Citation
Ducheneaut, N. The chorus of the dead: roles, identity formation, and ritual processes inside a FPS multiplayer online game. Chapter in Utopic Dreams and Apocalyptic Fantasies: Critical Approaches to Researching Video Game Play, edited by J. Talmadge Wright, David G. Embrick and Andras Lukacs. Lexington Books; 2010.
Abstract
This chapter explores patterns of social interaction in an as-yet understudied online computer game genre: first-person shooters (FPS). Based on a four-month virtual ethnography conducted among the members of an active Counter-Strike clan, I examine how roles, status and power are created, negotiated and maintained by the players. In particular, I analyze the innovative communication practices allowed by the games reification of Goffmans dramaturgical view of social life, which allows for a flexible definition and reinterpretation of a players role. I then describe how players are socialized over time into a particular gaming community. I highlight the central role of humor in creating in-groups and out-groups among the gamers, and finally illustrate how the transition from one social class to another is heavily influenced by ones mastery of the community’s rules of interactions.
