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Abstract

This article is a critical review of studies on gaming communities. In particular, it analyses the use of subcultural, post-subcultural and postmodern subcultural theorists in relation to video games players. Academic use of sociological concepts to study gaming communities, such as neo-tribe, subculture, lifestyle, and scene, is not always explained and almost all sociological instruments show limits in engaging the complex and changing phenomena of video gaming cultures. The article focuses on the misleading use of the term subculture and, therefore, analyses effective applications of post-subcultural and post-modern subcultural approaches to specific case studies. Eventually, the relation between gamers and video games cultures is analysed. In this sense, I argue that the complexity of gaming communities is difficult to be framed and I suggest the use of the Bourdieusian concept of champ.

Keywords

Gaming capital gaming communities literature review subculture

Video games cultures

This article discusses the use of sociological concepts to frame gaming communities. I analyse how the long debate about post-subcultural theories has not been considered properly by the majority of scholars interested in this topic (Bennett and Network, 2014; Hodkinson, 2016). On one hand, certain researchers relied on the concept of subculture as a catch-all term to describe social groups involved in gaming. On the other hand, other concepts, such as scene, have been adjusted to gaming communities from other disciplines improperly. This phenomenon has engendered ambiguities and confusion, while scholars have not addressed the problems tied to the lack of a comprehensive tool to investigate gaming cultures. I also critically engage with researchers’ attempts to introduce other sociological conceptualisations, including Bourdieusian ones. In this sense, I explain how this path could be important to provide academics with a strong theoretical framework to make research about gaming cultures.

Video games culture is a complex phenomenon affected by ongoing relevant changes, such as technological advancements and cultural shifts in gaming practices (Cassell and Jenkins, 1998). On one hand, new technological devices and software paved the spread of pervasive games, which involve real world into gaming actions (Capra et al., 2005; Mäyrä, 2015a, 2015b); on the other hand, the birth of live streaming, professional e-sports and exploitation of workers represented the most evident part of an important turn in the relation between gaming culture and labour (Johnson and Woodcock, 2017, 2018; Woodcock and Johnson, 2019). Hence, it is difficult to offer a comprehensive definition of gaming cultures (Muriel and Crawford, 2018: 2; Postigo, 2003), because they have intersected the development of different social groups and experienced dramatic changes in terms of cultural infrastructures and technical innovations, for more than six decades (Postigo, 2003: 593–594).

Video games are prevalently framed as a market-driven consumerist practice (Woodcock, 2019) with an expanding market that in 2020 involved 2.7 billion people and generate US$174.9 billion (Hollett et al., 2022). Research stressed how industries facilitated the conception of gaming as a consumerist practice (Dyer-Witheford and De Peuter, 2009; Nieborg, 2021), while strategies to contrast such a process are not a common practice among video games players, including counterplaying (Meades, 2015) and use of open-source game engines (Nicoll et al., 2019). Video games are indeed a form of ‘craft consumption’ (Campbell, 2005), a set of activities in which consumers ‘personalise their products by designing and making what they consume’ (Brock and Johnson, 2022: 599). During the last 20 years, this medium has become accepted even outside of the so-called core gamer segment (Quandt and Kröger, 2013: 3), coinciding with the raising of multiplayer online games. For this reason, video games cultures must be considered in relation to many factors, including technologies involved, and the contexts in which such cultures manifest (Hjorth, 2011).

Nevertheless, one can identify common key-elements that characterise social practices and people tied to video gaming. Scholars have drawn on sociological concepts so as to establish intellectual tools to investigate video games cultures. These concepts have been adjusted, in the majority of the cases, from studies about music and youth cultures. Indeed, subcultural and post-subcultural theories (Bennett, 2011; Muggleton and Weinzierl, 2003), concepts as tribes, neo-tribes (Hardy et al., 2018a; Hesmondhalgh, 2005), and scenes (Bennett and Peterson, 2004) have been long discussed in relation to music before being applied to video gaming communities.

Studies about video game production (Davis, 2008) highlighted the role played by consumers and forged or adapted specific concepts to describe fan involvement: for example, produsage (Bruns, 2013), prosumption (Ritzer et al., 2012), participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006b), Culture Converge (Jenkins, 2006a), viewer/user/player (Dinehart, 2008, 2011). However, less attention has been dedicated to finding new conceptual instruments to understand gaming communities.

