Statement Of the Problem
This paper conducts a study on the competitive nature of individuals who label themselves as gamers. In participating in this study, it was questioned on the effects competitive gaming has on those who play in a club rather than online with random people. This study is important to show the sociology of gamers and how they interact with each other in their activities of gaming. In consideration, Clubs are regulated by an admin and is considered to be a structured space for gamers to play together in person. Online gaming connects these gamers to random people, total randomization, not face to face.
Purpose Of the Study
The purpose of this study was to collect data from gamers on their takes of competition in both club settings and online settings. In study, one session of participated observation in the group S.A.G.E was acquired. Two interviews, one with an Nsu student: CC and another with an online presence: XYZ was held. Finally, a public survey “The competitive edge of gaming” was distributed to others via text, advertisement, and in person requests.
For the purpose of the study, the following question were asked:
What are the differences in competition in NSU gamers that are together in a club compared to those online?
In studying, it was hypothesized that:
Gamers in a club are more inclined to competition compared to those online on the factors of club gamers holding personal relationships to others in the club and being in the same domain to each other compared to those online.
Definitions Of Terms
1. Competitive gaming: Competitive games are those in which players play against one another and where one player winning means another player loses. (Changing Minds)
2. Multiplayer: Denoting or relating to a video game designed for or involving several players. (Oxford Languages)
3. Fps: A First Person Shooter, genre of action video games that is played from the perspective of the character. Maps out the gamers movement through view of an actual person would see and do in the game. Usually played with guns as main weapons. (Techopedia)
4. S.A.G.E: Held Friday nights, This Nova Southeastern University club is run by student who shares common interests in Anime, Gaming, and Entertainment. (Statement from Society of Anime, Gaming, and Entertainment)
5. Discord: American based Instant Messaging and digital distribution platform designed for creating communities. Users communicate through servers, communities creating spaces. Servers are collections of persistent chat room and voice chats channels. (Discord Inc. 2020)
Literature Review
In an article about esports gaming, a form of competative play, it was noted that there are issues that arose from competative play. Frontiers writes in their paper, “Physiological and Congnitive Functions Folling a Discrete Session of Competative Esports Gaming” that players tend to play for hours on end without physical breaks. The article continues to suggest that competative gaming produces a similar type of stress that physical sports produce. Although not physical, competative gaming produces psychological states of stress. They look at another study that listed common problems such as joint pain, headaches, vision and sleep issues (Bemchebra et al., 2019). After conduction their own study on the matter, they studied a demographic of 17 individuals. They’re studies had “Findings suggests the esports activities can increase sympathetic nervous system activation (Frontiers 2020). This further led for me to believe that club gamers would have more of a response of playing together rather than those online.
Methodology
To study this endeavor, I participated in an observation of the group S.A.G.E at my campus. S.A.G.E met on January 14th and continued every Friday. I attended this meeting as the event on that night was a competitive game of the Nintendo’s fighting game, Super Smash Ultimate. The night was observed on how the club gamers played and interacted with each other. The next step of this observation was done online with two games: CSGO (Counter Strike: Global Offensive), a team based FPS, and Among Us, a mafia “who murdered who” game. The next instrument used were interviews. The first interview being with a student from NSU that was not affiliated with S.A.G.E. The next with a student in S.A.G.E. This was conducted both via in person interviews and Discord calls. The last instrument used was a public survey that received 11 responses. The survey listed questions that asked it’s takers on their alignments with gaming and questioned their alignments with morals in competitive gaming.
Research Design Sampling
The population selected for these observation were Nova Southeastern Students and individuals who are present via an online space. The population grew with the access to Discord as servers in Discord are public spaces where anyone can join. I chose this population as it was appropriate for the public to be involved with the random online gamers and NSU students for being co-related to the club gamers as S.A.G.E is in association with NSU’s club selection. Much of this population were young adults and students who were already studying under the field they wanted to go in, for most, the field being one that was science based.
