Player Connected: Understanding player orientations to videogame environments

《玩家互连》将加深玩家对视频游戏中环境的理解。本博士论文是作为我的硕士课程的一部分完成的，在《动物穿越：新地平线》(任天堂EPD，2020)中探索了玩家与视频游戏环境之间的联系。这项研究突出了玩家在《动物穿越：新地平线》(Nintendo EPD，2020)中居住在环境中时，表现出“自在”特征的方式(Seamon，1979，第69页)。在《玩家互联》一书中，我希望通过改编InGold(2000,2011)和Merleau-Ponty(2002)等理论家的工作，探索被描述为“身体知识”的东西，进一步探索视频游戏环境中居住的概念(Moore，2018，p.129)。值得注意的是，虽然我的目标是进一步探索这一概念，但我知道[理解虚拟与物理的定义并克服这一点]这项研究将采取参与者主导的方法，让参与者自由讨论他们认为最相关的游戏和游戏机。这种方法将减少偏见，并有望提供跨多个游戏和游戏机的广泛数据，以发展对有助于玩家连接到虚拟空间的因素的理解。以前的视频游戏研究领域因将视频游戏玩家从主流文化中分离出来，并将他们作为自己独立的亚文化而受到批评(Shaw，2010)。这忽略了那些白人、顺式性别、异性恋男性身份之外的人的经历，这些身份通常与“极客”文化联系在一起(Shaw，2010，P.x)。相反，这项研究将通过采用非以媒体为中心的媒体研究方法来考察视频游戏在社会中的作用(Moore，2012,2018；Morley，2007)。这种方法通过检查媒体技术在日常实践和日常生活中的嵌入方式，将媒体技术及其使用置于媒体技术运行的更大背景下。这项研究不仅询问了谁在玩电子游戏，以及结果如何，而且还询问了如何、在哪里、何时、与谁一起玩以及为什么。通过采用这种方法，这项研究将转而着眼于文化中的视频游戏，从而巩固视频游戏研究作为媒体研究和文化研究的关键领域。

'Player Connected' will develop an understanding of formed by players to environments in videogames. This PhD will expand on the dissertation completed as part of my MA course which explored connections formed by players to the videogame environment in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo EPD, 2020). This research highlighted the ways players exhibit characteristics of "at-homeness" (Seamon, 1979, p.69) whilst dwelling in environments in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo EPD, 2020). In 'Player Connected' I hope to further explore the concept of dwelling within videogame environments by adapting the work of theorists such as Ingold (2000, 2011) and Merleau-Ponty (2002) and exploring what is described as "bodily knowledge" (Moores, 2018, p. 129). It is important to note that whilst I aim to explore this concept further, I am aware of [understanding definitions of virtual vs physical and overcoming this] This research will take a participant-led approach, giving participants freedom to discuss games and consoles which they find most relevant. This method will reduce bias and hopefully provide a wide range of data across multiple games and consoles to develop the understanding of factors which contribute to player connections to virtual spaces. Previous areas of videogames research have been criticised for segregating videogame players from mainstream culture and placing them as their own separate subculture (Shaw, 2010). This overlooks the experiences of those outside of the white, cis-gendered, straight male identity commonly associated with "geek" culture (Shaw, 2010, p. x). Instead, this research will look at the role of the videogame within society through the adoption of a non-media-centric media studies approach (Moores, 2012, 2018; Morley, 2007). This approach situates media technologies and their uses within the larger contexts in which they operate through examining the ways media technologies are embedded within routine practice and the day-to-day. This research not only asks who is playing videogame and the outcomes of that, but how, where, when, who with and why. By adopting this approach this research will instead look at videogames in culture, thus cementing videogame studies as a crucial area of both media studies and cultural studies.