Video game culture
Video game culture or gaming culture a worldwide subculture formed by video game enthusiasts. As video games have grown more sophisticated, accessible, and popular over time, they have significantly influenced popular culture, particularly among adolescents and young adults. Video game culture has also evolved with Internet culture and the increasing popularity of mobile games, which has additionally led to an increase in the female demographic that play video games. Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a significant increase in video game engagement as well.
People who regularly play video games often identify as "gamers", a term that can be defined as players who enjoys casual gaming, to passionate enthusiasts and professional gaming competitors. As video games become more social with multiplayer and online features, gamers find themselves in growing interconnected social networks. Playing video games can be for both entertainment and competition, as the trend known as electronic sports or esports has become more widely accepted. Video game-focused gaming conventions such as PAX and MAGFest which have become popular social-gathering events among computer enthusiasts since early 21st century. Gaming system reviews and gameplay streamings have also become significant part of this culture.
Definition
Video game culture is broadly defined as the subculture of individuals who play video games. This includes both frequent gamers, who dedicate substantial time and effort into gaming, as well as more casual gamers who engage with games less regularly. Due to the interactive nature of video games, the culture surrounding them is distinct from other subcultures, focusing not only on who plays, but also on the types of games played and the ways in which people engage with them. The concept that video games have a distinct subculture was first suggested in 1996, but it gained more prominence as an area of academic study since the 2010s.Demographics
, the average age for a video game player is 31, a number slowly increasing as people who were children playing the first arcade, console and home computer games continue playing and adopting newer systems. The gender distribution of gamers is reaching equilibrium, according to a 2016 study showing that 59% of gamers are male and 41% female; but research has also shown that women are less likely to self-identify as gamers out of fear of stigmatization. ESA reported that 71% of people age six to forty-nine in the United States played video games, with 55% of gamers playing on their smartphones or mobile devices. The average age of players across the globe is mid- to late 20s, and is increasing as older players grow in numbers.One possible reason for the increase in players could be attributed to the growing number of video game genres that require less of a specific audience. For example, the Wii console has widened its audience with games such as Wii Sports and Wii Fit, both requiring more physical activity from the user and provide more reasons to play including family competition or exercise. It could also be because people who played video games when they were young are now growing older but still retain that interest in games. Currently, the largest entertainment industry for children is gaming. According to a 2008 telephone survey with a sample size of 1,102 respondents, 97% of children living in the United States and between the ages of 12 and 17 play video games.
LAN gaming
Video games are played in a variety of social ways, which often involve domestic gatherings or even in public places. A popular method of accomplishing this is a LAN party, which is hosted at a home and involves family and friends, creating a social event for people-friendly with each other. LAN parties are often held in large-scale events conducted in public spaces and have a great number of participants who might not usually socialize.The Everquest Fan Faires for instance, provide weekends of socializing and playing, at a large gathering of dedicated game fans. Terry Flew in his book Games: Technology, Industry, Culture also emphasizes the Online Gaming Communities – "where players aren't physically located in the same space, but still socializing together". This raises the notion of McLuhan's "Global Village", as people can transcend their physical limitations and communicate with people, possessing a similar interest, from all around the world. Shapiro also stresses the possibility of "Using technology to enhance one's social life", as friendships no longer have to be structured by physical proximity. Shapiro states that "the net allows individuals to extend their social network in a novel way, to communicate and share life experiences with people regardless of where they live and form online relationships". Thus, such online communities satisfy a genuine need for affiliation with like-minded others.
Online gaming
Online gaming has drastically increased the scope and size of video game culture. Online gaming grew out of games on bulletin board systems and on college mainframes from the 1970s and 1980s. MUDs offered multiplayer competition and cooperation, but on a scope more geographically limited than on the Internet. The Internet allowed gamers from all over the world – not just within one country or state – to play games together with ease. With the advent of Cloud Gaming high-performance games can now be played from low-end client systems and even TVs.One of the most groundbreaking titles in the history of online video games is Quake, which offered the ability to play with sixteen and eventually up to thirty-two players simultaneously in a 3D world. Gamers quickly began to establish their organized groups, called clans. Clans established their own identities, their marketing, their form of internal organization, and even their looks. Some clans had friendly or hostile rivalries, and there were often clans who were allied with other clans. Clan interaction took place on both professionally set competition events, and during normal casual playing where several members of one clan would play on a public server. Clans would often do their recruiting this way; by noticing the best players on a particular server, they would send invitations for that player to either try out or accept membership in the clan.
