The Social Side of Gamer Spaces

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1:20Thank you for having me. At the commercial break, you mentioned to me that you played a lot of games as part of studying this. Is that why you picked the research area? I'm assuming it isn't. No, it's definitely related to it. I do enjoy playing games. I grew up in the 90s, so getting into anthropology, I first was going to do physical games, but ended up returning to the digital field. As an anthropologist, you always have to do the things that the people you study are doing and playing video games sound really nice at the time. At this point, I also know that it is a lot of hard work if you actually make that into your profession. But I do still enjoy it. Yes. Turning what you love into your job is a nightmare. Take it from me. Plus, you get to be gaming and your boss can come in your office and you can say, I don't know. I'm working. Okay. Let's get into the study. For those who aren't steeped in sociology, jargon, what exactly is a third place?

2:24How did we go from cafes and pubs to a discord server or a server where gamers hang out and socialize? So third places are spaces where traditionally we can imagine something like a beer garden or a pub where people are able to vent and converse outside of their family and workplace environments. Right? So it's a third place, first place being your home or family, second place being work or school somewhere where achievement and hierarchies are important. And it is somewhere outside of those two is the third place. And what we see is that these places are gradually actually disappearing, unfortunately. At the same time, there are digital spaces that to some degree can cover some of that, although there is, of course, debates about to what extent these digital spaces are viable. I was staying at my friend's house a few weeks ago and he's got a, I think, a 14-year-old son and the 14-year-old son was on his computer with the headset on playing video games, screaming

3:27at his friends. And the dad was like, I don't know about these communities. How does your research show that these communities are actually a good place where people socialize they get supportive friend interactions, things like this? Yeah, that's a great example and I think this is kind of the image. This is the image that sticks, right? But there are probably, I'm not sure about your friend, but there's probably also days that your friend's son might be quiet and actually having a very profound conversation with somebody. But we don't as parents or people surrounding these people that are playing. We don't necessarily see that, right? And so what I did with the former student of mine, Yahannashi, we looked into these communities and actually spent a lot of time with them and interviewed the people that were part of it and found that, yes, initially, people who'd perhaps be a little bit intense about the game and trying to win and trying to get strong teammates to join them.

4:28And so the game aspect is definitely central initially. But over time, as people create these communities where they see the same people and they have a fixed team or fixed community space that is initially again about, okay, can you play tank or can you play this role or that role or how good are you at this, right? Over time, people in between the matches, right, or on this court, there's ways to chat about other things outside of the games. We find that people gradually become more invested socially and so people kept saying things like, well, I initially joined to find people to play Splatoon with. That's the particular game we focused on in this study. But in the end, we just kind of just kind of logged in because I wanted to vent and talk about how my day at work was. I used to do a lot of stand-up comedy three, four, five nights a week and it was the in-between sets in-between performing moments after the gigs where I really made friends with the other comedians. I think of that as like a highly social in-person kind of activity, but it sounds like

5:30video game chat spaces online. It's very similar between the match, hey, tell me about your life. These kind of intimate conversations create that social environment. For sure. I do want to emphasize not every game necessarily supports these kinds of communities. What I will say in my own field study, which is Japan, people go out of their way to create communities using tools like Discord to create community features that are not even necessarily in the game itself. Nintendo is known for not necessarily having a lot of communication features, so you're not even able to communicate with somebody you just played with, even if you wanted to, because it protects against things like stalking and there's good reasons for that. Yeah. You don't want young kids interacting with adults like that. Exactly. Your friend. But then when you do have somebody that you like and you want to play with again, there's not really a way to do that. That's why people turn to external tools like Discord, where they can create their own

6:32community and say, okay, we want to create a community that's centered around this kind of skill or this kind of purpose, and then what you see, what you end up seeing is the creation of more social elements, where people are like, okay, the main purpose was trying to win in this game, but in between games or on Sunday mornings when nobody's really online. I want to share what my latest book was that I read or where I had lunch, and things like that will gradually turn even some of these teenagers towards more social connections that you don't necessarily see if you're just looking at somebody playing again. Now your research took place in Japan here in North America, gamers can be negatively stereotyped as socially awkward or loners or something. I assume some form of that stereotype exists in Japan, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're finding challenge that they are fully social spaces. For sure, and in some ways, it might even be stronger.

7:34I think in the North America, I think there was a time when we just sort of had to justify studying games seriously as a profession or something that had us meaning, but I think we have passed that space now, mostly in North America, whereas in Japan, some of these stereotypes are a bit more deeply rooted, they're very generational. And so yeah, I think it's definitely a challenge to see what people can do with these games. I think the gold standard of a third place is like a place where someone can really just feel like they can be themselves. Do people and players on these Discord servers do they feel like it's an environment where they don't have to hide themselves like at work maybe where they can just kick back, relax, say whatever they want, share personal details, things like that? For sure. And again, this is something that emerges over time, right? And this is why we're doing ethnography, which is a long term, immersive study, right? We're not just coming in for a week and then checking out, right?

8:34We're there for multiple months and see these relationships as they develop. And then over time, initially, people are very hesitant to actually share things about their gender identity, about their workplace and things like that. But gradually, these almost become expected. And then people will share things like, you know, at work, I've just wearing a mask and in Japan, again, this is similar, I think, in the US, in North America, but a bit more strongly pronounced in Japan where there is a script or there is a layer of etiquette, right? And so people feel distant from these roles. They might also have very strict parents that prevent them from going out. And so for these kinds of people and players, these games and these communities on Discord become ways to actually interact with a variety of people, even when they have a very strict family that tells them to keep studying in their room, as long as they have access to a gaming device, they're also able to talk to other people and have kind of self-care

9:37is what some people describe it as, having some kind of way to vent and talk to people rather than just being evaluated based on what they do and what mask they're wearing. Well, if these gaming servers can be social lifelines like you say for people, I don't know, maybe we should look at kids on Discord as part of like social infrastructure, not just like loners gaming or whatever. Sounds like parents could have a lot to learn from your research. I appreciate you coming on the show, Matthias, thanks for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Matthias Von Omen is an anthropology professor at Doshisha University in Japan. Spring just slid into your DMs, grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling, Ross, work your magic.