Social Play? The Critical Role of Social Interaction in Geeky Games

Abstract

This article is, in part, a response to previous leisure research that finds the social nature of gaming surprising and unusual. These works separate the individual benefits from the social benefits, overlooking symbolic interactionist insights into social life. As Fine (1983) describes in his seminal work on the “shared fantasy” of table-top role-playing gamers, social play is tantamount to gamers’ leisure activities. To build on more recent leisure research that establishes the importance of social gaming, we explore the social dynamics of video and table-top gamers’ leisure and its impact on their relationships. Using interview and ethnographic data from two independent studies, we examine three emergent gaming processes: gamers’ focus on social play, developing social skills, and passing games up/down to relatives and friends. Overall, this work draws attention to how gamers engage in social play, a direct contrast to gamer stereotypes still held by many non-gamers.

Keywords:

• Symbolic interaction
• gaming
• sociology of leisure
• social psychology of leisure
• culture

Acknowledgements

The authors are equal contributors listed in alphabetical order. We would like to thank Douglas Schrock and Michael Schwalbe for their helpful feedback on the respective projects that comprise this article. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their efforts in preparing this manuscript for publication.