Framing video gaming communities as ‘subcultures’

Scholars studied the relationship between video games and culture underlining the importance of it, often assuming polemical or defensive positions against their detractors (Malaby, 2007: 97; Williams et al., 2006: 9). Academics experimented with strategies to justify their object of study (Shaw, 2010: 414–416), which has been considered as ‘a heavily hedonistic, masturbatory affair’ in scholarly literature (Cronin and McCarthy, 2011: 721). This may have constrained studies of gaming into an eternal and contradictory stage (Kirkpatrick, 2015: 130) pointing out the polymorphic potential of the medium, and yet struggling to acknowledge its supposed normalisation in current societies.

In this sense, the imprecise use of sociological concepts to study gaming communities weakens this field of study. Scholars prevalently relied on the term subculture, and less often on other conceptualisations, such as scene or as neo-tribe, while the original definition of ‘virtual-culture’ (Crowe and Bradford, 2007) seemed to not be common in academic literature. The concept of subculture implies that a group separates itself from the rest of the people through a set of practices that are prevalently tied to cultural consumption and aimed to ‘resist’ against hegemonic social classes (Hall and Jefferson, 2006). Subculture concept tends to consider social groups as separated blocks and overlooks linking and differences among them, and the role played by individuality. According to this conceptualisation, the construction of identification is articulated by collective aesthetics (e.g. clothes, music) and values, while the meaning of style is forged to articulating tensions and conflicts in the changing social formations of later modernity (Bennett and Kahn-Harris, 2020: 47). Therefore, this concept has been used to study alternative consumerist practices (Hebdige, 2012 [1979]). Subculture justified deep-rooted cultural differences within an over-arching parent culture, in a period of the past characterised by ‘an unprecedent degree of cultural integration, at least in relation to the forms of mass culture’ (Bennett and Kahn-Harris, 2020: 37). Though, a long debate has established that ‘subcultures do not objectively exist’ (Haenfler, 2013: 30) and sociologists challenged the relevance of values like rebellion and authenticity in youth cultures since the mid-1990s (Guerra, 2024).

Conversely, hierarchy, competition, and individualism contribute to make gaming a ‘not unified entity’ (Krzywinska and King, 2005: 221). However, the use of subculture is underpinned by the naïve idea that gaming is something new and definable, separate from a constructed mainstream culture (Shaw, 2010: 404). Also, other elements contributed to such a broad and imprecise use of the concept (Washington, 2013): specialised jargons (Cataldi, 2020), dresses (Mascheroni and Pasquali, 2013), references to products of pop culture that are not widely known (Williams et al., 2006: 147), and a sense of solidarity associated with gaming communities.

This confusion of terms can also be found in research about professionalisation of gaming, including e-sports and live streaming. Although these phenomena are prevalently based on competition and largely consistent with dominant ideologies and consumerism (Guarriello, 2019; Woodcock and Johnson, 2021), they are also prevalently framed as subcultures. This often happens without a proper explanation (Freeman and Wohn, 2020; King and De La Hera, 2020; Sher, 2023). In other cases, research ignores important aspects of post-subcultural turn, including the discussion around neo-tribes (Marelić and Vukušić, 2019).

Use of subculture has also been reinforced by Huizinga’s (2002 [1958]) definition of play and ‘magic circle’. Entering into the so called ‘magic circle’, players would decide to withdraw from the rest of the world and to be part of a fictional dimension (Copier, 2005; Krzywinska and King, 2005: 219), where they experience things not normally sanctioned or allowed in everyday life (Consalvo, 2009b: 409). Although the ‘magic circle’ represents an overly challenged tool, its focus on created spaces and times proves to still be useful. Empirical studies also highlighted how physical spaces for role-playing gaming sessions need contexts insulated from outside interruptions (Williams et al., 2006: 26). Nonetheless, the strong tie between playing, separated physical and crafted places is not sufficient to frame gaming communities as subcultures. They are not ‘resisting’ against mainstream consumerist ideology. Also, digital media trends reinforced identity fragmentation and individualisation in the tastes (Guerra, 2024).

