Renegade Gaming: Practices Surrounding Social Use of the Nintendo DS Handheld Gaming System.

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Summary

An interesting paper which has nothing to do with sketch recognition technology. This paper reports finding from a qualitative study examining the multiplayer gaming practices of the Nintendo DS owners. The primary purpose of this study was to answer the fundamental questions regarding multiplayer gaming with the DS like who people play with, under what circumstances and for what reasons.

The study was done on nine participants who considered themselves experienced gamers and had participated in multiplayer games. The study was also based on three gaming events by local students gaming clubs.

Renegade Gaming: Players created multiplayer gaming sub contexts within larger host contexts (contexts that do not consider gaming a legitimate activity). DS features allow the users to maneuver around obstacles and reduces physical preconditions for multiplayer gaming.
Gaming goals as identified during the study were.

1. To pass time
2. To learn or keep one’s mind sharp
3. To be social
4. To engage in competitive play

The DS gaming experience when compared to the console gaming experience was found to be less social since the audience cannot watch the game. The players are focused on their screens. DS also allows the players to site farther away from each other so lesser communication is done between players.

The social aspect in the gaming experience of the DS can be improved through the use of external display which can give the “birds-eye-view” of the game in progress.

Discussion

A simple study which gives out a fairly interesting result that console gaming are more social than handheld gaming .

Still I don’t understand the purpose of this study. Is it leading towards the exploration of a new genre of games or consoles?