Chapter 3
Studying Video Gamer Culture
Introduction
This chapter considers the study of video gamer culture, and has two primary aims, in that it considers, what a video gamer is and what video gamers do? Firstly, in considering what a video gamer is, this chapter considers the conceptualisation of video gamer culture through the lens of video gaming as a culture and video gamers as part of a community. Within the literature of video games, there have been a number of concepts used to describe video gamers and video gamer culture. As Crawford (2012, p.98) states:
The degree to which these terms are critically reflected upon differs greatly from paper to paper, author to author, but the main concepts that have been advocated as useful in understanding video game culture and communities include: subcultures, neo-tribes, fans, knowledge, community, players, Otaku, gamers, scenes and habitus.
Crawford (2012) considers a variety of conceptualisations that have been offered in understanding video gamer culture, in particular those of subcultures, neo-tribes, fans, knowledge communities, players, Otaku, gamers, scenes and habitus. However, and of particular relevance to this research, there has been limited research focusing on the culture of video game events and participation in various video game related practices that are located away from the video gaming screen. Therefore, this provides an opportunity to examine the ‘usefulness’ of various conceptualisations in understanding video gamer culture at specific events.
Secondly, this chapter considers video gamer productivity, or what gamers do? Newman (2008) suggests that we are only beginning to scratch the surface of what we call ‘video gamer culture’. As previously mentioned, Newman (2008) is interested in the meaning of video games to players and the myriad ways in which they make use of them besides just playing them. This includes:
…the vibrant productive practices of the vast numbers of videogame fans and players and the extensive ‘shadow economy’ of player-produced walk-throughs, FAQs, art, narratives and event games, not to mention the cultures of cheating, copying and piracy, that have emerged (Newman, 2008, p.vii)
Newman (2008) suggests that the inherently social, productive and creative nature of these cultures that surround and support video gaming, are all but invisible within academic writing on video games and gaming. This suggests the need to consider the cultural and creative production (productive play) that can go into play activities (play communities).
Newman (2008) notes that while some of these activities and communities are ‘reasonably widespread’, others – such as the production of in-depth walkthroughs, fan fiction stories, or fame-inspired costumes – are considered ‘less widespread’. In relation to this research, this chapter therefore focuses on the participatory practices of video gamers within various (and different sized) video game communities.
Finally, this chapter considers the under-explored ‘negative’ side of video game communities, which often include exclusion, oppression, and conflict within communities; an area often over-looked within video game community studies. For instance, it has been suggested that certain ‘minority’ or marginalised groups may find it harder to ‘fit in’ with video game cultures, and this may still be particularly the case for women. Therefore, this chapter also considers the participation and exclusion of women in video games cultures.
3.1. Conceptualising Video Gamer Culture
This section draws on Crawford’s (2012) consideration of the variety of conceptualisations that have been offered in understanding video gamer culture, and in particular those of subcultures, neo-tribes, fans, knowledge communities, players, Otaku, gamers, scenes and habitus. Therefore, this section will examine the ‘usefulness’ of these concepts in understanding the cultures at video game related events, and in doing so specifically will focus on the concepts of subcultures, neo-tribes, fans, knowledge communities, scenes and habitus, as these I will suggest have the most value and relevance to the case under consideration here.
3.1.1 Habitus
In the book, Video Gamers, amongst the variety of conceptualisations, Crawford (2012) considers Bourdieu’s (1977) work on ‘habitus’ to be a particularly profitable way of understanding video gamer culture. Habitus is a ‘…system of schemes generating classifiable practices and works… [and a] system of schemes of perceptions and appreciation (“taste”)’ (Bourdieu, 1984, p.171). Bourdieu (1977) argues that social life can be understood as consisting of numerous, and interrelated, social spaces, or ‘fields’, where each of these has its own habitus. Crawford (2012) suggests that habitus is similar to what other authors have described as the ‘culture’ of a particular group or society. However, key to Bourdieu’s (1977) understanding of habitus is that this is embodied. This, Jenkins (1992, p.46) argues, is manifested in three ways:
First, in a trivial sense, the habitus only exists inasmuch as it is ‘inside the heads’ of actors (and the head is, after all, part of the body). Second, the habitus only exists in, through and because of the practices of actors and their interaction with each other and with the rest of their environment: ways of talking, ways of moving, ways of making things, or whatever. In this respect, the habitus is emphatically not an abstract or idealist concept. It is not just manifest in behaviour, it is an integral part of it (and vice versa). Third, the ‘practical taxonomies’… are at the heart of the generative schemes of the habitus, are rooted in the body. Male/female, front/back, up/down, hot/cold, these are all primarily sensible – in terms of making sense and of being rooted in sensory experience – from the point of view of the embodied person.
