First Person Sharpshooters: A Study of Console FPS Players

Morgan Romine (PhD student, Department of Anthropology)

The goal of this project is to expand the body of knowledge of sociality in online games to include the players and interactions of console games. Thus far, the majority of research done about online gaming has focused on massively multiplayer online computer games. Rather than investigating the online communities in PC-based games, this study focuses on the players of multiplayer First Person Shooter games that are played on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console using the Xbox Live online networking system. Players will be asked to participate in a web survey consisting of questions covering basic demographic information and their online play experience, and game companies will hopefully provide certain in-game statistics. Ideally, these player surveys and the associated research interactions will provide both quantitative data and ethnographic accounts that can be compared to results of other online gaming surveys and referenced for future assessments of online communities.

Xbox gamers