Promoting Cross-Cultural Interaction in Games

Who’s played it yet?  C’mon, it’s pretty cool, let me say… but what I think is interesting about the new Battlefield is that this FPS, i think, is furthering the bounds of its own particular virtual world.  The first Call of Duty (remember back to before xfire & punkbuster were implemented!) set the stage for Activision (and then subsequent developers) to create their own virtual representation of the WWII battlefield.  In this case, as are many others, the developers used realistic recreations of sites, events, and battles to stimulate the realistic effect on the gamer.  The long series of Call of Duty games all seem to consist of similar attributes of game design and world design: guns are modeled the same, textures are similar, body movements, sounds, fonts, etc.  We may think little of this because it’s obvious: same game, same developer (well, sorta), same stuff.

Battlefield 2142 is also an FPS but is not set in a realistic environment, instead it truly is its own virtual world.  Halo is another example, showing that an FPS gamer is in the virtual world of their respective game.

The WRI survey was great in that many responses were received in a relatively short time.  And soon, an updated survey will be published.  But I think one of the best ways to capture the essence of transnational interactions in virtual worlds is by experiencing them first-hand: maybe we should play more, to learn more?

Many survey responses have stated that transnational interactions and even their barriers can strengthen the bonds of players, enhance gameplay satisfaction, and spread informational knowledge amongst gamers.  Back to Bad Company 2, I’ve noticed that this fps is very much its own world, and keeping in-tune with the previous worlds of the Battlefield series, it acts much like an MMO.  Perhaps fps’ such as these, or any for that matter, that foster transnational interactions should be studied?  Maybe the next step is to create a WRI clan, guild, or forum community that achieves outreach through participation?

Stay tuned and play on.