Impact Of Online Gaming On Everyday Life

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The Impact of Online Gaming on the Experience of the Everyday Everyday life is increasingly being experienced through Internet-mediated activities and communication. In particular, online gaming has had an impact on how everyday life is experienced. Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGS), such as World of WarCraft or EverQuest, have millions of users that spend many hours a day in virtual environments, interacting, completing quests and earning virtual rewards. Users may create avatars, join guilds and communicate online with friends and strangers. Beyond the mere extensiveness of use and popularity of these games, there are a number of ways that online games impact on the experience of everyday life. As will be discussed …show more content…

The study of the everyday is important because it is in the everyday that we discover how people define and understand themselves, conceptualise relationships, understand power manifestations and attribute meaning to life. The everyday can be analysed with reference to how people relate to economy, and therefore this will become a focus of discussion. A consideration of how concepts of ‘community’ has become intertwined and confused with the economy of gaming, and the impact of this on the formation and shifting of identity is then used to discover how online gaming affects the experience of the …show more content…

Zhang and Fung (2014) provide numerous examples of how operating a guild has become more of an economic endeavour than the provision of a community environment. They note that some guilds sell information to gaming companies in return for free or low-cost customer support. Others develop virtual currency trading platforms or ‘reward point systems’ by selling game testing accounts and gift packages, or advertising for new releases. Further still, some may organise ‘guild wars’ to award cash prize, virtual goods or currencies or gift packages and may hire full-time or part time gamers. The various roles, activities, ‘wars’ and prizes come to encompass an individual and community identity that requires extensive dedication, time-commitment and

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