Gaming in Public: The Role of External Feedback on Gamers’ Performance and Attitudes During Play

• In Event: From Online to Off-Line: Examining Gaming Environments and Innovative Learning

Abstract

Objectives
This presentation explores the impact of external feedback on videogamers’ performance, attitude, and meaning-making in public gaming spaces.

Theoretical Perspectives
Gaming technologies stretch gamers to new levels. This presentation draws upon research on internal videogame feedback loops, namely how videogame feedback is structured to engage gamers in assessing their successes and failures (Abrams & Gerber, 2013; Shraeder & McCreey, 2008). Feedback loops allow us to understand how actions in games and game communities shape the development of literacy experiences.

Data Sources & Method
The data for this paper were drawn from an ethnographic study of gaming in public libraries and a case study of a game-based reading class. Data gathered included field notes and interviews with 33 participants across studies. Data were analyzed using qualitative comparative analysis to understand how gaming in public influences students’ literacy practices.

Findings
Findings indicate an external feedback loop co-exists to shape players’ interactions with the game. This external feedback loop occurs when others watch the gamer, and add their thoughts, ideas, and opinions on what the gamer must do to successfully pass the level. Advice given, such as “go left, go left” and “Dude you suck and that is not how you get the extra AP, you need to jump across that block first,” is often unsolicited and is not always related to the information that the gamer received from the internal feedback loop.

The findings from this study indicate a performative trait emerges when gamers engage in public spaces gameplay, as it melds with the internal feedback loop and the external feedback loop to produce what I refer to as the performative status. The performative status is the gamers’ method of attending to the external feedback and internal feedback loop. Gamers directly perform their game play to viewers; they play up to the crowd. When viewers become less engaged in providing feedback, the gamer loses interest in the performative status, and returns back to standard game play.

Significance
Feedback is an important element in learning and education and gaming technologies provide a natural feedback loop within the game. The findings from this study indicate an equally interesting external viewer-mediated feedback loop that is directed by those watching gamers in public play, and giving gamers feedback as they perform the game for viewers. Examining and discussing this type of feedback can open up dialogue for new ways to bring iterative feedback into learning spaces, that can be student-driven. The goal is to advance dialogue about students' out-of-school literacy spaces and reveal why playing within these spaces enables the development of feedback on personal literacy experiences and relevant connections to classroom learning.

Author

• Hannah R Gerber, Sam Houston State University