Summary of Research on TWC in Online Games

Use of Technical Communication in Online Games

Methods of Communication - Internal

Within games themselves, there are two primary instances of communication that occur in real-time between players:

• • Pings - visual & audible alerts sent between players (fig.1)

    • Hand signals or body language displayed through players' characters through games' emotes

  • Chat - typed or spoken and sent in-game between players

    • May occur through game interfaces or through third-party communication platforms such as Discord or TeamSpeak

However, there are many more forms of communication that are less direct than player-to-player, but apply even more perfectly to technical communication:

• Interaction with Game Itself - through the storyline, conversations with non-playable characters (NPCs) (fig.2), and with a game's virtual world (fig.3)

• Rules - instructions or tutorials that appear when a player first opens a game, and rules that guide a player throughout their experience in the game (Eyman, 2008)

Interestingly enough, Araki (2008) states that: "research indicates that players communicate most instructional information about playing these games within the context of the game and not from developers to players through traditional sources such as a user manual". In this case, players have become technical communicators for each other by providing informal instructional communication through a variety of means:

• Norms - through play, users learn community values and accepted social behaviors from more experienced players

• Guides - players distribute tutorials, walkthroughs, playthroughs, strategies, easter eggs (intentional, hidden feature created by developers for players to find)

• Leadership/Pedagogy - games with goal-oriented cooperative activity are ripe with instances of leadership as players solve rhetorical problems with each other

Methods of Communication - External

Although rather uncommon before the 2010s, game publishers like Blizzard and Riot and their developers are now incredibly communicative with their audiences. Since games like Overwatch or League of Legends update twice or more a month, players are consistently vocal online of their opinions on the games' latest changes. This communication creates a beautiful symbiosis between players and game developers. When players experience issues or bugs with a patch, they will alert developers via forums, in-game reports, or through social media. Players are dependent on the support from the developers in remedying issues in the same way that developers are dependent on receiving player feedback, whether it be positive or negative.

On the other hand, players are not just communicating with developers when they post online. Another prime example of these external communications would be those between players outside of games. Players have developed communities for games through various social media platforms, as well as streaming or video publishing sites like Twitch and YouTube.

Game developers then support their players' interaction outside of the games themselves by creating events like E3 (trade event), Blizzcon (Blizzard's promotion-based convention), and eSports tournaments (Worlds, Overwatch League, etc.) which bring in tens of thousands of players each year.

Applications of Online Games to Technical Communication

The world of online gaming holds endless opportunities for technical communicators to analyze and study, where their skills can be used as rhetoricians and designers rather than simply translators and authors (Eyman, 2008). Potential areas of study include:

• User experience (usability) and instructional design - created by developers as well as resources established by players, and how to produce quality, successful products (Paquette, 2016)

• Use of games as rhetorical tools and the persuasive power they hold - marketing products (ie. Webkinz), for education (Funbrain, CoolMathGames), or both (PBS Kids).

  • How to adapt practices from game design into the field of education (Paquette, 2016)

• How users engage in tasks and interact with all levels of the game (players and world) and the ecology of gaming activities (fig.4), especially those mediated by text and data visualization

• User privacy and data mining - hidden in terms and licensing agreements, how these could easily be made more accessible to users

  • How data mining influences, refines, and shapes gameplay (deWinter, 2016)

• Developing tools for facilitating and better streamlining communication channels - those that are player-to-player as well as those that are player-to-developer