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MMO gaming culture: an online gaming family

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Date Issued:
2015
Summary:
This study examines the social organization of Gaiscíoch, a large online gaming community that exists within the simulated world of a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). It provides an ethnographic account of an online gaming community that is open to any player without skill or time commitment requirements, but still maintains high status within the game world. This project identifies eight elements that make this inclusive, friendly, and casual community successful in virtual worlds that tend to be dominated by communities that have a competitive, strict, and exclusive approach to online gaming (social interaction, code of values, leadership, rank system, events, community building, population size, gameplay). Lastly, this project briefly inquires about the nature of the border between the virtual and the physical and establishes that gamers can be considered pseudo-border-inhabitants that are in control of the community they place adjacent to them in the cyber world.
Title: MMO gaming culture: an online gaming family.
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Name(s): Perez, Michael, author
Harris, Michael S., Thesis advisor
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Department of Anthropology
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Created: 2015
Date Issued: 2015
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 100 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: This study examines the social organization of Gaiscíoch, a large online gaming community that exists within the simulated world of a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). It provides an ethnographic account of an online gaming community that is open to any player without skill or time commitment requirements, but still maintains high status within the game world. This project identifies eight elements that make this inclusive, friendly, and casual community successful in virtual worlds that tend to be dominated by communities that have a competitive, strict, and exclusive approach to online gaming (social interaction, code of values, leadership, rank system, events, community building, population size, gameplay). Lastly, this project briefly inquires about the nature of the border between the virtual and the physical and establishes that gamers can be considered pseudo-border-inhabitants that are in control of the community they place adjacent to them in the cyber world.
Identifier: FA00004399 (IID)
Degree granted: Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015.
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Includes bibliography.
Subject(s): Cyberspace -- Social aspects
Fantasy games -- Social aspects
Internet games -- Social aspects
Role playing -- Social aspects
Video games -- Social aspects
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Sublocation: Digital Library
Links: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004399
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004399
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.