Talking about games: gamers' digital communication spaces as the object of study

Abstract

In the digital environment, gaming is one of the activities that has generated the greatest number of fans. What is more, gaming becomes a topic of conversation between gamers/users, who leverage the potential of different communication platforms to research, collaborate, share tips and even boast of their achievements. This article seeks to describe and analyse how these gamers' communication environments work, on the basis of the inherent characteristics of communities of interest, learners and practice. Through examination of the activities on gaming forums for two highly popular massively multiplayer online games -League of Legends and Minecraft- and the exchange of comments between viewers of leading Spanish YouTubers like RevenantL0L and Vegetta777, we analyse users' behaviour, the amount and content of messages and compare the structures and workings of the two environments.