Moreover, subculture is used to conveying different meanings, or it is just borrowed to provide studies with a theoretical framework, which seems to be considered easily adjustable to describe gaming communities. Though, those studies are developed in fields that may be not familiar with this concept: hence, other sociological conceptualisations such as lifestyle and liminality are confusedly used to explain groups labelled as part of a subculture. In this vein, Wright et al. (2002) analysed game talk and visual communication of the First Person Shooter Counter-Strike (Valve, 2012): in this online game, ‘players resemble a youth subculture’. Drawing on Hebdige (1979, 1988), Thornton (1996) and Turner (1982), Wright et al. (2002) argued that this youth subculture ‘can enter “liminoid” or liminal-like genre that promotes a temporary “limbo” of statuslessness, flow and movement’. Boellstorff (2006) stated that emerging gaming cultures tied to the Internet may ‘include multiple subcultures such as youth, male versus female, cooperative versus competitive gaming, and so on’ (p. 33). These approaches give an idea of the equivocal and misleading use of sociological concepts that can be encountered in the literature on video games.

Gubagaras et al. describe the Filipino ‘virtual subculture’, based in Internet cafes, where youngsters mostly play Korean-made massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Drawing on the George Herbert Mead’s symbolic interactionism theory (Griffin, 2012), scholars explained that ‘the gamers “selves” are modified slowly as they finally begin to adapt to the “way of life” or the subculture of any online game they are playing’ (Gubagaras et al., 2008: 67). Though, video game players participating in focus group discussions ‘were unaware of the existence of the virtual subculture in online games’ (p. 75). This element raises some questions on the use of such a concept and its self-representation. In fact, new terminologies would better describe characteristics of gaming communities, such as post-modern subculture.

Post-subcultural theories and gaming in the Global South

The term ‘post-modern subculture’ has been applied in relation to gaming cultures. This conceptualisation conciliated elements of both post-subcultural theorists and authors tied to the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies of Birmingham. Post-subcultural scholars challenged the fixity of subcultural theories and stressed the importance of individualistic choices in youth consumerist practices (Bennett, 2011), but contributed to ‘an unnecessarily polarised understanding of the sub-cultures debate’ (Hodkinson, 2016: 632). Moreover, Hodkinson (2007) acknowledged the importance of the Birmingham School, but pointed out that it ‘largely excluded from its analysis the subjective perspectives and experiences of young mods, skinheads and punks’ (p. 6). Indeed, Hodkinson (2002) argued that post-subcultural approach could not be valid in relation to certain cases, while groupings such as ‘goth’ exhibit qualities of collective and stylistic fixity that can be close to conventional subcultural theories (Robards and Bennett, 2011: 5). In this sense, game modders, hackers and certain artists may represent a loose and ‘contemporary form of sub-cultures’ (Crawford and Rutter, 2006: 153), because they can modify video games and consoles, exchange knowledge about this process in a way that is not entirely legal and socially acceptable (Nicoll, 2017) and that may challenge the market (Deeming and Murphy, 2017).

Examples where post-subcultural theories have been applied include the Hard-core gamers community in South Africa, for which this concept is used as an alternative to neo-tribes and lifestyles (Meikle, 2013: 15–28). According to Meikle’s fieldwork, gamers cannot be tied to any form of youth working class anti-capitalist resistance, while they should be associated to a contemporary ‘subculture of consumption’ (p. 20). Indeed, the ‘gaming subculture’s own membership is loose and fluid’ (p. 19), but it requires commitment to understanding the tastes and values shared by the community (p. 27). In this context, a restricted group of dedicated members is organised on the basis of a self-imposed hierarchical system and shapes what the term gamer means for the rest of the people involved (p. 99). Therefore, it is possible to apply Hodkinson’s (2002) Four Indicators of (Sub)Culture Substance to South African gamers: ‘stylistic diversity, dynamism, non-absolute boundaries and their varied levels of commitment’ (p. 23).

