gaming group in relation to their overall social life on a scale from one (not important at all) to ten (very important). If the majority of players rank social interaction as the primary reason they play, and rank the importance of the gaming group highly (defined in this study as seven or above) Hypothesis Four will be supported. It is possible that players will rank the relevance of the gaming group in relation to their social life fairly low, but still select social interaction as the primary motivator for playing, or vice versa. In this case, Hypothesis Four would be partially supported.
It should be noted that female gamers are excluded from this study. This is not because of lack of respect for the female gamer, but rather because to test levels of respect, player skill etc. for the female gamer would require one to determine the difference between male and female gamer respect, as well as what constitutes “bragging” among female gamers as compared to males. This is a beyond the scope of this study. At best, two separate studies could be conducted to determine male and female respect and bragging levels, but a comparison between both studies would be difficult.
Were this research to be performed, Hypothesis One would likely be accepted across all game genres. Jinghui (2011) citing Lucas and Sherry (2004) noted competition and challenge as two of six factors motivating game play (p. 12). Certainly, the desire to be the best competitor would motivate individuals to brag about their achievements to others in order to assert superiority and show that they are able to do things that others cannot. The studied literature gives no reason that bragging levels will go down based on these genres. Although it has been found that the type of game being played can affect perception of player maleness, a group of individuals mutually playing the same game should not encounter this issue. This is because individuals mutually playing the same game for enjoyment are unlikely to interact differently with their friends because others may find their hobby unmanly. As such, the amount of bragging should not be affected by how “male” a particular genre is considered to be. Finally, because sociality is also a significant motivator in playing a video game, it is unlikely that bragging will ever be done with sinister intent among friends. As no one wants to spend time with someone who actively mocks them or their group of friends, such a behavior will likely lead to varying degrees of isolation from the group as a whole.
Hypothesis Two will likely be rejected. Again, it is true that levels of masculinity have been found to correlate to game genre. However, if everybody is playing the same genre and moreover, the same game, there is little to suggest that admiration for strong play would decrease. This also nullifies the possible link between perceived maleness and decreased expression of admiration in the MMORPG setting. There is no feasible reason that an individual in a group that plays one sort of game for mutual enjoyment would deride others within that same group for doing so. It is possible that the mode of admiration would change (for example, a high five for a strong play in a shooting game versus a typed out congratulations in an MMORPG setting), but the actual amount of admiration should not shift.
Nothing studied in the current literature implies that weaker gamers will attempt to emulate, specifically, the actions performed by stronger players. However, Bowman and Tamborini did discover that the presence of an audience could decrease enjoyment of a given game for weaker players. Accordingly, it might be expected that weaker players within a gaming group will derive less overall enjoyment from games played within that group, as they will be displaying their lack of skill for all their friends to see.
Hypothesis Three will likely be partially supported. Game play intensity has been positively correlated with popularity. By extension, an individual who is able to play a game with more intensity, -meaning high amounts of skill- will likely garner more respect than someone that cannot play the game very intensely, meaning someone with low skill. The highly skilled individuals would often be given a higher social standing than those with low skill. However, the idea that this phenomenon will occur in every situation is not defensible. It would be found that some groups get together just to play, and put little to no bearing on player skill; in such situations, Hypothesis Three would be rejected.
Hypothesis Four will likely be entirely supported. Social interaction is listed as one of the six primary factors for gaming, and playing games is intrinsically social. Therefore, meeting for social needs is a given. Further, the reason that anybody selects to use any media is based on the gratification one expects to receive via its use. Because this study examines groups of friends who get together, one can reasonably expect enjoyment to be a primary motivator, as it is unlikely that friends will gather to partake of an activity that is not mutually enjoyed. Ultimately, the presence of any of Lucas and Sherry’s six motivations as noted by Jinghui does not exclude the motivation of legitimate enjoyment, and secondary motives can be fulfilled while still enjoying the process of gaming.
Useful Links that Demonstrate Some Aspects of This Study:
Observation of Players with High Skills-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cW2nMf1gk
General Bragging in a Sports Game Setting (Madden-Skip to 1:06 in the video)-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m93cf-b1nQ
A large group of individuals playing World of Warcraft together. They work collaboratively to fight one of the game's bosses. Note that the number of individuals shown playing in this video exceeds the maximum number of players that a group may have to officially participate in this study. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oqt-TAhVSI
No videos could be located of individuals playing a shooting game in a group setting that did not contain a high amount of swearing and potentially offensive language. A separate study might address this issue.
Academic Sources/References:
Affect Performance and Enjoyment of Video Games. Proceedings for Annual Meeting
of the International Communication Association, p. 1-36. Retrieved from EBSCOhost
on November 15th, 2011.
Roles and Behaviors Among Online Gamers. Journal of Communication 59, p. 700-
725. Retrieved from EBSCOhost on October 26th, 2011.
Play on State Hostility. Human Communication Research, 33, p. 450-466. Retrieved
from EBSCOhost on November 15th, 2011.
Games. Proceedings for Annual Meeting of the International Communication
Hou, J. (2010). Uses and Gratifications of Social Games: Blending Social
Networking and Game Play. Proceedings for Annual Meeting of the International
Communication Association, p. 1-30. Retrieved from EBSCOhost on November 15th,
2011.
College Students. Pew Internet & American Life Project, p. 1-14. Retrieved from
www.PewInternet.org on November 25th, 2011.
Street Fighter: The Beast is Unleashed [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cW2nMf1gk on December 1st, 2011.
Two Guys Playing Madden [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m93cf-b1nQ on December 1st, 2011.
[Raid] Funny Onyxia 25 (off tank point of view) [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oqt-TAhVSI on December 1st, 2011.
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