Unlike classical forms of online communities or the newer phenomenon of social network sites, community structures of online gamer communities tend to be diverse, highly complex socio-technological structures centred around the organization, (meta-) communication, exchange (e.g., of virtual items) of game-related issues and events. Depending on the type of multi-player game, online gaming communities can vary from relatively small online interactions (e.g., in one dedicated discussion forum) to huge interconnected network activities encompassing clan homepages, clan networks, Weblogs, gaming zines, online forums, gaming league sites and so on. So-called ? “LAN parties” are offline events directly linked to online gaming communities, giving them a real-life representation.
Published in Chapter:
(Self-) Educational Effects of Computer Gaming Cultures
Johannes Fromme (University of Magdeburg, Germany), Benjamin Jörissen (University of Magdeburg, Germany), and Alexander Unger (University of Magdeburg, Germany)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 19
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-808-6.ch043
Abstract
The goal of this chapter is to emphasize a certain notion of self-induced education, to discuss it in the context of digital games and to provide the means for assessing digital games as well as to give hints on their educational use. In the first section, the concept of “self-education” is introduced and distinguished against less complex learning phenomena. The second section discusses and analyses the different layers of “educational space” inherent to gaming software, providing the analytical means for the further sections. The third section presents and analyses educational aspects of single-player games, while the fourth section adds the socio-cultural impacts implied in multi-player communities. In conclusion, a synopsis is given, which sums up the main educational dimensions and connects them to aspects and analytical criteria, allowing a pedagogical assessment of digital games.