Studying gaming cultures in India, Deshbandhu (2020) discarded the definition of subculture in of the Birmingham school, preferring ‘a nuanced postsubcultural understanding’ (p. 178). Indeed, drawing on Clark (2003) and Muggleton (1997), Deshbandhu mentions a comparison between punk and gaming. Clark ‘analyzes the death of punk as it went mainstream and points out how people involved in the punk movement cleaned up their acts and went mainstream in search for jobs’ (Deshbandhu, 2020: 178). Nonetheless, it appears as an essentialist description of both punk and gaming. Indeed, while some people considered punk as a part of their youth from which ‘move on’, this ‘is certainly not true for those who have continued their allegiance to punk in a more concrete sense’ (Bennett, 2006: 230). In the same fashion, aged video game players continued to be attached to this medium: for example, they are deeply involved in retrogaming (Heineman, 2014).

A specific use of subculture seems to be justified by the context. In defining video gaming as a subculture, certain authors stressed how families of people involved in video game playing may perceive it as anti-normative and socially worrying. Describing young adult male video game players in cyber-cafes of the Rajasthani city of Udaipur, Snodgrass et al. (2021) claims that an ‘alternate “gamer” subcultural identity’ (p. 771) is opposed as a technological ‘addiction’ that might compromise one’s reputation and thus future career and marriage prospects. In the study, it emerges that mainstream local models contrast with aspirations and consuming practices inspired by global gaming phenomenon. This cultural dissonance challenges the identity of the gamers, who ‘also partially internalize mainstream local views related to gaming being for “losers” and social rejects’ (p. 773). This also affects other aspects of sociality. Affiliations related to caste, religion and geography are perceived as less relevant than gamer identity by video games players (p. 776). Snodgrass et al. define gaming as a subcultural escape: it serves as a ‘magic circle’ where gamers could forget about Indian society stressing expectations, ‘while forming meaningful and important social bonds’ (p. 786).

Overall, post-subcultural theories seem to be meaningfully used to describe gaming communities in the so-called Global South, and this would lure scholars to consider the specificity of such a concept. Two elements are recurrent in ethnographic studies about gaming communities in certain countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America: the contrast between video game players and mainstream values of local society or international Western narratives, and collective game playing in Internet cafes. Indeed, modders and developers strive to contrast ideologies conveyed by mainstream games, where people from the Global South are misrepresented. This could be tied to a ‘divergent’ history of video games (Penix-Tadsen, 2019: 14). Drawing on Shaw, Penix-Tadsen explains how game systems did not enter India until the 1990s, developers did not enter in the field because of a passion for gaming, and that they did not share strong ties with a ‘hacker culture’. Also, video games players did not experience the evolution of digital gaming of the United States and Japan or the ‘shift to casual games, mobile games, and social networking games’ (Shaw, 2013: 184). More importantly, the relevance of piracy for accessing video game playing in these countries has been vital (Penix-Tadsen, 2019: 16). Piracy could be considered as an anti-mainstream feature of gaming communities in the Global South and an element underpinning the use of the subculture concept. However, alternative practices are prevalently limited to video games production: ‘Middle Eastern game designers show signs of innovation, the region’s gaming audience generally imitates global habits’ (Clément, 2019: 123). Furthermore, in the book edited by Penix-Tadsen, there is not a clear explanation for the use of subculture.

Scenes, field, and neo-tribes: useful concepts applied improperly

Adamus discussed the limits of Birmingham School’s youth subcultural theory (Clarke et al., 2017) in describing e-sports gamers’ communities, highlighting the lack of ‘visible elements of style on the part of the actors, such as a special way of clothing, fashion, or hairstyle’ (Adamus, 2012: 485). E-sports players seem ‘to lack any aspect of resistance against any forms of hegemonic culture’ (Adamus, 2012). In this sense, gaming communities have been not considered inclusive for decades, and even e-sports have been characterised by discrimination against minorities and women (Rogstad, 2022). The only relevant element that may link e-sport and youth subculture is the age of the video games players (p. 484), which is based on little empirical data and may sound not rigorous in sociological terms.

