Halloran, et al.
John Halloran and Yvonne Rogers
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
johnhall@cogs.susx.ac.uk
From text to talk: multiplayer games and voiceover IP
Distributed multiplayer games offer a social experience that is mediated by associated communications tools. Until recently, these have often been text-based, but with the advent of new tools like Roger Wilco and Xbox Live, voice-mediated communication is becoming increasingly common. We show how game-based voiceover IP differs from text, leading to novel forms of social experience. We consider the implications of this new communications genre for maintaining existing social networks, and for forming new ones.
Focussing on three ethnographic studies of multiplayer gaming, we discuss central issues that affect the social experience. These are organised as five key themes: form, functions, social protocols, identity, and presence. Form is concerned with how text- and voice-based communications have different effects on what is communicated. The functions theme looks at which language functions are, in the context of games, afforded by text, and how voice differs. We discuss the ways people negotiate social episodes including meeting, greeting, and keeping up communication - our social protocols theme. Identity considers how text and talk differ regarding how far and in what ways people can perceive the identities of others, and how people manage the presentation of their own identities. We also look at how far multiplayer games, supported by either text or talk, are experienced as vivid, 'live' events: presence.
Our results show that the two different in-game communications genres, text and talk, differ substantially in terms of the five themes. Voiceover IP has important effects on in-game social experience, which becomes more present, less ambiguous on identity, and more socially sensitive. In-game voiceover IP is well-suited to supporting and maintaining existing social networks because it creates opportunities for different forms of exposure, new interactions and new insights; and is also pro-social in encouraging greater social sensitivity between strangers, supporting the formation of new networks.
First Author Biography
I am a research fellow in the Interact Lab at the University of Sussex, UK, with a background in the arts, psychology, and AI. Prior to this: DPhil in Computer Science and AI (Sussex, 2000); MSc Knowledge-based Systems (Sussex, 1996); BSc Psychology (Open, 1995). I am interested in designing, evaluating, modelling and theorising technologically-mediated group activities (working, playing, learning), especially where new forms of technology are associated with new kinds of interaction. My research on voice-mediated communications around multiplayer games is an example of this.
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