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If the players in Monopoly GO! rely on stickers to progress, then this…
If the players in Monopoly GO! rely on stickers to progress, then this should lead to the game's community to develop informal economies and social structures, because relying solely on chance and lonely gaming can limit the ability to progress further in the game and gain the high rewards that exist.
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Discord Server
Approach
Multimodal
This approach was able to yield some amazing results providing physical evidence and data to show to the reader so they would be able to see the context and not just rely solely on my words. I have over 20 pictures from the discord that are able to provide some context over topics I discuss.
Interview
I conducted one interview with a user who was able to give me a better understanding of how the server worked and while it was over text able to gain valuable insights into how some users conduct themselves within the server where anonymity is much more present than the Facebook community where users personal pages are the ones in the group.
Participant observation
This hand in hand with my Multimodal data were the two most common ways I conducted research in this discord server. Not only was I able to watch and observe behavior I was also able to take some screenshots to add more detail and leave no stone unturned in writing the final project.
Findings
Ethical Dilemmas
Only one area of concern popped up where there are ethical problems. That came from the tab dedicated to art. The server has random contests looking for the best art and offers a reward. People will want that reward by any means necessary and actively cheat by using ai or stealing someone else's artwork and pose it as their own.
Hierarchy
In the sever there is a reputation based system that exists where users get to decide who gains status in the server. To achieve status most individuals have to gain rep from other members to achieve visible roles that exist. These roles have their own added perks like being deemed trustworthy and access to other chats that lower status members can not access.
Some of the higher status roles are not chosen by peers but by admins and owners of the server who can choose people and increase their status.
Within the status of individuals there is a policing force on the server. The moderators are their to make sure rules are being followed and things are being done properly in the server. They have a heavy presence and are active at every time of the day to make sure no one is violating the rules.
Culture
Meme culture is a huge part of the community. There is a whole tab dedicated to creating and sharing memes. A great amount of humor is shared in making fun of the game. It is possible to chronologically track in game events that happened in the past because there is a large chunk of memes that get created and shared expressing displeasure in the game in a humorous way.
Shared culture
One area where users are sharing culture is through the music tab. I was able to find numerous instances where users are sharing songs that are not American produced. Some are from underground industries in other countries like one example I found of the underground rap game being shared to everyone. I also found a lot of songs that were non-English showing different cultures that are not connected to just purely English speakers.
There is also many different discussions on regional topics. One area of that I found was discussion on different food. There was a couple users who were discussing Mexican candy and how one users was in an area where there were no Mexican markets and they missed the candies that are kept within that group. Another user disclosed that they were from San Francisco which has a very high Spanish population and how those markets and candies are readily available.
Language
One of the last areas I was able to document evidence was different languages being spoken. Just accidentally stumbling on a conversation at 3am uncovered the use of a language that was not English. Previously I had never uncovered anything other than English. Using the search feature and just using hi I was able to document many different languages being spoken in just the general chat alone. Also using time zones I was able to see when these non-English speakers were most active and a lot of them came in times that were the middle of the night in the US but usually during that afternoon for those users.