Cyber Flaneur; Window shopping the Mineplex Arcade
By Riley Ernst
It seems that in the present day, people are too busy in their daily lives to wander aimlessly where their fancy takes them and take in the sights and pleasures the world has to offer. Although it seems much easier to find time to wander like this online, as moving and navigating from site to site can be done with the click of a button.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/flaneur
The flaneur is by very definition one that idles, so is it no surprise that in this age many people who have access to the internet choose to idle there? Typically the flaneur wandered the Parisian arcades, a slow and aimless pace, as if "Walking a turtle on a leash."and would dress to draw attention to themselves, as they observed others(Prouty.2008). This is a sort of window shopping view on society, as a passerby while also having enough time to observe, on Mineplex, this style of observation is made easy by easily navigable links and lobbies. As I crawl through a few matches of each game then wander back to the arcade to try another game type, it seems extremely easy to relate to the idling flaneur of the Parisian arcades.
References
flaneur. (n.d.). Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Retrieved August 21, 2015, from Dictionary.com website:
Prouty, R. (2008) A turtle on a leash. Retrived from http://www.onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2009/10/a-turtle-on-a-leash.html
Le Flâneur (Paul Gavarni 1842) and Cyberflâneur (maryannreilly.blogspot.com 2012) retrieved from http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/500/639
I agree to the fact that Mineplex gives the ability to enable those who are flaneurs to aimlessly stroll through each lobby and game type, in their own pace, though with the lobby links and teleports it is easy for non-flaneurs to navigate through games quickly and efficiently. When one logs into the game, they don’t even need to do anything specifically, one can simply stand there and talk to other gamers, jump around in a circle, explore through the spawn and architecture that has been made for as long as one desires, without anyone to tell you otherwise. The gamer can join any game type at any time he pleases, and can stay in a certain lobby for as long as one wants.
ReplyDeleteMineplex also is a company that has several stems, a server based in America, and one in Australia. The servers also have forums so frequent gamers can talk to others by the website, discussing who is from where, uploading pictures and videos of themselves or of them playing which gives the idea of a social map. “A social map is a visual representation of a social network.” (Wisegeek, 2015)
Reference List:
WiseGeek, (2015). What is a Social Map? Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a- social-map.htm on 21/08/15.
I find it very interesting that one can simply "stroll" through the site as one pleases, quite literally engaging in anything that takes their fancy. It would interest me to know which users actually go on with the intention to be a flaneur of sorts, that is, browsing through and through, playing any game on a whim and leaving when it suits them based on servers that match their interests. And the game itself is perfect for a person to just stay idle and observe other users, while perhaps attracting attention to themselves for the purpose of studying people's in-game reactions. While, I myself do not enjoy the game, it was the 5th most popular game of 2014 (Lofgren, K., 2015). Perhaps the game lending itself to people as a hub to observe plays a part in it, perhaps not.
ReplyDeleteSources"
Lofgren, K. (2015). 2015 Video Game Statistics & Trends. Retrieved from: http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/2015-global-video-game-stats-whos-playing-what-and-why/ on 24/08/15