Observation
Today I sat back and watched a group of teenagers play online and story mode on two different games; Call of Duty – Morden Warfare 2 and Fifa 2011 on the PS3.
The group consisted of 6 males and 1 female
Alex – Male 17 years old
Ashley – Male 18 years old
Shaun – Male 17 years old
Ries – Male 18 years old
Rashid – Male 18 years old
Kai – Male 17 years old
Michelle – Female 15 years old
The group of boys played multiplayer mode on Fifa 2011 first. It had a competitive atmosphere straight from the beginning. Each individual had they say on who will win and a lot of banter was thrown around. Before each game and during the set up of each game it was more of light heart banter throughout the group. But the atmosphere changed during each game. The 2 players against each other were quite and more focused whilst playing as each person took it seriously and wanted to win. The other group members that were spectators were mostly commentating on the game and analysis there style of play. The female Michelle wasn’t involved heavily during the time of playing Fifa 2011 as football isn’t one of her interests.
Firstly the group played ‘winner stays on’ style of play. This particular rule made each member try there hardest to stay on. The winner playing would be the player that would throw the most banter in the group despite if particular members are more competitive than others. I noticed with more and more games where confidence grew when group member Rashid won most games and stayed on for the longest. As it was evidence that Rashid had been the most consistent he could back his competitive nature therefore he was always showing off most of the time. Varies group members has different excuses why they lost and each excuse varied depending on the individual that lose. It was evident that different players take losing in many different ways. Alex and Shaun who are the most inexperienced blamed it on inexperience and claimed that if they played the game more than they could be the best out of the group. Kai in particular couldn’t take losing to well. He blamed most of his lost on the actual game itself and never once admitted that Rashid was better. Ashley is one participate that wasn’t bothered with losing and had fun regardless.
Scoring and winning games created a sudden uproar of excitement. Each player had scored and reacted similar. Each player was excited and had so much passion when scoring. It was clear that each player wanted to win and showed off celebrations every time they scored.
Although there was banter thrown around everyone said that they enjoyed playing the game as a collective and that they don’t have as much fun when playing against each other online mode. They said they only prefer online if the weather isn’t great or they don’t have enough money for travel.
Every member said online is only used when they are in a difficult position to go and see each other and go to each other house. Each group stated that they prefer playing multiplayer mode with everyone.
The final question I asked them was whether they would prefer to play story mode or go online to play others. 5 out of 7 of them stated that they would play online mode rather than playing story mode.
Another observation I did was to monitor whether there is a change in behaviour when playing against other people around the world via online. For this task I monitored my sister Michelle aged 15 playing ‘Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2’. I asked her how she was feeling before hand and what her objective is and she said ‘I’m excited to play and ready to have fun’. Whilst she was playing online mode I was looking at behaviour, competitiveness and enjoyment.
Michelle’s behaviour was calm and collective at the start and was having fun as she was playing well and her online team was winning. Online I noticed that there were a few people that were using abusive language even to team members. During the process of this observation there was 5 different occasions where my sister was discriminated against because of her gender. I notice that the first and second time this occurred my sister didn’t react to it and I asked her why she answered ‘I’m used to it and it happens on a daily bases’ but after the third, fourth and firth I noticed it started to get on her nerves and this effected the way she played in a negative way. I could see by her movement and attitude that she was getting stressed. My sister started to answer back to people and quit games before the finishing times because she was losing. This showed me that she was getting more and more competitive.
After an hour and ten minutes Michelle gave up and quit the game and switched of the game console in a stressed out way. This is a prime example of competiveness overriding enjoyment. I saw that gamers can take the game to seriously but in this case the result can be seen in two different ways it could be the discrimination that forced her to quit the game or the fact that she doesn’t take losing well.