Habitus is defined as ‘an acquired system of generative schemes’ (Bourdieu, 1990, p.55) that we learn through early socialisation processes. Therefore, we learn habitus by coping cultural and physical behaviours; ‘it is acquired unconsciously and present in the way we are disposed within our own bodies’ (Kirkpatrick 2011, p.129). Bourdieu’s (1977) focus on embodied practices widens the perspective on the range of processes through which technology is taken up and used by individuals. This is therefore useful in understanding video gamer culture, because it locates video games within a wider social context.
Although, Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of habitus has been critiqued for being too deterministic (Jenkins, 1992), it is not a set and inflexible culture, which remains static throughout people’s live. For instance, Crawford (2012) argues that the theory of habitus may be useful way of considering video gamer culture, because of its emphasis on embodiment. As Crawford and Rutter’s (2006, pp.155-156) writes:
…part of being a successful player of a deathmatch in Quake is not just a matter of being an accurate shot, but having a feeling for the games’ development and different strategies that inform when to shoot and how to get into the right position to do this. The experienced player uses the know-how of their previous games to develop a sense of their own strengths and weaknesses and can improvise their play in order to manage risk and influence the game’s outcome depending on what is at stake.
Crawford (2012) suggests that playing any game is not just about knowing the rules and acting upon them, but rather video gaming is located within a wider social context. However, most of this is not consciously recognised, but rather expressed and experienced through our embodied encounter with the video game. In relation to this research, the theory of habitus may therefore prove a useful way to consider the embodied experience of video gamers attending video game events (as examined further in chapter 6).
Despite the usefulness of Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of habitus, it is important to examine other conceptualisations in understanding the culture at video game events. However, there have been numerous debates around the relevance of various concepts that have been used to understand video gamer culture. For instance, Frans Mäyrä (2008) suggests that ‘subcultures’ provides a useful way of understanding video game culture, as this reflects how video gamers often organise themselves into groups and behave in ways that are based on particular games, or a particular genre, or the broader phenomenon of gaming. This also includes those with particular interests, values, norms, and sometimes even languages. This suggests that the emergence of video gamer culture is a cultural force that influences individuals in complex ways through cultural trends.
However, there has been limited research focusing on the rising popularity of video game events and the participation in various video game related practices within video gamer culture. Therefore, the culture at video game related events provides a useful way of considering the theoretical tools that have previously been applied to categorise gamers. For example, can subcultural theory be applied the same way to video gamers that attend video game events? Or to what extent can video gamers that attend video game events be conceptualised differently within video gamer culture and video game studies? This suggests the need to consider how video gamers create social environments and how they choose to interpret them? In particular, the social and cultural practices of play with video games.
It is to these terms, their meanings and usefulness in understanding video game culture and communities that I now turn.
3.1.2. Subcultures, Neo-Tribes and Scenes
This section will examine the applicability and limitations of subcultural theory, neo-tribes, and the concept of ‘scenes’, in relation to video game communities at gamer events.
Many authors, such as Yee (2006), Crawford and Rutter (2006), and Mäyrä (2008) have referred video games as a ‘subculture’. The term subculture often refers to any loosely identifiable group that appears to share some kind of common culture, which is in some way different from what would be deemed ‘mainstream’ culture (Cohen, 1972). However, subcultural theory, when it was first proposed, suggested more than just shared practices and common spaces. The origins of subcultural theory can be found in two sociological ‘schools’. The first is the ‘Chicago School’, which from the 1920s onwards, studied interactional and deviant patterns, among others. In particular, the work of Howard Becker (1963) on marijuana users and Albert Cohen’s Delinquent Boys (1955) provides an understanding of how these ‘deviant’ groups hold and express different norms and values from those of a wider society. This suggests that ‘subcultures’ from that have their own value system, in which members can find in-group status and rewards.