Conversely, Adamus strived to adapt the theoretical framework of youth scenes of Roland Hitzler et al. (2001) to e-sports players, pointing out very similar elements between them. E-sports are indeed focused on a specific central issue, competitive engagement in gaming, and they are tied to events, which provide them with visibility. Communication and interactivity of the youth scenes are to be found in competition, since ‘two opponents play against each other and are consequently behaving in an interactive way’ (p. 486). Also, matches are the basis for other kinds of communication, including news coverage. Though, this is a very limited definition of interactivity, if compared with other studies relying on the concept of scene (Barone, 2016). Other common features shared by youth scenes and e-sports involve the part-time nature of the latter. E-sports are not supposed to represent a whole way of life, although players may share specific cultural practices (e.g. rituals). Nevertheless, Adamus found two issues that seem to contradict what was mentioned earlier. First, competitive video game players are organised in clans. Their structure and most components are ‘indeed a very stable phenomenon’ Hitzler et al. (2001: 487), which does not align with the lability of youth scenes. Furthermore, e-sport also lacks the dynamic most other scenes possess. Adamus suggested that this contradiction relates to the fact that e-sports were a brand-new form of sport. Nevertheless, there are too many aspects that should discourage the use of scene in this context.

In his study focused on independent game-makers of Melbourne, Keogh combines the concept of cultural field and the one of scene. Keogh (2020) frames the environment of videogame makers, audiences, and intermediaries using the Bourdieusian concept of cultural field, ‘an internally structured space of positions and dispositions given shape by a distribution of various forms of capital and power’ (p. 209). The cultural field of gaming communities is indeed constituted by interlocking local videogame scenes. According to Keogh, scene is a common expression among people involved in cultural activities, although the term is difficult to pin down for both those within a scene as well as for academics (p. 211). In this vein, scenes are described as loosely intertwined and characterised by porous borders among groups. Drawing on Straw (2004), Keogh stressed that scenes emerged ‘in part as an overproduction of culture unable to be fully captured by the commodifying forces of the cultural industries’ (p. 212). Straw (2004) described scenes as elusive parts of urban cultural life. They are ‘units of city culture (like subcultures or art worlds) as one of the event structures through which cultural life acquires its solidity’ (Straw, 2004: 412–413). In fact, they also are ‘one of the city’s infrastructures for exchange, interaction and instruction’ (p. 413). Though, this concept was originally tailored to music consumption in the Straw’s (1991) cornerstone article on this topic. In music scenes individuals with different relationships to a specific genre of music related to a particular space articulate a sense of collective identity (Driver and Bennett, 2015: 100). In this sense, combining scene and cultural field imply the limitations of both these concepts, although Straw relies on Bourdieu’s champ to explain the logics underpinning the idea of scene (Bennett and Rogers, 2016: 16; Straw, 1991: 372). Indeed, the Bourdieusian field theory (Bourdieu, 1979, 1997) should be applied considering all its components. Bourdieu’s (2013) champ has been forged to study ‘a system of relations’ (p. 13) and power dynamics that imply other relevant concepts, such as habitus and cultural capital. In fact, in another study, Keogh (2021: 118) outlines the cultural field of Australian video games production in terms of cultural, social, economic capital, and habitus. Regarding scenes, video games cultures comprehend a broad range of different actors, which cannot entirely be associated with the city, or to specific infrastructures, and public performances. For example, scenes may be unfit to frame video games players in rural areas or in the Global South. Another problematic aspect of adjusting scene to video gaming communities is related to the role of technology. Bennett and Peterson (2004) individuated three different kinds of scenes: local, trans-local, and virtual. Bennett (2002) uses the definition of virtual scene, noting that activities of Canterbury Sound scene fans were focused ‘around fanzines, Internet newsletters and websites’ (p. 88). The latter are intended ‘as extensions rather than exceptions’ (Bennett and Rogers, 2016: 32) of the other two forms of scene life. Conversely, virtual features of electronic games are fundamental for video games players, even before the Internet.

A few studies relied on lifestyle to study gaming. The use of this concept has been justified by the diverse and growing composition of gaming communities (Dutra, 2021: 44). This approach favours the research of habits and daily routines and therefore is quite limited. Conversely, Law (2016) prefers to adapt ‘“neo-tribes” (or “tribus”) from the Italian (sic) author Michel Maffesoli’ (p. 41). Maffesoli indeed described Second Life (Linden Lab, 2003) in these terms: ‘little tribes, networked together, created the foundation for the growth of the postmodern “being together”’ (Maffesoli, 2008: 4). This concept, developed by Bennett (1999, 2005; Hardy et al., 2018b), has rarely been used to studying gaming cultures. It describes a porous system of relations with light social bounds, self-gratification-oriented relations, identities built through free choices and consumerist environment. It is echoed by similar concepts, such as ‘urban tribe’ used to frame relations between video games players and city spaces in Ecuador (Caizapanta Sánchez, 2011: 27–31) and in research about Lima’s LAN centres (Loayza, 2019: 161).

