Experts and Novices or Expertise? Positioning Players through Gameplay Reviews

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Kirschner David Williams J. Patrick
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

In this paper we attempt to unpack the meanings of “expert” and “novice” in games research. A literature review reveals unreliable definitions and inadequate operationalization of these concepts. Nonetheless, researchers default to recruiting experienced players for games research projects to the exclusion of novices. We take an interactionist approach to argue for reframing the expert/novice dichotomy in terms of expertise, which all players possess. To support this empirically, we explore how players’ interactions with video recordings of their gameplay exhibited their expertise with digital games. We report on the analysis of the gameplay of one research participant who played 20 hours of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft over a six-week period in 2012. By involving the participant in focused discussions on selected recorded segments of his gameplay, called a gameplay review, we leveraged his insight and interpretations of his own activity. The gameplay review method creates reflexive space, positions the player as an expert in his or her own understanding, and draws on player expertise as interpretive data.

 

Elements of Social Action: A Micro- Analytic Approach to the Study of Collaborative Behavior in Digital Games

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Williams J. Patrick Kirschner David
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

In this paper we articulate an empirical approach to the study of social action in digitallymediated contexts. Our approach extends Carl Couch’s theory of cooperative action, which is based on a set of “elements of sociation”: acknowledged attentiveness, mutual responsiveness, congruent functional identities, shared focus, and social objective. Three additional elements of sociation, adapted from studies of jazz performance, are added to the list of elements that characterize coordinated action: a formal theory of task performance, an informal theory of task performance, and synchronicity of individual actions. Using audio-visual recordings of gameplay, the minutiae of social action were captured and subjected to repetitive, reflexive and collaborative analysis in order to identify these patterns, including their potential causes and consequences. We use data from two games—the single-player real-time strategy game Eufloria and the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft—to illustrate how gameplay can be dissected into such elemental units.