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Krista S

6 Maps of Digital Desires: Exploring the Topography of Gender and Play in Online Games - 1 views

  • Women in many MMOs perceive the game culture rather than the game mechanics to be the primary deterrent to poten-­ tial female gamers
  • On average, respondents spend twenty-­two hours each week in an MMO. The median was twenty hours per week—the equivalent of half a workweek. There were no significant gender or age differences in usage patterns; players over the age of forty play on average just as much as players under the age of twenty
  • While about 27 percent of female players were introduced to the game by a romantic partner, only 1 percent of male players were introduced in this way.
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  • Overall, about 25 percent of players play an MMO with their romantic partner. Female players are more likely to be playing with a romantic partner than male players (see figure 6.1). About two-­ thirds of female gamers are playing with a romantic partner, while less than one-­fifth of male gamers are
  • Men are allowed relatively free access to online games, but a woman’s presence in an online game is seen as legitimate only if it occurs via a relationship with a man.
  • It isn’t the case that women play only for socializing or that men play only to kill monsters. On the other hand, there are gender differences in these self-­identified motivations. Male players score higher in the Advancement, Mechanics, and Competition motivations, while female players score higher in the Relationship and Customization motivations. There were very small or no gender differences in the other five motivations—Socializing, Teamwork, Discovery, Role-­Playing, and Escapism.
  • In a recent survey, I asked female gamers about what they saw as potential deterrents to female gamers in the MMO they played. Almost every respondent cited the proportions and clothing options of the female avatars as problematic.
  • To a certain extent, this encourages players to think about women as token spectacles rather than actual players.
  • More important, many female players have learned that it is danger-­ ous to reveal your real-­life gender in MMOs because they will be branded as incompetent and constantly propositioned; In other words, they must either accept the male-­subject position silently, or risk constant discrimination and harassment if they reveal that they are female
  • Also, there are very few other places (in physical or virtual worlds) where high-­school students are collaborating with professors, retired war veterans, and stay-­at-­home moms
Krista S

The demographics, motivations, and derived experiences of users of massively multi-user... - 0 views

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    Male players were significantly more likely to be driven by the Achievement and Manipulation factors, while female players were significantly more likely to be driven by the Relationship factor. Also, the data indicated that users derived meaningful relationships and salient emotional experiences, as well as real-life leadership skills from these virtual environments. MMORPGs are not simply a pastime for teenagers, but a valuable research venue and platform where millions of users interact and collaborate using real-time 3D avatars on a daily basis.
Krista S

Motivations for Play in Online Games - 0 views

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    While these results seem to confirm stereotypical assumptions of gendered play styles, the variation in the achievement component is in fact better explained by age than gender. Also worth noting is that there is a gender difference in the relationship subcomponent but not in the socializing subcomponent, although these two subcomponents are highly related. In other words, male players socialize just as much as female players, but are looking for very different things in those relationships.
Audrey B

Digital Zapatismo and the Threatened Persecution of Prof. Ricardo Dominguez (UCSD) | Ca... - 0 views

  • The EDT and other Digital Zapatistas succeeded in furthering the message of the EZLN and the indigenous peoples of Mexico, but they never physically harmed anyone or anything, in spite of the government violence directed at them.
    • Audrey B
       