Instruments and Data Collection Analysis Procedure
On January 14th I attended a competition of the game Super Smash Brothers Ultimate as a player within this club. I partook in this activity for a round to experience the same experience as of those in the meeting. After the round had finish, I observed for some time out of the playing fields and observed the club gamers’ behavior during this meet. Afterwards I would go online and position myself in a few games with online players. Open mic was implemented to communicate with these players. The next thing done was to interview my first person, Chancey Cherry. After an extended period, a survey was created on responders alignments with gaming and their takes on competitive gaming. Finally, another interview with Athena Pares took place and all data was collected for the paper.
Instrument 1: Observation – S.A.G.E Meeting
For this observation, attending the meeting was crucial to see the activities and behaviors that club gamers have during competitive play. There was no extreme strategies being implements, no arguments based off the matches, just people having fun. As it turned out, their activities were seen as just having fun and not competitive. The club gamers showed the opposite of what my hypothesis was suggesting. On the other hand, it turned out that the ones who were in the position I suggested were the online gamers. During the CSGO games, conversation was at a minimum while the team went off their own ways. After a while, I was promptly banned. This showed that the toxicity of competitive play were more online than in person. That said, my hypothesis was disproven and adjusted the thoughts of competitive play. The trends showed that club gamers were more inclined to have fun during the games rather than those online. It was reliable to see this first hand as there are many who think otherwise.
Instrument 2: Interviews – Chancey Cherry and Athena Pares
In the Interviews, the observations made between the NSU students who were associate with club gaming and online play showed. In person with Cherry, he provided the thoughts as representation of online gamers. He expressed that he grew up playing video games and spoke of playing both online and with friends. He considered healthy gamers to be those who had good sportsmanship and attitudes. The Discord chat with Athena also showed this to an extent as she described her introduction to gaming was by her father. She also told me how she had competitive play online. She shared the same thoughts that Cherry had, adding that at the end of the day, it is to play for fun. This being said, my hypothesis continued to be proven flawed. One primary factor that was observed from both of these instruments that was overlooked was the aspect that gaming could be done just for fun.
Instrument 3: Survey – The Competitive Edge of gaming (11 Responses)
For this last instrument, a google form was created to gather different perspective on competitive gaming. Appropriately, it was named The Edge of competitive gaming and was distributed through the means of Discord servers, social media such as Instagram and Snapchat, and finally instant messaging. The survey questioned its takers on their alignment in gaming, do they consider themselves as gamers? It also questioned their position between club gaming with the association of S.A.G.E or randomly online. 11 responses were recorded with a majority of takers being NSU students. In confirmation, the survey continued to show my hypothesis was flawed. It was important for this survey to be conducted in a manner that gave takers a limited answering system to understand the “morals” that came with competitive gaming. Both sides of the coin agreed on a majority of topics such as doing the right thing during a competitive match and with others, be it in a club or online.
Protection Of Human Rights
Strong transparency was communicated between subjects and interviewees. Permissions were asked and secured prior to interviews, gameplay, and interaction with the paper. The participation for this paper was voluntary with no tracing back to any individual involved with this paper except those mentioned. This study will be sent to all possible emails collected for this paper and will not be published anywhere without the administration of NSU or professors involved in this paper.
Conclusion
Closing, the discussion of the sociology during competitive gaming session must be further researched. Many who are in this community deal with narratives that prove to be false. Many think gaming as a toxic hobby and community. In reality, this is far from the truth. Although my hypothesis was proven false, it showed the facts: Club gamers and online gamers are not as different as it would be seen. Toxicity in clubs are indeed an issue that should be further research, but this study showed that not all clubs are toxic communities when it comes to terms of competitive gaming.
Appendix
Interview 1: Chancey Cherry
Andre: So this is Interview number one for the competitive gaming interview. Right now what we’re doing is that we’re going to be interviewing you on how, how you’re like, what’s your thoughts on Co-op er competitive gaming. So could you state your name and your student, like your student status of NSU?
Chancey Cherry: My name is Chancey Cherry, I’m currently 19, and I’m a freshman at Nova Southeastern University.
Andre: What field are you studying?
Chancey Cherry: I am majoring in neuroscience.
Andre: OK. So let’s begin with these questions. Thank you so much for your time and patience. So our first question here is do you consider yourself a gamer?
