Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Multiculturalism and Cultural Issues in Online Gaming Communities

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 12; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14797580802561182

1740-1666

Melinda Jacobs,

Asian Culture and Media Studies

Abstract This article looks at racism, nationalism, and culture wars within multicultural Internet communities, specifically looking at Omerta, an international mafia‐themed text‐based massively multiplayer online role‐playing game (MMORPG). Omerta allows players to live and create a world of their own where groups of players, called families, interact and work together in peace and war. The text‐based aspect leads the majority of play dealing with negotiations in multi‐user chat (Internet Relay Chat), with the focus being on diplomacy and negotiation. Within the Omerta game, players of Turkish nationality have been refused admission into some families due to the perception that their primary loyalties are to other members of their own nationality, rather than members of their current family. This has led to much turmoil within the community and the creation of "Turkish Alliances"— families consisting of only Turkish players due to the lack of recruiting from other nationalities. What does this say about the functionality of multiculturalism and the possibility for success? Notes 1. The 'physical world' refers to the world we feel and touch, as opposed to the 'virtual world', which refers to the world we can access via the Internet or the part of the world that needs not, or cannot, be physically explored. 2. For definitions of terms such as 'racism', 'nationalism', and 'multiculturalism', dictionary definitions are used to avoid the unnecessary bias and fluctuation that seems to occur in research papers on the topic. The aim is to provide the general concept and theory used in analyzing the data. 3. See http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 4. This was noted in a survey of hundreds of profiles of players in the game, when looking for examples of nationality and/or political figures within the profiles, in the form of quotes, pictures, or other media. 5. See Omerta German IRC logs, #Talamasca.de, #Omerta.de, News postings, Omerta.de Spring 2006 German version of Omerta