02345 a2200349 4500 1498767656 20250317100408.0 250312042018xx 50 eng 9781498767651 Taylor & Francis GBP 69.99 BB 01 eng UMK thema TBDG thema A thema UGN thema TBC thema UMK bic TBDG bic A bic UGN bic TBC bic COM012040 bisac COM079010 bisac 794.8 bisac Guo Freeman Multiplayer Online Games Origins, Players, and Social Dynamics 1 A K Peters/CRC Press 20180223 166 p Multiplayer Online Games (MOGs) have become a new genre of "play culture," integrating communication and entertainment in a playful, computer-mediated environment that evolves through user interaction. This book comprehensively reviews the origins, players, and social dynamics of MOGs, as well as six major empirical research methods used in previous works to study MOGs (i.e., observation/ethnography, survey/interviews, content and discourse analysis, experiments, network analysis, and case studies). It concludes that MOGs represent a highly sophisticated, networked, multimedia and multimodal Internet technology, which can construct entertaining, simultaneous, persistent social virtual worlds for gamers. Overall, the book shows that what we can learn from MOGs is how games and gaming, as ubiquitous activities, fit into ordinary life in today’s information society, in the moments where the increased use of media as entertainment, the widespread application of networked information technologies, and participation in new social experiences intersect. Key Features: Contains pertinent knowledge about online gaming: its history, technical features, player characteristics, social dynamics, and research methods Sheds light on the potential future of online gaming, and how this would impact every aspect of our everyday lives – socially, culturally, technologically, and economically Asks promising questions based on cutting-edge research in the field of online game design and development 2017 2017