Abstract
Days of Empire is a freemium mobile strategy video game developed and published by the company ONEMT, whose actual headquarters is in Fuzhou Fujian, China. The company specializes in fantasy video games mostly set in the Middle East and full of references to the history and mythology of the Arab and Turkish peoples. The objective is to provide a description of the game and to perform a qualitative analysis of the attitudes of selected players towards the game, their emotional drivers, and the financial commitment many of them undertake to achieve greater success in the game. As many discussions take place in the chat function of the game, the author is interested in stereotypes referencing the players' country of origin, gender stereotypes, and even the sexual harassment to which female players are subjected. Using the emic approach, an insider's perspective will be shown of the ways in which the players of Days of Empire look at the issues of nationalism and gender stereotypes, and the emotional connection between single individuals and a freemium game of this type.
TopBackground
The present work adheres to the methodological principles of netnography research, as indicated by Robert Kozinets (2020), and represents a further step on the path indicated by other authors who have dealt with videogames netnography such as Tom Boellstorff et al. (2012), Ercilia García-Álvarez, Jordi López-Sintas and Alexandra Samper-Martinez (2017), Yi-Sheng Wang, Wei-Long Lee and Tsuen-Ho Hsu (2017), Jenna Drenten, Robert L. Harrison and Nicholas J. Pendarvis (2019), Ahmad Zaidatul and Noor Aireen Ibragim (2020), and some umpublished final thesis or doctoral dissertations.
The author drew on five types of possible information: those offered by the developer, the graphic and textual structure of the game, the group communication carried out in the game's chats and on the cross-platform service Whatsapp, interpersonal communication through long-distance telephone interviews, and intrapersonal communication (autoethnography).
Instead, the author does not present clear statistical data as the game developer does not appear to be transparent enough in the marketing of its product. The little data available is derived from comparison with similar online games and from a sample of 105 players.
All respondent names are fictitious. Not even the aliases used by respondents in the game have been reported, so that it is not possible to trace the identity of the informant. The phrases taken from the chats of the game are instead reported with the nickname that the player uses in Days of Empire.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Loot Box: A virtual object, usually presented in the form of a chest, containing one or more virtual objects that offer the player improvements in the game.
F2P: Games for which nothing is paid.
Avatar: Image chosen to represent oneself in a virtual community.
RPG: A type of game in which players play the role of fictional characters for that act according to given rules within the game itself.
Guilds: Associations of artisans and merchants in the European Middle Ages. The word was adopted by RPG language to mean unions of players within the game distinct from others.
Heterostereotypes: Specific forms of stereotypes that group members exhibit towards other social groups.
Sharia: In the Islamic tradition, behavior dictated by God for the moral, religious, and lawful conduct of his faithful.
P2W: The reality of F2P: to be really competitive, it is necessary to spend real money.
Microtransactions: A business model where users can buy virtual objects through electronic transfer of small amounts of money.
MMORPG: Video game genre where a huge number of RPG players are involved.