IC07720: Assignment 1: Gaming and its social effects 

 

  

With the rise in social media, there has been an equal rise in games with the sole focus on socializing with other players online. Mostly they are mobile developed and are on already built up platforms like Facebook to interact with their mix of online/offline friends and their theme ranges from teamplay to competitive to purely social. In this blog, I will be going over some of the positives and negative sides of this rising industry.  

  

Positives  

People who lack confidence can find their ‘voice’ within social games more so than they could in the outside world. They can name themselves whatever usernames they decide and build a whole persona which, more represents how they see themselves or who they want to become. They find social groups within these online worlds and within some games it is encouraged that players find a group, using inbuilt tools and forums for players to find a group that most suits them. With all this encouragement it gets players out of their comfort zone and giving them tools to embrace socializing. Players have found they can ‘practice’ social interactions and use it as a testing ground, they would not have in the real world, bringing the player more positivity and confidence into the outside world.  

 

As an example of a pure social-based game, ‘Second Life’ a game that has been highly active for 17 years, has a booming community that puts creativity in the player's hand with no game objective other than socializing with other players. Players can own virtual property with neighborhoods designed by the players to be creative and build the social background they feel comfortable to socialize in, this combined with avatar creation lets players make the environment and represent themselves in spaces they feel most comfortable in. This builds a sense of community and players find like-minded people from all walks of life.  

 

Some users of these services may even take these relationships developed over these social games into the real-world, meeting in person and thus leaving these social games in order to continue the relationship in the real-world.  

  

Negatives  

Game developers focus on excitement and creating a product that is designed to get the player hooked, as quoted here [2] “Retaining players has been considered one of the most critical challenges in online social games” this is immediately a warning sign when it comes to players who may not have an active social life outside in the real world. This, as a result, can lead to addiction and even neglecting real-world relationships. As an example, as seen here [1] a South Korean couple were imprisoned due to their neglect of their newborn child, they became so addicted to looking after their virtual baby they completely neglected their real-world baby and it starved to death.  

 

While players have the freedom of expression in most online games, it's not always positive expression which when aimed at a vulnerable person online and could lead to a loss of confidence in a space where they felt comfortable. Players may also express hateful opinions and find like-minded people online who also believe in these opinions and essentially using the platform to spread the toxicity. Some may even take the toxicity and express their views into the real-world believing there are no consequences of their actions like in their online game.  

 

The choice of socializing in the real world compared to the game's world could also be attuned to the convenience of socializing without the effort of getting ready to go out and without the need to travel. This, however, encourages the user to be more apathetic.  

  

Conclusion  

Overall players who may not want to socialize are being encouraged to socialize, this has its benefits for people who lacked the confidence or unable to get human interaction daily. It is giving players the opportunity to reinvent who they are and experiment with social techniques while interacting with other players. We, however, can't forget about the addicting qualities of these games, but the problems can be easily removed from the equation if the user is able to understand the need for moderation.  

  

References  

[1] Mark Tran, former Guardian business, news and development reporter, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/05/korean-girl-starved-online-game [Accessed Online 04/03/20] 

 

[2] Fu, Xin, Xi Chen, Yu-Tong Shi, Indranil Bose, and Shun Cai. "User Segmentation for Retention Management in Online Social Games." Decision Support Systems 101 (2017): 51-68.Web. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167923617301008 [Accessed 02/03/20]