Creative Player Actions in FPS Online Video Games

http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/wright/

This paper analyzes speech patterns of CS players in-game in an attempt to show that the game is not all about mindless violence and involves a great deal of creativity, cooperation, and social interaction. The authors group all logged conversations into five very broad categories: Game Technical/External Talk, Performance Talk, Insult/Distancing Talk, Game Conflict Talk, and Creative Game Talk. The last of these is the main focus of the paper and is divided further and analyzed thoroughly with examples. The subdivisions, each with a section dedicated to it were names, naming and identity talk; joking, irony and word play; map creations, map judging, and logo comments and designs; changing game rules and technical limits (reflexive awareness of game features, i.e. low gravity); and popular culture references to in-game talk. General examples of each form of "creative" speech were given, and usually followed up by specific transcriptions of in-game chats or screenshots.

The authors made accurate observations regarding in-game chat in CS. Much of the CS gaming experience is spent in "limbo," while one's character is dead but while others are still playing out the remainder of the round. This is especially true for weaker players. During this period only other "dead" players see chat messages from the player. As a result, social interaction becomes a crucial part of the gaming experience, as it is not very much fun to silently watch others play. The last few times that I have played CS I have actually noticed how much less I enjoy the game when I join a random server where I don’t know a single person, as compared to when I was an avid player about four years ago and had a group of two or three servers I frequented where I usually knew at least a few people in every game. I would not go so far as to call most of the things people say in CS chat “creative,” but the social interaction is definitely crucial, and I’m glad that these authors took notice of this.