      nonviolent electronic civil disobedience
  • As an artist, Dominguez has always looked to open “disturbance spaces” inside our contemporary communication platforms. He is a former member of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), a group of artists and activists whose focus is “the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism.” Later Dominguez helped found the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) which sought to expand the work of the CAE into cyberspace. They developed the idea of Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD), which just as the name suggests is an electronic extension of Thoreau’s old idea.
  • With black tape across their mouths, surgical masks marked with X’s, and holding signs that read “Art is not a Crime,” and “Academic Freedom,” over 200 students gathered on Thursday, April 8th at the Silent Tree on library walk.
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  • In 2009 Dominguez was named by CNN one of its “Most Interesting People” for his work in developing the Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT
  • Professor Dominguez’s work, first with Critical Art Ensemble and then with Electronic Disturbance Theater, has been highly cited, and he has been invited to lecture on the work across a host of important international venues…The esteemed status of Professor Dominguez’s field-defining work has been duly noted by the external referees, who include major international intellectuals working in performance art, new media and globalization.
  • EDT illuminates a new set of possibilities for understanding the relation between performance, embodiment, and spatial practice in cyberspace. Unlike a number of other performance artists, who have explored the relation of the body to technology through the literal encounter of individual physical bodies to machines, those working at EDT have placed the very notion of “embodiment” under question. Rather, they have sought to understand the specific possibilities for constituting presence in digital space that is both collective and politicized.
  • taking known forms and then augmenting or subverting their messages in order to provoke thought, discussion and emotion. What made the EDT different is how they applied these age-old principles of artistic expression to “new” media and digital technology.
  • performances and interventions were based upon questioning (but never fully answering) contemporary social problems and injustices.
  • Members of the EDT, including Dominguez, contributed to the artistic front of the EZLN’s fight for the indigenous people of Mexico. They crafted themselves as Digital Zapatistas, “attacking” the websites of the Mexican government and the agencies of the US government, which were supporting the oppression of the people in Chiapas. But the “attacks” were never effective… only affective.
  • developments of EDT was FloodNet — the technology behind Virtual Sit-Ins such as the one against the UCOP website for which Dominguez is now under investigation.
  • EDT’s goal was to take the long respected tradition of a peaceful sit-in to the virtual space of a website.
  • And, just like an embodied sit-in, to be effective the virtual sit-in must be open and transparent.
  • There are key differences between the virtual sit-in and a “Distributed Denial of Service Attack,” which Dominguez has been accused of launching. With the latter, computers of unknowing individuals become conduits to increase traffic to a particular Internet address, therefore rendering it inoperable, threatening the potential crash of the system itself. In this type of attack the identity of the perpetrators remains obscured in a prolonged assault usually motivated either by retribution, financial gain, and/or attempts to censor free speech.
  • In contrast, with the virtual sit-in, the goals of the action are stated, grievances described, participants known and once it is over no physical damage is done. FloodNet is a Java applet that is the code equivalent of going to the target website and constantly clicking the “reload” button. It also allows the participants to leave messages in the server’s error log by looking for non-existent URLs in the target server, which will then generate error messages. For example, a search for “human_rights” will generate an error message “File not found. ‘human_rights’ does not exist on this .gov server.”
  • by the same administration, which is now threatening him.
    • Audrey B
       
      So let me get this right, basically UCSD hired him after they knew that he co-founded EDT, had participated in ECD, and they knew what he was capable. So they were fine with him "attacking" the Mexican government. But when he and students non-violently protest through a virtual sit-in, because it is aimed towards them, they get mad and are now trying to take his tenure away? Hello, Dr. Dominguez is a professor teaching ECD. Are they going to fire him and take him to court for something he teaches their students?
  • Also among his scholarly and artistic accomplishments cited as reasons to grant Dominguez tenure were the various uses of FloodNet technology to conduct virtual sit-ins on websites run by governments, international finance organizations, anti-immigrant sites and even UCOP’s website.
  • In the hour to come Professor Dominguez would frame his encounter with the administration “Zapatista style,” transforming a closed meeting, the purpose of which was to conduct “fact finding” in relation to his March 4th actions, into a collective meeting or “consulta.”
  • Rejoining the crowd of supporters he sat quietly listening to faculty and students as they read letters that spanned the globe, and which voiced solidarity, alliance, and outrage at the administration’s criminalization of his work.
Krista S

Project Massive : The Social and Psychological Impact of Online Gaming - 0 views

  • Further, the re- sults indicate that participation in online gaming can lead to decreased isolation and en- hanced social integration for those players who use online gaming as a medium in which to spend time and interact with real life friends and relatives.
  • The average adult spends 4 hours per day (or 28 hours weekly) watching television (A.C. Neilsen, 2001). Average weekly video game play is estimated at 7.6 hours (ESA, 2004). It is reported that people who play massively multi- player online games do so for an average of 15 hours per week; however, weekly usage of 30 hours or more is not uncommon
  • It is assumed that 10% of online game players are addicted to the activ- ity, an extrapolation from the ABCNEWS.com survey finding that 10% of all users of the internet are addicted to it
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  • Killers are characterized by what Bartle refers to as a desire to impose themselves on the play experience of others. Most often this is done by killing other players for the joy of
  • “knowing that a real person, somewhere, is very upset by what you've just done, yet can themselves do nothing about it.” Killers are commonly referred to as “griefers” and their actions as “grief play” given their orientation toward annoying and aggravating others.
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