Where work is often perceived as productive and boring, play is considered frivolous and fun. If SNGs are framed as an easier entry point for girls and women into broader gaming cultures, it is imperative that alongside encouraging their play, we also equip them with the necessary tools to respond to the negative interactions that they might experience, thereby reducing the likelihood of their eventual disengagement from gaming. Furthermore, I argue that assumptions about collaborative and welcoming environments may also be setting novice players up for disappointment when they inevitably encounter anti-social behaviors within a SNG gaming community. I argue that if casual games are only ever seen as docile spaces of collaborative play, it reaffirms the gendered and stereotypical assumptions underpinning who plays SNGs and for what reasons. Drawing on posts made to an online forum devoted to YoWorld-a long-running Facebook game-I detail player frustrations with bullying and other forms of interpersonal conflict. In this article, I examine some of the negative interactions that happen within SNGs that may be obscured by the assumption-driven by benevolent sexism-that these games are entirely collaborative. Social Network Games (SNGs) are played via social networking sites such as Facebook. Implications are noteworthy for scholars and practitioners who intend to shed light on how diffused audiences negotiate toxicity in digital gaming and beyond. Findings point to peculiar interactive patterns in framing, supporting, and overturning toxicity and resulting harassment in these extended settings. The case study and related platforms were selected for their relevance and pertinence with the theme addressed. Results were processed with a content analysis relying on the driving concepts of toxicity and social affordance. Data (streaming online chat, user-generated content, and forum discussions) were collected daily for 4 weeks from and Steam channels about the popular online game DOTA 2. In this article, an alternative perspective is advanced, drawing from a foundation in media and culture studies.
#MEDIUM PAINTBOARD DIMENTIONS ON YOWORLD DRIVERS#
Most of the existing literature on toxicity in gaming is descriptive and exploratory it often sets out to map milestones and inherent drivers of toxicity. Toxicity is an important topic as it impacts game development, consumption, popularity, public perception, and player health and well-being. This is particularly true for digital entertainment like online games. Toxicity continues to have a strong presence in online environments. Keywords: Symbolic boundaries, gender, online harassment, gaming, identity
Symbolic boundaries in the virtual game feed into the social boundaries that shape the young players’ actions in the game and sense of self. This distinction works together with negative language and harassment in the process of excluding the feminine and female gamers, while masculine positions are allowed greater variation. The analyses show that game preferences, gaming styles and skills are constructed as a hierarchy, which defines what is perceived as an authentic gamer. The study is based on semi-structured interviews and observations of five young adults, both genders represented, in addition to studies of the game and observations of gaming. The analytic framework is based on theories of symbolic boundaries and the analytic concepts used are cultural distinctions, stereotypes and policing mechanisms.
This article shows how users of the online video-game The League of Legends (LoL) describe and negotiate symbolic boundaries and identity constructions. Rather, MMOGs and their associated online environments are experienced as part of the everyday, such that feminists and feminism are treated as threats to these virtual spaces and, by extension, to the enjoyment and sociability of an implicitly broader set of shared values about gender and sex roles. These concerns rely upon and aim to reinforce gendered power dynamics, illustrating how the digital and the virtual are not independent spaces. Themes like the feminist as killjoy, anxious masculinity and player agency recur across official and unofficial WoW forums regarding Ji Firepaw. Debates on the World of Warcraft online forums about changes to an upcoming in-game character named Ji Firepaw, who initially greeted characters with gendered and sexist dialogue, demonstrates how games and game communities are embedded in larger cultural contexts.
Everyday gendered experiences provide an affective framework for understanding participation in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and their community forums.
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