Video games in context: An ethnographic study of situated

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DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play
The University of Tokyo, September, 2007
Volume: 4
ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666


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.