Holin Lin

Cash Trade in Free-to-Play Online Games:

The rapidly expanding ‘‘free-to-play’’ online game payment model represents a huge shift in digital game commercialization, with cash payments for virtual items increasingly recognized as central to ‘‘free game’’ participation. In this article, the authors look at implications of this trend for gameplay experiences (especially in terms of immersion, fairness, and fun) and describe a fundamental shift in player self-perceptions as consumers rather than members of a gaming community. This change is occurring at a time when the line separating game and physical worlds is becoming less distinct. The new business model entails a subtle but significant reduction in consumer rights awareness, which explains why some members of the greater gaming community are negotiating a new sense of fairness and arriving at a new consensus regarding legitimate gameplay.

A Novel Small-World Model: Using Social Mirror Identities for Epidemic Simulations

The authors propose a small-world network model that combines cellular automata with the social mirror identities of daily-contact networks for purposes of performing epidemiological simulations. The social mirror identity concept was established to integrate human long-distance movement and daily visits to fixed locations. After showing that the model is capable of displaying such small-world effects as low degree of separation and relatively high degree of clustering on a societal level, the authors offer proof of its ability to display R 0 properties—considered central to all epidemiological studies. To test their model, they simulated the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak.

'Gaming is my work': identity work in internet- hobbyist game workers

Developments in personal information communication technology (ICT) are facilitating opportunities for turning internet-based hobbies into self-employed occupations. Real income can be earned by trading virtual objects and currencies used in massively multiplayer online games – a form of economic activity known as real money trade (RMT). This study focuses on RMT workers as an example of new cyber workers who lack traditional identity sources, such as public workplaces, recognizable company names or association with existing occupations. Through examining their identity work, this study argues that as more people are taking their work and leisure life online, ambiguity has become an important characteristic of these new cyber workers who provide labour service via the internet. Work identities which used to be established collectively and effortlessly now require active identity work to maintain.

The Role of Onlookers in Arcade Gaming: Frame Analysis of Public Behaviours

In this article we bring onlookers to front stage. Normally considered invisible participants in video game arcades, their multiple and fluid roles are key to establishing interactional frames in public gaming spaces. We identified three such frames — showroom, gymnasium, and clubroom — after analysing interactions and finding examples of self-presentation in Taipei’s largest gaming arcade. According to our observations, the nature of gaming scenarios is largely determined by the relative skill levels of players and onlookers, with participants playing their roles in relation to the currently active frame. Onlookers provide cues that signal dynamic frame shifts, thereby collectively maintaining the gaming environment while distinguishing themselves from outsiders. Our study uses a social interactional approach as a complement to fun- and/or play-oriented game research.

Problems in simulating social reality: observations on a MUD construction

The authors look at computer-mediated simulation as an approach to studying social science issues and discuss its limitations, with the design process for a Multiple-User Dungeon (MUD) game serving as a context. Using data gleaned from interviews with the MUD designers, the authors present three findings: (a) fun is a key difference between simulations and reality, because a MUD user can always walk away from a game that is not fun but cannot walk away from difficult real-life situations; (b) simulated social systems require time and commitment from a fairly large population, which conflicts with the typical level of patience observed in most computer game players; and (c) the roles of technicians and designers as mediators in simulated social environments is an area requiring detailed study, because their attitudes toward technical constraints, social values, and stereotypes exert a strong influence on the appearance of their final products.

Online Game Worlds as a Virtual Co-presence across National Borders

Lin and Sun discuss three characteristics of Massively Multi-Player Online Games (MMOGs) that make them promising social gathering spaces, which are also known as virtual “third places.” Through analyzing the MMOGs, this chapter explicates that the sense of co-presence, the crystallization of game communities and identities, and digital-game subjectivity contribute to the emerging global village. Ongoing online game worlds then in the long term cultivate shared experiences among users. The authors then argue that the online game world migration phenomenon is a vivid example of collective contact experiences in the current digital era.