When research comes to an end…
What did we learn, what’s interesting about it, how theory and practice is connected ?
Final Part → The presentation of the results!
But firstly let us present you a quick sum up, so as to gather our data:
Focus group: Gamers
Research sample: Spyros, 22 years, student
— Neofytos, 18 years old, student
— Sophia, 21 years old, student
— Aggelos, 21 years old, student
— Gerasimos , 26 years old, personal trainer
Methodology: Qualitative research
Our aim, through this research, was to discover the habits of the gaming community. Being ever more specific, this research was part of the project #MobileYou, as our mentor mrs. Tsakarestou named it, with objective to examine how several groups of people with common characteristics depend on mobile phones for their social media activity and how the new trend of collaborative consumption can be included in this way of living. So, taking under consideration that gamers are people who spend a lot of time on the Internet, in front of the screen of a computer, we can easily guess that they will be quite active in social media, too. However, how useful can be the mobile phone for gaming? Additionally, as all the individuals of our sample are gamers for entertaining and not professional reasons, we will analyze the subject of collaborative consumption not by its commercial perspective but as part of collaborative activity in general. Well, is collaboration important in gaming? I guess the answer is simple…
Let’s see what our interviewees answered ?
Social Media + Gaming :
For a gamer social media are usually primarily connected with gaming activity rather than the reasons the rest people use it (communication/ creation of new friendships/ professional reasons/ entertainment-information). We found out that they use Facebook for communicating mostly with other players or collaborate with them during the game. Also, Skype seems to be a great tool for better in-game communication and results, and finally YouTube is the key for personal improvement while they tend to watch videos for gaining new skills in several games. Referring to the hour they spend for this social media activity we could say that on average the dedicate 2–4 hours daily, especially in the night and while playing.Mobile Activity + Gaming :
Naturally, as the majority of youth today our interviewees couldn’t help but containing in their mobile apps Facebook, Messenger, Skype and Youtube, for the reasons we pointed out before. However, the important part in this unit is that besides communication and collaboration with others, they don’t find useful their mobile phones for any other activity linked to gaming. They use it for checking game-related updates, although the “key” for them is Internet and not the device necessarily.Collaborative Activity + Trust + Gaming :
All gamers supported that for them the most essential principle in gaming is collaboration and trust. Only throughout collaboration with other gamers they can achieve better game results. Communicating and cooperating is a constant procedure while playing and in order to come off with the desired outcome, they usually use Skype or mobile apps in order to communicate with the rest team, without losing Internet connection on their computer and be held back. What is more our gamers also believe that collaborative activity is not a making money or profit process for them but a way to gain game-goals along with their teammates, to improve their performance and skills. Basically, their collaboration revolves around communication, exchanging help, ideas, skills and strategies, and trust between their team.
At this part we have to highlight that while gaming is a kind of simulation, as the player creates a character and “lives” through it, in many cases we observe that the players between them tend to follow -theoretically- the commercial procedure of collaborative consumption, because they exchange wealth or assets with other characters of the game so as to move on.
Finally, we couldn’t avoid include the meaning of trust; For the interviewees is an absolutely important condition, in order to succeed in gaming. It’s really crucial to can rely on the right person for collaborating and therefore wining or achieve the current goals. In addition, in online gaming there are many possibilities to cooperate with unknown people, so as we understand especially at this moment trust must exist. The aim is one, is common, so both sides, friends in real life or not, must collaborate correctly.
So as to close with this research, we would like to collocate some personal views in which we came up while examining the results. Many people believe that gaming is a childhood activity for people who have not to do something better in their life. However, we are opposed to this belief and present some really interesting qualities and skills that characterized these community : Strategy, Friendliness, Devotion, Passion, Cooperation, Networking and Competition. It’s admirable how gamers can be so eligible while collaborating with other people, known or not to them, in order to solve problems and ensure the win or any other goal the may have. What if all of us could adopt this gaming behavior in order to make a better world for everyone? As Jane McGonigal said to her Tedx talk in 2010 “Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems?”
Check our project’s presentation here → http://www.slideshare.net/SofiaRussu/sneak-peak-into-the-gaming-community
Team members : Konstantina Sinekoglou, Sophia Russu, Agapi Myrioti, Elena Constantinidy ;)
