Abstract

This research focuses on the use of participation cues in the communication and expression of players in MOBA games. The MOBA games studied are Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, League of Legends: Wild Rift, and Pokémon Unite. Participation cues are used to allow players to inform each other about the progress of the game. The qualitative descriptive method was used in this research. In answering the formulation problems, participation cue theory by Keating and Sunakawa (2010) was used, which was elaborated by Bartle (1996) about player types. The data in this study are textual and visual, consisting of verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. The data was collected using playing and documentation techniques, and then analysed using Spradley (1997). From the research conducted, it can be concluded that the most common participation cues used by players are verbal cues, which have the characteristics of Achiever players. Verbal cues are used by players to express themselves directly to players so that the goals they want to achieve together can be realised. This research uses the term 'participation cue' to invite further research into communication strategy in games.

There is no Figure or data content available for this article

References

• Bartle, R. (1996). Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit MUDs. Journal of MUD research, 1(1), 19.

  Derrick, D. C., Meservy, T. O., Jenkins, J. L., Burgoon, J. K., & Nunamaker Jr, J. F. (2013). Detecting deceptive chat-based communication using typing behavior and message cues. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS), 4(2), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1145/2499962.2499967

  Dixon, D. (2011, May). Player types and gamification. In Proceedings of the CHI 2011 Workshop on Gamification (pp. 7-12).

  Griffiths, M., Hussain, Z., Grüsser, S. M., Thalemann, R., Cole, H., Davies, M. N., & Chappell, D. (2011). Social interactions in online gaming. International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL), 1(4), 20-36. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijgbl.2011100103

  Keating, E., & Sunakawa, C. (2010). Participation cues: Coordinating activity and collaboration in complex online gaming worlds. Language in society, 39(3), 331-356. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404510000217

  Leavitt, A., Keegan, B. C., & Clark, J. (2016, May). Ping to win? Non-verbal communication and team performance in competitive online multiplayer games. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 4337-4350). https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858132

  Nagygyörgy, K., Urbán, R., Farkas, J., Griffiths, M. D., Zilahy, D., Kökönyei, G., ... & Demetrovics, Z. (2013). Typology and sociodemographic characteristics of massively multiplayer online game players. International journal of human-computer interaction, 29(3), 192-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2012.702636

  Vahlo, J., Kaakinen, J. K., Holm, S. K., & Koponen, A. (2017). Digital game dynamics preferences and player types. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 22(2), 88-103. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12181

  Van der Spek, E. D., van Oostendorp, H., Wouters, P., & Aarnoudse, L. (2010, March). Attentional cueing in serious games. In 2010 second international conference on games and virtual worlds for serious applications (pp. 119-125). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/VS-GAMES.2010.8

  Wuertz, J., Alharthi, S. A., Hamilton, W. A., Bateman, S., Gutwin, C., Tang, A., ... & Hammer, J. (2018, April). A design framework for awareness cues in distributed multiplayer games. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-14). https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173817

  Yang, P., Harrison, B. E., & Roberts, D. L. (2014, April). Identifying patterns in combat that are predictive of success in MOBA games. In FDG.

How to Cite This

Article Metrics

Download Statistics

Other Statistics

Copyright and Permissions

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

LEKSIKA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Data Availability