Open AccessLeadership, circuition, and shift in tabletop wargaming community
Author(s) -
Jacek Mianowski
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
homo ludens
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2080-4555
DOI - 10.14746/hl.2020.13.8
Subject(s) - variety (cybernetics) , ethnography , franchise , participant observation , key (lock) , sociology , public relations , media studies , psychology , visual arts , political science , computer science , social science , art , business , artificial intelligence , computer security , anthropology , business administration
The following paper seeks to address the idea of a player community’s life cycle in a holistic way by shedding light on key issues related to the creation of wargaming groups, sustaining these groups and their mechanisms of decay. It encompasses a variety of ethnographic data, gathered from the communities of: Flames of War, Warmachine & Hordes as well as the Star Wars franchise. Bearing in mind that the research is ongoing, the paper incorporates various data gathered in the course of the last three years, including participant observation, fieldwork notes, player interviews, and online discussions.