The Accidental Carjack: Ethnography, Gameworld Tourism, and Grand Theft Auto
Reading this article this week made me think about concepts that I have come across some psychology courses and educational technology courses. I could even think about qualitative research and the difficulty that the ethnographer usually faces.
First, I thought about Marc Prensky's concept of digital natives. Well the natives as Prensky suggested were the young people growing up with the technology whereas the older generations are immigrants. However in this article Miller suggested that game designers were also natives. I find that really interesting as before reading this piece I had never thought of the designers. Well are they natives or did they acquire the citizenship? I still can't decide particularly while I am thinking about one of Anton's post about each player being able to change the gaming experience.Besides one can also refer to open source game that have deviated from the original purpose or design because a native has played and enhanced it. Well for the designers, I will retain the term naturalized citizens.
The second part of my comment establishes a relationship between ethnography and metacognition. Metacognition is the process of thinking about how one thinks. As an ethnographer one is submerged in an experiment to fully understand the underlying process. Miller showed that the experiences of the ethnographer in a gamin environment isn't really easy to seize. I found it particularly difficult to play and to be able to think about the reason or how the play is going on without the thinking process causing interference with the strategy that are being used to succeed in the game. In qualitative research, ethnographers usually have access to tools (video, tape recorder etc.) to keep track of what is happening in the environment they are observing. As a gamer the process appears to be very complex. Well if goal is to only seize a glimpse of the whole experiences it might be feasible. I think that even if the ethnographer uses all the sources mentioned by Miller, there will always be the risk of losing a lot of information (or part of the experience) because gaming is so complex that it requires most of our attention and leave only a little space to metacognition while playing.
P.S. I discovered bejeweled 2 and is addicted to it. It is a basic game and while playing it I realized as simple it might be it requires a lot of concentration. Don't even want to think about other things while playing it. Best scores 35000. If you want to try http://www.popcap.com/games/free/bejeweled2
First, I thought about Marc Prensky's concept of digital natives. Well the natives as Prensky suggested were the young people growing up with the technology whereas the older generations are immigrants. However in this article Miller suggested that game designers were also natives. I find that really interesting as before reading this piece I had never thought of the designers. Well are they natives or did they acquire the citizenship? I still can't decide particularly while I am thinking about one of Anton's post about each player being able to change the gaming experience.Besides one can also refer to open source game that have deviated from the original purpose or design because a native has played and enhanced it. Well for the designers, I will retain the term naturalized citizens.
The second part of my comment establishes a relationship between ethnography and metacognition. Metacognition is the process of thinking about how one thinks. As an ethnographer one is submerged in an experiment to fully understand the underlying process. Miller showed that the experiences of the ethnographer in a gamin environment isn't really easy to seize. I found it particularly difficult to play and to be able to think about the reason or how the play is going on without the thinking process causing interference with the strategy that are being used to succeed in the game. In qualitative research, ethnographers usually have access to tools (video, tape recorder etc.) to keep track of what is happening in the environment they are observing. As a gamer the process appears to be very complex. Well if goal is to only seize a glimpse of the whole experiences it might be feasible. I think that even if the ethnographer uses all the sources mentioned by Miller, there will always be the risk of losing a lot of information (or part of the experience) because gaming is so complex that it requires most of our attention and leave only a little space to metacognition while playing.
P.S. I discovered bejeweled 2 and is addicted to it. It is a basic game and while playing it I realized as simple it might be it requires a lot of concentration. Don't even want to think about other things while playing it. Best scores 35000. If you want to try http://www.popcap.com/games/free/bejeweled2
Comments
I also find it hard to try and analyze gameplay while you are playing it. And, I think it is true of all games, not just video games.
PS- I'm also addicted to Bejeweled. I think the combination of colors and looking for solutions are really relaxing.