青年玩家在网络游戏中的文化实践——基于现象级手游《和平精英》的观察

Narration,Incarnation,Semantics and Social Interaction:Cultural Practice Analysis of Young Players of Online Games,Taking the Phenomenal Mobile Game Peace Elite as an Example

以现象级手游《和平精英》为研究对象,采用参与式观察与深度访谈结合的研究方法对青年玩家的游戏文化实践进行探究。研究将游戏玩家视作能动主体,将网络游戏视为现实世界的外延,在此基础上将游戏文化诠释为玩家在多重游戏空间内的文化实践。理论视角上采用电玩空间阅读范式、电玩空间理论与流动空间理论等将游戏视为"诠释性的意义空间",在沃尔特提出的叙事空间、现象学空间和语义空间基础上增加了社交空间分析,从而交织出游戏文本、化身操作、符号意义与社交互动四种分析面向,并通过对玩家在游戏中的叙事、现象学、语义与社交等四种文化实践分析揭示了青年玩家基于游戏又出于游戏的创造性文化实践现象。研究发现四种文化实践并未割裂,相反,以《和平精英》为代表的网络游戏打破了单机游戏与社交媒体的壁垒,凝结了身体叙事与社交功能,在叙事和社交的平衡中形成独特的话语实践体系,构建一种新的游戏生态:一方面《和平精英》着重"亲密关系"和"预先社会网络"范式下的身体遥感,原本属于个体的身体符号被嵌入社会通用符号体系中,从而解放了玩家身体操作的叙事性,游戏化身从单机游戏时代的自我表达主体转变为社交传播媒介;另一方面,随着电子游戏和玩家的彼此激活,叙事权力不再由游戏设计者所垄断,处于流动中的青年玩家正在以娱乐化和社交化的叙事方式参与电子游戏的话语建构中,在游戏设计者所划定的交互规则内积极设计交互内容,有意或无意中抵抗权力话语和强制性意义,丰富了新型电子游戏话语的内涵。

This paper adopts the research method of participatory observation and in-depth interview to explore the game culture practices of young and middle-aged players of Peace Elite—a phenomenal mobile game produced by Tencent.Players are regarded as active subjects,while online games are regarded as the extension of the real world.Thus,the game culture can be annotated as the cultural practice of players in multiple game spaces.Based on the video game spatial reading paradigm,video game spatial theory and flow space theory,this paper considers game as interpretive significance space.According to the narrative space,phenomenological space and semantic space proposed by Walther,the dimension of social space is added up so as to interweave four aspects:game text,avatar operation,symbolic meaning,as well as social interaction.By the analysis of players’cultural practices in four spaces of narrative,phenomenological,semantics and social interaction,this paper reveals the phenomenon and mechanism of young players’creative cultural practices based on the games and beyond the games.We found that these four ways of cultural practice are not completely irrelevant.On the contrary,online games break the barrier between console games and social media,condensing the functions of body narration and social interaction.Thus,they are able to form a unique discourse production practice system between narration and social interaction,and construct a new game ecology.On the one hand,Peace Elite focuses on the body remote sensing under the paradigm of"intimate relationship"and"pre-social network".The body symbols which originally belong to individuals are embedded into the social universal symbolic system,which liberated the players’narrative of the body operation,and the game avatar has changed from the self-expression subject in the era of console games to the social media.On the other hand,with the mutual activation of video games and players,the narrative power is no longer monopolized by game designers.Young players are participating in the discourse construction of video games in an entertaining and social narrative way,and actively designing interactive content within the interaction rules defined by game designers,intentionally or unintentionally resisting the power discourse and mandatory meaning,and enriching the connotation of the new video game discourse.