Social Justification | Conceptural Justification

Why these questions, now?

4 reasons to pursue this research:

Games are Media:
Games are currently a popular form of entertainment, relatively unexplored as a communication medium.

Online Games are Different:
Online games have unique properties:

• interpersonal and cultural dynamics,
• enhanced capabilities for process and configurative modelling,
• ability to externalize rule structures (such as social behavior)

Game Studies is an Expanding Field:
The community of practice surrounding game studies (sometimes referred to as ludology) is new but rapidly expanding. In this early stage, game studies gains much ground from transposition of theory from other fields.

Questions of Agency and Authorship:
There is a significant interest in theorizing the relationship between game creator and player. This study can provide additional tools for exploring this relationship.

In addition, there is a great deal of interest in both player-created content (from a positive perspective) and player subversion (from a negative perspective) in online games. Both subjects relate to an interest in the agency of the game player in the game experience (and wider community of gamers). This study reveals some of the underlying cultural currents that feed these phenomenon.

More generally, this research can educate people to rhetorical discourse issues, which has ethical implications and promotes critical analysis of game communication. Ideally, rhetorical strategies for analysing meta-communication in the game community can be adopted by the cultural community as a means of exploring issues that can lead to a greater social good.