Chancey Cherry: I do.
Andre: OK, so you do, how have you been introduced to gaming?
Chancey Cherry: I was just introduced to gaming like when I was very very little my mom had got me a VTech and basically, all started from there. It was a VTech leapster. Then after that holds onto like DSI like like the regular Nintendo DS and Wii and then we then moved on to like you know- playing on PC, then playing with PlayStation, that makes sense of Xbox.
Andre: Very interesting, very interesting, so you mentioned the Xbox. On what platform are you playing more frequently?
Chancey Cherry: Nowadays I’m playing more of a PlayStation more frequently; however, I have like a friend or know someone who uses the Xbox I don’t really mind, you know, using that system.
Andre: very interesting, what experiences of competition have you had with people either online or in meetings?
Chancey Cherry: With the experience of competition mainly had with people, like you know playing online matches against people, and like games, like online, like on my laptop or like on PlayStation. Or like, playing like against friends.
Andre: Very interesting, very interesting, our next question here is what characteristics do you find a healthy in competitive gaming?
Chancey Cherry: You know healthy gaming is like, you know being positive like you know having a good attitude, and having good sportsmanship. Like you know like, if you happen to lose don’t let it really won’t really get you down and everything. Like you know just basically being, like you know, a good sportsmanship. Like a good person.
Andre: OK, so for our last question, just so I can let you continue with your work. Can someone be a good gamer without communicating with others?
Chancey Cherry: I feel like I want to be a good gamer you would have to go in and communicate with others because you know; like, let’s say you’re playing like a team type game; for example, you’re gonna need how to communicate with other people. It’s like, you know this thing here, like do that thing here, like- yeah, I do believe that communication is very good and plays a good part.
Andre: Thank you so much for your time. Just one bonus question, are you a member of the community S.A.G.E, at school here, at Nova?
Chancey Cherry: No I am not.
Andre: You’re not? OK, thank you so much for your time.
Interview 2: Athena Pares
Andre: In this interview, I want to ask about your alignment in gaming. This serves as a study to see the thoughts on competitiveness gaming.
Athena Pares: Alright.
Andre: Our first question being this: State your name and student status at NSU.
Athena Pares: Athena, Sophomore student..
Andre: What field are you studying in? I also ask if you consider yourself as a gamer.
Athena Pares: I am studying psychology and ABA. I don’t consider myself like an “extreme” or competitive gamer, but I do consider myself as one
Andre: Thank you for your response. The next question being this: What introduced you into gaming?
Athena Pares: First it was my father who played a lot of Godfather games, I happened to pick that up from him. I also have lots of guy friends and they always talk about games, so I went further into them and now I enjoy playing.
Andre: That’s amazing. The next two questions are this: What platforms do you play on and what competitive experiences had you have with others, wether it be in meetings or online?
Athena Pares: Definitely a few Xbox since I grew up with that and the Nintendo Switch. I’ve had a few competitive experiences back in high school as they were challenges by even the teachers. As of today, I get challenged online in certain battle or strategy-types.
Andre: Thank you for your responses so far. The last question is this: What makes a good gamer, be it in relations with other people?
Athena Pares: As long as you are respectful in the end and you don’t take it out of proportion, I believe that’s makes a person a great gamer. Sure you might be better at some games than others, but in the end- it’s just a game you are playing with others
Andre: Thank you for responses. I hope you have a good morning. This is only recorded for my Comp final paper and will not be distributed further, I forgot to ask, what is your last name?
Athena Pares: Pares, and no problem.
Andre: Thank you!
Athena Pares: No problem, hope you do well!
Andre: Alright now, have a good one.
Literature Review Cited
Society of Anime, Gaming, and Entertainment
Discord Inc. (2020). Discord. Retrieved from https://discord.com
Oxford Languages
Benchebra, L., Alexandre, J. M., Dubernet, J., Fatséas, M., and Auriacombe, M. (2019). Gambling and gaming disorders and physical health of players: a critical review of the literature. Presse Med. 48, 1551–1568. doi: 10.1016/j.lpm.2019.10.014
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