Sociology of Video Games

In the 1960s and 70s, videogames emerged as a new form of software technology which allowed people to experience innovative ways of playing games in a virtual context via a controller and a screen. Ever since, the gaming industry has grown exponentially and continues to attract new users and designers across the globe. Even though we are not going to go over the history of videogames or games in general. We will still explain some play and games concepts which we think to be relevant in the context of this research concerning videogames related advertisements and the gamer's body. Throughout this paper, I will use the term " gamer's body " to refer to any individual's body who's accustomed to playing videogames and the word " gameplay " to talk about the actual play experiences (the uses of the virtual gamer's body or the uses of the gamer's body in-game) which videogames are valued to be delivering especially in ads. However, the readers must keep in mind that they are different degrees and reasons to why an individual might identify himself as a gamer and 'play or be invested in a specific videogame.' Each game has an impact on the overall industry especially if it has been experienced and reviewed positively by a significant number of gamers. Similarly, each gameplay experience as well as each gamer's experience derived from a videogame's gameplay via the gamer's body will influence their next choice when buying a newly released one. Basically, we will argue that the social significance of videogames lies within the use of the gamer's body which able us to experience other appearances, in designed virtual worlds full of challenges and roles, that would otherwise be physically impossible to undertake. As a result, it will able us to draw conclusions about what ideas surround the gamer's body as both socially significant in the virtual worlds of games and the real physical life body.

The 21st century opened the door for the videogame industry to become a 100-billion-dollar industry according to Super Data’s 2017 . A lot of scholars have been studying why video games generates so much monetary and social interactions between populations around the world. Among the reasons why this industry boomed, some regard the evolution of digital technologies as a major source of democratization, others help to discuss the various qualities of gaming experiences whether online or offline and many always put forward the people who helped the industry, community and culture to progress.
Our focus will not be aimed at the people responsible for the creation of games but rather at the ones who entertain people by playing video games. Although we will still discuss about how both have been stimulating interactions between game studios and their communities. We will mainly be describing the role of influencers as driving forces of content within the videogame community.
We will try to give an overall picture of what is a gaming influencer and the various digital or physical platforms that they interact with, to hopefully become famous and live from their activity. We will build our analysis upon a quick historical summary, my personal experience, the recent stories of current major influencers and writings about influencer social, cultural and marketing practices. Keep in mind that we will also try to interpret the reasons behind the influencers’ decision-making as well as why his or her community reacted in such ways. Finally, we will conclude our arguments by regarding how online communities thrive through social media practices allowed by a sharing system of user and influencer generated contents.

As soon as the first videogame was invented, its creators had to imagine a way to interact with their virtually composed world, a way to make it playable for all and not just for avid programmers. Even though, the game could be functional by itself (AI versus AI), the activity of human play could only take place if and only if an individual could properly interact in-game through a virtually human controlled thing. Whether it was a virtual character, vehicle, animal, human, society, robot or else. Our means to its control and enjoyment of its use in a playable universe takes often place via a videogame controller. Therefore, we would tend to argue that the gaming experience is essentially the result formed through interactions between the use of control and their repercussions in-game.

    Today, we are interested in explaining how videogames controllers and in particular the GameCube one became a culturally symbolic object throughout the evolution of the gaming industry and its physical/virtual use. We will study in what ways this culturally significant object was shaped in the gaming culture by its supporters and developers. In other words, we are going to study how the interactions between players and their controllers have been influenced by an evolution in the cultural and practical knowledge of gaming. Hopefully, we will prove that the controller is the key towards a unique play experience as well as a way of understanding the sociological and cultural significance of gaming. However, our main focus will be to try to sketch the evolution of the social and cultural use of controllers and study the reasons behind the ‘unique’ design of the GameCube controller...

On October 9th 1993, the Casino of Montreal opened up as a new adult public place owned by the provincial government through the corporation of Loto-Québec. Today, it still inherits the original exterior design of the ‘Pavilion de France’ during the universal exposition of 1967. We will discuss of this casino after he was adjusted in 2009 renovations to modern consumption methods  similarly used in shopping centers.

We are looking to study why this casino became a symbolic cultural place through the ways in which it impacts people’s lives and behaviors. During our participant observation research, we tried to understand the cultural and social relevance of the casino experience. We explored the casino and the 777 bus and managed to figure out some of the patterns, habits and objectives behind the people who chooses this experience. However, I believe that to understand the meanings generated by it we have to explain how they correspond to a range of behaviors.

