The Social Network Gamer’s Experience of Play: A Netnography of Restaurant City on Facebook

Ercilia García-Álvarez; Jordi López-Sintas; Alexandra Samper-Martínez

doi:10.1177/1555412015595924

The Social Network Gamer’s Experience of Play: A Netnography of Restaurant City on Facebook

Ercilia García-Álvarez, Jordi López-Sintas, Alexandra Samper-Martínez

Departament of Business

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

© 2015, © The Author(s) 2015. We address the subjective experience of social network gamers playing Restaurant City, a game hosted on Facebook. We adopted a netnographic approach to studying the culture of transient Internet communities shaping the player off-line communities. Fieldwork was conducted over the entire life span of the game (3 years). Data were analyzed using a qualitative thematic approach and the software EdEt. The results describe the evolution of the gaming experience through online interaction and its importance in everyday off-line life. Players were observed to play an important role in the production of social meanings associated with gaming and with the gaming community online and off-line. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding how the gaming process is a far more complex scenario than envisaged by a business vision based on acquisition, retention, and monetization.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	650-670
Journal	Games and Culture
Volume	12
Issue number	7-8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412015595924
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2017

Keywords

Facebook
gamer experience
netnography
social interaction
social network game

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10.1177/1555412015595924

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Cite this

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title = "The Social Network Gamer{\textquoteright}s Experience of Play: A Netnography of Restaurant City on Facebook",

abstract = "{\textcopyright} 2015, {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2015. We address the subjective experience of social network gamers playing Restaurant City, a game hosted on Facebook. We adopted a netnographic approach to studying the culture of transient Internet communities shaping the player off-line communities. Fieldwork was conducted over the entire life span of the game (3 years). Data were analyzed using a qualitative thematic approach and the software EdEt. The results describe the evolution of the gaming experience through online interaction and its importance in everyday off-line life. Players were observed to play an important role in the production of social meanings associated with gaming and with the gaming community online and off-line. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding how the gaming process is a far more complex scenario than envisaged by a business vision based on acquisition, retention, and monetization.",

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AU - García-Álvarez, Ercilia

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PY - 2017/11/1

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N2 - © 2015, © The Author(s) 2015. We address the subjective experience of social network gamers playing Restaurant City, a game hosted on Facebook. We adopted a netnographic approach to studying the culture of transient Internet communities shaping the player off-line communities. Fieldwork was conducted over the entire life span of the game (3 years). Data were analyzed using a qualitative thematic approach and the software EdEt. The results describe the evolution of the gaming experience through online interaction and its importance in everyday off-line life. Players were observed to play an important role in the production of social meanings associated with gaming and with the gaming community online and off-line. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding how the gaming process is a far more complex scenario than envisaged by a business vision based on acquisition, retention, and monetization.

AB - © 2015, © The Author(s) 2015. We address the subjective experience of social network gamers playing Restaurant City, a game hosted on Facebook. We adopted a netnographic approach to studying the culture of transient Internet communities shaping the player off-line communities. Fieldwork was conducted over the entire life span of the game (3 years). Data were analyzed using a qualitative thematic approach and the software EdEt. The results describe the evolution of the gaming experience through online interaction and its importance in everyday off-line life. Players were observed to play an important role in the production of social meanings associated with gaming and with the gaming community online and off-line. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding how the gaming process is a far more complex scenario than envisaged by a business vision based on acquisition, retention, and monetization.

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