Gamers of all ages play online games, with an average age of 33.
'Clan'- or 'guild'-based play has since become an accepted aspect of multiplayer video games, with several games offering cash-prize tournament-style competition to their players. Many clans and guilds also have active fan-bases, which, when combined with the 'tournament' aspect, contribute to turning clan-based gaming into a semi-professional sport.
Clans also allow players to assist each other in simulated combat and quests in-game advancement, as well as providing an online family for friendly socializing.
From Quake, online video games grew beyond first-person shooters and have impacted every genre. Real-time strategy, racing games, card games, sports games can all be played online. Online gaming has spread from its initial computer roots to console video games as well. Today, every major video game console available offers degrees of online gaming, some limited by particular titles, some even offer up entire virtual communities.
Competition
Slang and terminology
Like other cultures, the community has developed a gamut of slang words or phrases that can be used for communication in or outside of games. Due to their growing online nature, modern video game slang overlaps heavily with Internet slang, as well as Leetspeak, with many words such "pwn", as well as "noob", being direct carry-overs from Leetspeak. There are terms to describe video game events, game genres, gamer demographics, strategies, specific events, situations, and more. It is especially common among online games to encourage the use of neologisms for convenience in communication.Most video games contain certain language or communication familiar to game and its player base. Overall the gaming community has common phrases that are used universally. The two most common phrases are "noob", which relates to a player who is low in skill and that they are relatively new to the game. The other phrase is "lol", which means "laughing out loud", this phrase is also used outside of gaming. There are also phrases that players use before and at the end of their matches. The abbreviation of "GL HF" is seen at the start meaning, "good luck, have fun". Then at the end, whether people win or lose, players use "GG", meaning "good game" to their opponents. A popular abbreviation the gaming culture created and uses is "AFK". This means "away from keyboard", and is used when a player is not using their keyboard or controller and are not paying attention.
Gaming networks
The shift from console-based or "shrink-wrap" video games to online games has allowed online games and massively-multiplayer online gaming today to develop highly advanced and comprehensive communication networks. With the freedom of the Internet's architecture, users can become producers of the technology and shapers of the growing networks. Compared to past eras where consumers had little means of communication with game developers and other communities beyond their geographical location, the Internet has created many methods of communication such as through the online bulletin board website, Reddit. Gamers can often develop sub-communities in-game clans and may use third party VOIP programs to communicate while playing games such as Skype, Ventrillo, TeamSpeak or Discord. These video game communities may have nothing in common, or instead be designed for dedicated, skilled players, or even clans made for those with shared commonalities such as personality, ethnicity, heritage, language or gender.Another key component of many video game networks is the connection between the player base and the game developers. Many game developers have outlets either through official website forums or social media where gamers can communicate with and provide feedback to the game developers. Likewise, these same places become key locations for game developers to communicate with their fans, were often dedicated employees act as liaisons as a bridge between the company and the community.
Some of the most advanced networks take place with massively-multiplayer online gaming where servers of tens of thousands can be present simultaneously in the same instance or environment. In major titles such as World of Warcraft and League of Legends, the player base is in the millions. With so many people, many of these communities may develop virtual economies that may use a barter system or currency system. In some games, the interest in the virtual economies may be so great players will spend real money through auction sites like eBay for virtual property and items, commonly known as RMT. Some game developers may ban RMT in their games, especially when it interferes with the equity of the game. That being said, other game developers embrace it with one game, Second Life, with its entire focus on the usage of real-life currency for everything in the game world.
Since smartphones became commonplace around 2007, mobile video games have seen rapid increases in popularity. The widespread appeal of simple, "time-killing" games, reminiscent of "social games" such as those found on Facebook, has set the stage for mobile video games to account for almost 35% of video games' total market share by 2017. Because games such as Clash of Clans offer in-game bonuses for referring new players to the game, mobile gamers have turned to social media sites to recruit their friends and family. Some games even offer integrated social media support to provide players with in-game chat or "friends" features for communicating and competing with other players. A large number of mobile game players has led to the creation of devoted forums, blogs, and tip sites similar to those committed to console video games. Popular video game publications, like Ars Technica and TouchArcade are even beginning to give significant coverage to mobile games.