Therefore, we first had to aim at sketching the population of casino enthusiasts in order to draw attention at the reasons behind choosing the casino experience. In general, we tend to observe the interactions between the individuals and the casino whether through its employees, machines, tables and activities. Nonetheless, the interactions between clients are also important since they are mostly forged around the casino’s activities. However, for such interactions, you must be a client as well which we could not afford as much, the bus was another way to reach out to casino enthusiast as well as to not disrupt the casino’s clients. So far, we only experienced the act of casino gambling two times and we shall demonstrate what we have learned from them in the final paper. How does the casino excite human interactions through unique types of consumption incentives linked to gambling or what I would call it the ‘playability of money’? Are gambling and casinos culturally representative of the modern society?

Here are results from a survey that I conducted for my research paper on The SSB Series and Super Smash Bros. Melee: the origins and consequences of a socio-cultural based videogame from casual to competitive play. You may take the survey yourself here : https://goo.gl/forms/ZTSQcEHxTteNSGaE2

This thesis examines the motivation of players of video games for their playing, and the strategy of these players for overcoming feelings of depression, using the methods of grounded theory. The first part deals with the approach of sociology and selected studies towards the issue of video games and mental disorders, to which I then relate the findings of my own research at the final chapter. In the second part of this work I present what methodology has been used and how. In the final part I lead a discussion about the findings and outcomes of my research.

The Super Smash Bros. Series and Super Smash Bros. Melee: the origins and consequences of a socio-cultural based videogame from casual to competitive play Games are components of human life and bring meaning to how we make sense of our cultural and social world through the play experience. Therefore, I have and continue to study how the Smash games and especially Super Smash Bros. Melee affected, and still affects, gamers and especially competitive gamers or players into uniting around a common play consciousness for the sake of smash play, because of its players' social and play usage of a socio-cultural based videogame. From this perspective, I will use academic sources around the play forces of this game as well as fighting games, competition and game studies in general to try and prove some of the relationships between sociological and cultural processes that formed the smash gaming culture. We will see that those relationships where mainly created in the shift from 'smash casual play' to 'smash competitive play' and the origins of the smash games. I will start by explaining how smash culture and play (smash play) came to emerge by looking at their origins. Then, I will add how Smash play can be defined by making distinctions between Smash's casual and competitive play. In order to try and see how both influenced the Smash culture through various play forms and shared socio-cultural gaming appurtenance. This study will be mostly based of the use of Joeri Taelman's thesis Playing with the script: Super Smash Bros. Melee, Todd Harper's book The Culture of Digital Fighting Games: Performance and Practice and my understanding of the class objectives and readings as well as my personal research, information gathered, survey and interviews, through an active participation into understanding this gaming culture.

Úvod V této seminární práci se pokouším aplikovat folklorní přístup ke zkoumání kolektivní paměti na data, která jsem získal z rozhovorů pro mou diplomovou práci 1, jejímž cílem byl hloubkový průzkum strategií hráčů videoher proti pocitům deprese pomocí metody grounded theory. Primární aspekt, na který se v této seminární práci soustředím, je podoba paměti hráčů videoher, kteří vzpomínají na to, jakým způsobem a v jakém prostředí hráli videohry v minulosti, a jak vnímají proti tomuto obrazu minulosti současnou podobu hraní videoher. Sekundárním aspektem je pak identita těchto hráčů videoher. Přesněji to, jak se vymezují jako tzv. " gameři " a jaký má tato identita pro ně význam ve specifickém rámci, jež je hraní videoher. Metodologie Data, které používám pro účely této seminární práce, jsou výsledkem jedenácti rozhovorů provedených pro mou diplomovou práci. Osm rozhovorů je v anglickém a tři rozhovory v českém jazyce. Na základě práce Tomáška a Šubrta2 jsem usoudil, že na svá data mohu aplikovat v zásadě (minimálně) dva přístupy: 1) Folklorní přístup, 2) přístup nazýván jako Kultury vzpomínání. Rozhodl jsem se ale pro to, soustředit se především na folklorní a identitní přístup, jelikož vzorec který se v mých datech objevuje je domnívám se velmi výrazný. Přístup kultur vzpomínání je však dle mého úsudku vhodné alespoň zmínit, jelikož se domnívám, že i ten by bylo možné aplikovat na má data, jelikož jednou z běžných materializací tohoto přístupu jsou orální historie, které zprostředkovávají generačně nebo subkulturně dané kultury vzpomínání nebo ohraničené kultury dané vztahem k nějaké konkrétní historické události. Na což obsah vybraných rozhovorů rámcově naráží. Použití folklórní přístupu, který je rozsáhle vázán k místu ale zároveň k formování identity, je poněkud " elegantnější ". Což se pokusím dokázat v této seminární práci. 1 Ováry Š. Gamers fighting depression – strategie hráčů videoher proti pocitům deprese. 2016. Fakulta humanitních studií. Univerzita Karlova v Praze. 2 Tomášek M., Šubrt J. Jak se vyrovnáváme s naší minulostí? České a československé nedávné dějiny prizmatem teorie kolektivní paměti a kvalitativní metodologie.