Video games -- Social aspects

This study examines the social organization of Gaiscíoch, a large online gaming
community that exists within the simulated world of a massively multiplayer online role
playing game (MMORPG). It provides an ethnographic account of an online gaming
community that is open to any player without skill or time commitment requirements, but
still maintains high status within the game world. This project identifies eight elements
that make this inclusive, friendly, and casual community successful in virtual worlds that
tend to be dominated by communities that have a competitive, strict, and exclusive
approach to online gaming (social interaction, code of values, leadership, rank system,
events, community building, population size, gameplay). Lastly, this project briefly
inquires about the nature of the border between the virtual and the physical and
establishes that gamers can be considered pseudo-border-inhabitants that are in control of
the community they place adjacent to them in the cyber world.

Mass Effect is a Science Fiction/Action Role Playing/Third Person Shooter video
game series that takes place in the year 2183, in which the player assumes control of
Commander Shepard. Players can choose to customize the character based on his/her
gender, appearance, sexual orientation, background origin and occupation. The
choices that show up in the game are also based on how the player wants their version
of Shepard to interact with other characters and allows players some leeway to shape
their own narrative. The series also discusses and acknowledges issues of race, gender, subjecthood and sovereignty, politics and sexual orientation within its narrative. This analysis
focuses on the text of the series and its implications concerning hegemonic reinforcement and/or resistance in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, politics, and warfare tactics.