In digital ethnographic research (Brignall, 2009; Brignall and Van Valey, 2008) of the MMOGs (Kirman, 2013) War of Worldcraft, also called WOW (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004), ‘neo-tribe’ has not been taken as a sociological concept, but it is associated with the neo-primitivism of Quinn and Zerzan. In this vein, neo-tribes are seen as open, egalitarian, cooperative communities (Brignall and Van Valey, 2007). WOW players can associate with groups called guilds linked to specific social categories, such as ‘Christians, gays, lesbians, evangelicals’ (p. 116). Among the guilds, players cultivated negative aspects of tribalism such as ‘quick judgments, stereotyping, and prejudicial behavior’ (Brignall, 2009: 117). Also, members move from one guild to another, and their commitment seems to align with the flexible nature of groups. Sociological neo-tribe would work perfectly to describe such an environment, since MMOG players are lured to collaborate by shared goals rather than by social ties (e.g. expectations of joy, fun, pride) (Hau and Kim, 2011: 965–966). Though, this should not apply to other gaming communities. In fact, strong feelings of identity, hierarchy, desire to protect authenticity, and piracy are associated with the current retro gaming community (Downing, 2011: 756).

Gamers and video gaming cultures

Scholars have also classified video games players by type. People investing a great amount of money and time in playing are considered gamers: they are supposedly dealing with ‘“hardcore,” “heavy” or at least “mainstream,” games’ (Consalvo, 2009a: 50). Nonetheless, a tight link between categories of video games players and kinds of games does not really exist, while simplicist assumptions in this regard ‘obscured the other reasons people may or may not be invested in this identity’ (Shaw, 2010: 86). Though, looking at trans-media genre may be important to understand overlapping between gaming communities and audiences of other media (Pitroso, 2020; Ruffino and Carbone, 2014: 7). Scholars also considered preferences about devices (e.g. Nintendo vs Xbox) and gameplay styles (Sher, 2023). However, the long debate about habits and beliefs of gamers cannot be discussed entirely here (Chess and Paul, 2019; Deshbandhu, 2016; Shaw, 2012).

A closer look at fundamental events and facts of gaming culture may help to consider key-elements of gaming communities and how social interactions and common practices evolved in different geographical areas (Hjorth, 2011: 11). During the 1970s, US military-industrial funding, hacker experimentation and science-fiction oriented fan groups made important contributions to the genealogy of video games (King and Krzywinska, 2006: 207; Williams et al., 2006: 6). Dungeon and Dragons (Gygax and Arneson, 1974) is a relevant convergence point of these three elements. Military logics, requirement of large-scale investments of time, and a gaming platform-alike design contributed to make the analogical D&D and its video game version pedi 5 (Rutherford, 1975) two important communicating vessels (LaLone, 2019).

In Britain, as in the majority of Western and Asian countries, in the last 1970s the only places to experience digital gaming were ‘arcades, pubs and nightclubs’ (Kirkpatrick, 2015: 10), which were not specifically tied to gamers. Slightly after, youngsters started to play at home, thanks to computer games and consoles, and the so-called British bedroom coders appeared (Kirkpatrick, 2016). It was a cultural transformation that bonded piracy and computer game players since the very beginning. Indeed, early video games design was dominated by amateurs (Shaw, 2010: 412) in a moment that defined the gamer identity.

Between the 1970s and the early 1980s, a similar phenomenon was recorded in other countries. In the 1980s, Finnish software piracy was backed by the social and cultural network of computer hobbyists, while amateur gaming journalism arose (Saarikoski and Suominen, 2009: 24). In Italy, cracking foreign video games so as to Italianise them, gradually became an essential part of the first official software houses’ commercial strategy (Fassone, 2017). Also, in the countries interested by this phenomenon, sectorial magazines represented a point of reference for gaming cultures, which experienced two important phenomena in the second half of the 1980s. Large software houses, especially from the United States, used sectorial magazines to reach and hire bedroom coders, while game production began to require expensive technology and to be developed by teams rather than by solitary ‘bedroom coders’ (Kirkpatrick, 2016: 459).

