Abstract
PurposeThis study investigates how game design, which divides players into static teams, can reinforce group polarisation. The authors study this phenomenon from the perspective of social identity in the context of team-based location-based games, with a focus on game slang.Design/methodology/approachThe authors performed an exploratory data analysis on an original dataset of n = 242,852 messages from five communication channels to find differences in game slang adoption between three teams in the location-based augmented reality game Pokémon GO. A divisive word “jym” (i.e. a Finnish slang derivative of the word “gym”) was discovered, and players' attitudes towards the word were further probed with a survey (n = 185). Finally, selected participants (n = 25) were interviewed in person to discover any underlying reasons for the observed polarised attitudes.FindingsThe players' teams were correlated with attitudes towards “jym”. Face-to-face interviews revealed association of the word to a particular player subgroup and it being used with improper grammar as reasons for the observed negative attitudes. Conflict over (virtual) territorial resources reinforced the polarisation.Practical implicationsGame design with static teams and inter-team conflict influences players' social and linguistic identity, which subsequently may result in divisive stratification among otherwise cooperative or friendly player-base.Originality/valueThe presented multi-method study connecting linguistic and social stratification is a novel approach to gaining insight on human social interactions, polarisation and group behaviour in the context of location-based games.
Highlights
Polarisation poses a threat to our society in the form of escalating conflicts on both individual and group levels (Quershi et al, 2020)
First with regards to group polarisation, we showed that the social identity theory provides a promising framework for understanding technology-induced polarisation in the context of location-based games (LBGs)
While previous research has already suggested that language is a manifestation of group identity (Ksiazek and Webster, 2008), we showed that this division may be strong with new words and slang terms
Summary
Polarisation poses a threat to our society in the form of escalating conflicts on both individual and group levels (Quershi et al, 2020). LBGs have recently gained attention for being popular among a wide, intergenerational audience (Saker and Evans, 2021) and being able to scaffold social connectivity between players (Bhattacharya et al, 2019; Vella et al, 2019) Both Ingress and Pokemon GO divide players into static teams which compete over virtual territory (Laato et al, 2021; S€obke et al, 2017). The origin of the theory can be traced to an experiment by the psychologist Henri Tajfel where he sorted participants into groups based on their performance in a short estimation test He instructed participants in each group to divide money between all groups and found out that systematically participants favoured their own group, distributing them more money (Tajfel, 1970). It has guarded from trusting possibly hostile groups of humans by generating prejudice against out-group members (Brewer, 1999)
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