When playing on the console, your hearing sense (to listen), touch sense (to feel), and sight sense (to see) are generally required and heightened. However, many things go unnoticed.
When examining myself through the auto-ethnography assignment (playing solo), it was intriguing to wonder why I sat in particular positions. I was also examining the way I had pressed the buttons on the controller and how my priorities temporarily changed when playing on the console, for example, taste is very rarely regarded when playing on the console, although it is not until the end of the game when I had realised that I am in fact quite hungry. When examining other individuals, I became interested in movement, sound and essentially how they communicated/interacted specifically with each other. This became the focus.
My observation consisted of two individuals playing five different games (Michael Alba as player one, Patrick Romero as player two. These individuals were friends who often play video games in their spare time (However, a few of the games played in this observation were new to them). My means for documenting were through using a video camera, taking photos, and interviewing both players after allowing them to watch the video of themselves. With my model, there are five main sections representing the five different games. In each section there are two lines that represent each player (player one on the left, player two on the right). Player one and two competed against each other in all five games. As one can see, each line is different; this displays each player’s movement during each game. Within these lines, there are green stripes which represent sound - the more visible the stripes, the more sound they made during that time in the game.
Observations in each game:
- Game one was a shooting game (Call of Duty: Black Ops; generally played by teenage boys/young adults).
- Game two was a driving game - must physically steer the controller (Mario Karts; generally played by kids)
- Game three was an apple-eating game (Viva Piñata; generally played by kids)
- Game four was a tennis game (Virtua Tennis 3; generally played by a mixture of age groups)
- Game five was a car-racing game (Burnout Revenge; generally played by teenage boys)
Through repeatedly watching the recorded videos, I had predicted some things about each player that were correct, while also noticing a few things I did not notice/know previously (wherein the players also did not consciously recognise about themselves). People who personally know of player one knows that he has quite an energetic personality is usually heard before he is seen. It was predictable that he would constantly move around and physically interact with player two. However, in games three and five, he made almost no movement at all – my reason to this fact was the constant required concentration in game three as you cannot “die” or restart; with game five, you can crash and restart and although he did not move as much, his frustration was revealed through screaming (green lines). With player two, it came to a surprise that he constantly talks throughout the game, whether it be with player two or talking to himself sub-consciously. I had only picked this up through watching the videos multiple times wherein I saw his mouth moving but very little sound was depicted, especially in comparison to player one.
Through using senses, they reveal emotion, and through my model, it gives information depicting the differenct mannerisms of both players in the five games. Through the visuals in the model, there are interesting observations between the interaction of player one and two. This sensory ethnography study has brought about deep thinking in interpretation and revealed that there are many things that us as individuals do “automatically”/sub-conscious thinking/action.
