Video games in context: An ethnographic study of situated meaning-making practices of Asian immigrant adolescents in New York City


Hung Chia-Yuan
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Many studies of players have described how situated learning occurs in video games. However, the “situated” nature of video games is complicated because players exist not only as player-avatars in a virtual world, but also as a player-human in a physical setting. This paper is based on an ethnographic study of a group of Asian adolescents in New York City, who play video games in various settings, such as Internet cafés and at home. Being recent immigrants from China and English language learners, playing video games requires that they understand the action occurring in the game without necessarily having access to the language. The study looks at how the real-world conditions shape their meaning-making practices as situated within particular physical spaces and suggests that researchers need to look beyond the actions of the player-avatar and consider the actions of the player-human as well, because how they make sense of video games may be contingent upon the real-world conditions unfolding around them.

 

Video games in context: An ethnographic study of situated


Hung Chia-Yuan
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Many studies of players have described how situated learning occurs in video games. However, the “situated” nature of video games is complicated because players exist not only as player-avatars in a virtual world, but also as a player-human in a physical setting. This paper is based on an ethnographic study of a group of Asian adolescents in New York City, who play video games in various settings, such as Internet cafés and at home. Being recent immigrants from China and English language learners, playing video games requires that they understand the action occurring in the game without necessarily having access to the language. The study looks at how the real-world conditions shape their meaning-making practices as situated within particular physical spaces and suggests that researchers need to look beyond the actions of the player-avatar and consider the actions of the player-human as well, because how they make sense of video games may be contingent upon the real-world conditions unfolding around them.