Comic festivals associated with geeky culture (Woo, 2012) offered a place for gamers’ gatherings, but there were events solely created for gaming. Since 1995 (Law, 2016: 5), LAN matches provided an opportunity for meetings between large numbers of people, who were interested not only in playing, but also in watching video games (Jansz and Martens, 2016: 352). This aspect of gaming contributed to live streamers and e-sports’ emerging phenomena (Taylor, 2018; Yamanaka et al., 2021), which are forms of digital labour. Streamers entertain their audiences playing video games, while they monetise their skills and their relationship with the fandom in various ways, including donations and online channels subscriptions (Bowman et al., 2020; Johnson and Woodcock, 2019a). E-sports are an industry built around organising gaming competitions, supported by sponsor and broadcasted internationally, and characterised by precarious labour careers (Johnson and Woodcock, 2019b, 2021).

Boundaries between gamers and other social groups, such as sci-fi fandom, are blurred (Woo, 2015), while diverse new gaming practices and groups continuously emerge. Also, immaterial and material assets represented by digital and physical places, such as retro-gaming pubs and museums (Navarro-Remesal, 2017), and events play a vital role in shaping gaming communities. Therefore, unequivocal use of sociological concepts would be misleading, while thinking of gaming as a broad cultural field can be useful.

In this vein, Consalvo’s (2007) Gaming Capital offers an important example of a comprehensive tool that considers power dynamics involving aforementioned groups (Walsh and Apperley, 2009). Gaming capital is a form of cultural capital accumulated by gamers gaining knowledge about games and games culture, and through interpersonal exchanges (Consalvo, 2009a: 51). In other words, bonds within the community are forged and reinforced throughout investing time and money in the gamer-capital relation. Gaming capital is also acquired through gaming magazines, electronic and printed strategy guides, cheat codes, manuals, and online spaces. In this sense, Gaming capital should be considered as ‘a contested site’ (Walsh and Apperley, 2008: 100), where different groups compete to control the way the capital is designed and distributed. Examples of this phenomenon include #Gamergate hate campaigns to disfavour inclusion of women and minorities in gaming spaces (Bezio, 2018). However, Gaming capital concepts would explain the social texture of gaming communities.

Discussion

Overall, scholars have dealt with the problem of defining gaming communities borrowing concepts and categories from other fields, especially from cultural sociologists interested in consumerist practices. Though, the use of such tools has seldom been justified or challenged. On the contrary, in the majority of the cases, academics improperly employed the term ‘subculture’. Other sociological brackets fail to provide sufficient instruments to analyse gaming communities, since games cultures present unique features that cannot be easily grasped.

Works based on Bourdieusian theories are undeveloped, although working to systematically adapt them to gaming would be useful. In particular, field could be a comprehensive conceptualisation to describe diverse aspects of video gaming, as it has been for other objects of study, such as literature and politics (Bourdieu, 1991, 2000). Bourdieu used the field to analyse power relations and to describe groups and practices involved in a specific activity or branch of human knowledge. This concept could also be used as a common ground for the manifold and disordered set of Bourdieusian approaches to gaming cultures (Gray, 2017; Pellicone and Ahn, 2017). The field would also explain the overlapping between gaming communities and other groups.

In conclusion, the empirical approach linked to the field could facilitate the research of the emerging phenomena of gaming cultures and its ongoing changes. Ideally, reframing the entire work of Bourdieu to study gaming cultures would support consistently the research about gaming and avoid generalisations and mistakes, such as in the case of the wrong use of the subculture concept.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Giulio Pitroso

Author biography

Giulio Pitroso is a PhD Candidate at the School of Humanities Languages and Social Science at the Griffith University.

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Beyond subcultures: A literature review of gaming communities and sociological analysis

Abstract

Keywords

Video games cultures

Framing video gaming communities as ‘subcultures’

Post-subcultural theories and gaming in the Global South

Scenes, field, and neo-tribes: useful concepts applied improperly

Gamers and video gaming cultures

Discussion

Footnotes

Funding

ORCID iD

Author biography

References