Ethnography

 Video games are a popular form of communication and pleasure shared between players that use them.But what about the people that play them? How do they differ from regular everyday people that play more sports or are more business orientated? A better question would be how are they similar. There are so many people out there that share the love of video games that the same person who works in a accounting cubical might actually be a royal knight who fights dragons along side his online peers. Throughout this ethnography, we will focus mainly on the players in the game League of Legends.

Specifically I am observing a young gentleman by the name of Bill. For the sake of Bill’s personal information, I changed his name. Bill is a 5’9” 20 years old Portuguese male that works at a local supermarket. He has a medium build, brown hair and bluish eyes. Occasionally you will see him wearing dark slacks with a kaki button-up (his work attire) and his silver rimmed glasses. Bill lives at home with his parents, saving until the day he moves out on his own, building his work career and financial portfolio. Bill is also an avid video game player. I asked Bill if I could observe him for about an hour to two hours while his casually played his games. I explained to him that after my observation I would then ask him a few questions.

The first thing I started to observe was his entry way to his room. It was spacious, had a white border framing the rich blue room. As I entered the room I noticed the environment he played in trying to make out big features and move to smaller features. A town sized bed was facing me in the corner of the room. Next to it was a light wooden colored bureau with six drawers, each with a single engraved metal handle. On top of the bureau was a decent sized black LED television, approximately 36”. Across form the bureau was pale wood desk, with metal legs and drawer. On top of the desk was a laptop. A high end Asus gaming laptop. As he started up the computer and game I looked around at the environment I was currently in and began to log everything that I could.

On the floor there was a over flooded basket with dirty clothes in it. Next to it was a library case with various books, games, and other important documents in it. On the top of the bookcase there was a small M&M dispenser that took quarters. Next to it were 2 model cars. To the left I noticed a large poster of a hockey player on the Boston Bruins and across the room adjacent to it was a model plane hanging from the roof on wires. As I was writing things down he told me that he was ready.

“Which game are you going to be playing?” I asked.

“You said you were going to watch me play league of legends so I’m started it up first.” He replied quickly.

I reviewed my notes for other questions I had prepared and asked him “If you could shortly describe the game League of Legends in a short answer, what would you say?”

He paused for a second to think of an answer, “League of legends is a typical MOBA that  is extremely competitive and takes a lot of skill and calculations to take everything into account and win.”

After thanking him for his answer, we started up the game. I quickly tried to write down what the interface of the game looked like. The game had a blue window, there were sales on “champions”, videos explaining current gameplay strategies and a box at the top where players could watch other players play.