From the 1970s, the idea of subculture was developed further most notably at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. For scholars at ‘The Birmingham School’ subcultures were intimately connected to issues of power and struggle. This can be seen in how subcultures often seek to mark themselves out from the dominant culture while simultaneously also accommodate certain aspects of it.
Dick Hedbige (1979) suggests that subcultures emerge through the process of ‘bricolage’, where groups draw on existing consumer goods to develop a distinctive style that marks them from the general public and acts as both a means and identifier of social subversion and resistance. However, subcultures are as much (if not more so) created from outside, rather than within. For instance, Cohen’s (1972) study on Mods and Rockers highlights that the mass media constructed groups of young people as ‘folk devils’ creating a ‘moral panic’: from exaggeration and distortion, prediction and symbolisation. The media used ‘symbolic shorthand's’ such as hairstyles, items of clothing and modes of transports as icons of troublemakers (Cohen, 1972). This suggests that a subculture does not ‘counter’ the norms and values of dominant culture, but instead transforms them through a negotiated reinterpretation.
In relation to video games, Mäyrä (2008) considers video gamers as a subculture that identifies themselves through common shared practices, values and interests:
Subcultures are groups of people who have some practices, values and interests in common and who form through their interaction a distinct group within a larger culture. Members of game subcultures rarely carry distinctive outward signs as punks or skinheads so, but one only has to participate in a meeting of hard-core strategy gamers, visit a role playing convention or take part in a Quake LAN party (a gathering of gamers with their networked-together PCs), when the features of the associated game cultures start becoming apparent (Mäyrä, 2008, p.25)
Mäyrä (2008) suggests that people often share the same language and also interest in artefacts (like original packaged games and gaming devices); where they play the same games and adapt terminologies that suit those purposes. This suggests that when video gamers play together, they frequently occupy a shared space, where they engage in shared rituals of play (Mäyrä, 2008). Therefore, this gives the impression that these constitute a tightly bounded and coherent culture.
However, Crawford (2012) criticises subcultural theory for the failure to consider the movement between subcultures and that this overlook levels of personal choice (agency). Subcultural theory often provides a sense that individuals are immoveable within that subculture; such as punks, goths, teddy boys and so forth. And in particular, this fixed notion of subculture has often been considered to be problematic within contemporary society. For instance, Bauman (1997) suggests that we live in constantly shifting and fluid society, where set identities become useless. This suggests that our identities likewise become fluid, flexible, and based increasingly on consumer choices, which can be easily swapped or adopted to meet our changing needs and circumstances (Baldwin et al., 2004). Therefore, the concept of ‘neo tribes’ from Maffesoli (1996) may provide a more profitable way to theorise of the study of video gamers.
Maffesoli’s (1996) concept of ‘neo tribes’ refers to the formation of these tribes being fluid, loosely organised and by no means fixed, yet still places an emphasis on community and belonging. This concept seems to propose a better argument for an increasingly diverse nature of video gamer culture of permeable and informal communities where individuals move in and out of regularly:
…such as playing a round of Call of Duty with friends online in-between doing homework or discussing tactics for Football Manager during a coffee break at work, before moving on to other duties, identities and, possibly, neo-tribes (Crawford, 2012, p.101).
This suggests that neo-tribes are fluid within a changing nature and membership, which require only a small amount of conformity from their members (Maffesoli, 1996).
In relation to this research, the concept of ‘neo-tribes’ may therefore prove useful, where parallels can be drawn here to the contemporary nature of fandom. Henry Jenkins (2006) highlights that while some fans remain committed to a single show or star, many others use individual series as points of entry into (and then move around within) broader fan community. Fans may also drift from one series commitment to another through an extended period of involvement within ‘fandom’. As Jenkins (1992, p.40) writes: