線上遊戲社交性研究:玩家社交活動與第三場域的觀點

Abstract

遊戲自古以來即為人類歷史中重要的文化形式，而隨著科技的發展，遊戲也逐漸延伸至電腦平台，且讓玩家得以透過網路連線方式，與其他玩家在同一遊戲環境中追求娛樂。眾多學者與遊戲設計者指出，社交互動對於玩家獲得樂趣、形塑社群而言相當重要，而社群更是增加遊戲黏著度的關鍵要素。儘管如此，過往從空間、環境角度探討遊戲設計與玩家社交活動關係之研究累積卻相當稀少。 據此，本文之研究目的，欲從電腦人機互動研究中的「社交性」觀點出發，並援引社會學中「第三場域」的概念，探討遊戲中空間環境與玩家社交互動之關係，期能釐清社交性與線上遊戲之關係，並作為遊戲設計上提升玩家互動之參考。本文以角色扮演線上遊戲作為研究場域，招募12位玩家，以日誌與深度訪談等方法收集玩家互動資料，並以活動理論作為分析的依據架構。 分析後發現，玩家於遊戲中社交活動主要可分為「合作」、「交誼」與「競爭」等三種導向形態，且遊戲環境中同時包含了空間性及非空間性的「第三場域」。不同導向玩家社交活動的特質與「第三場域」間具有不同關係，也具有相異的社交性需求。此外，本文也認為，玩家社交活動相較於「第三場域」之概念，更適合做為發展遊戲社交性之依據。

Game is a significant cultural form in human history, and players can play together in an common computer environment online now as the progress of technology. Since many scholars and game designers emphasis the importance of factors such as community and social interaction for games, there are few study explore the relationship between “environment” and player’s interaction. Accordingly, this study explores the sociability issues of online games from the standpoint of the ”Third Places”, and use activity theory as the main analysis structure after taking diary study and interviewing 12 players of online role playing games. The results indicate that there are three main interaction forms of online game players: “cooperation”, “social interaction” and “competition”, and the “Third Places” are not only composed of spatial factors in online games. Each interaction form has different relationship with the “Third Places”, and influences players’ needs of sociability. In addition, interaction forms of players are more crucial for exploring sociability issues of online games than the “Third Places” concept.