Who Is the Note-Worthy Fan? Featuring Players in the Official Facebook Communication of Mainstream Video Games

Jan Švelch; Tereza Krobová

doi:10.18778/2391-8551.03.05

Authors

Jan Švelch Charles University
Tereza Krobová

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2391-8551.03.05

Keywords:

video game fans, Facebook, official communication of video games, fan capital, free labor, fan co-creation, content analysis, fan art, cosplay, e-sports

Abstract

Video game fans participate in the official promotion of video games, either voluntarily, or unwillingly when their fanworks are appropriated and used by video game publishers. The article provides a quantitative overview of the presence of fans in the official social media profiles of four selected mainstream games (Dragon Age: Inquistion, Evolve, Mortal Kombat X and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt) during a one-year period from August 2014 to July 2015. Combining the traditional method of content analysis and Facebook data-mining, we explore the frequency with which fans appear in social media (including questions of various forms of fanworks and gender) and what user activity is generated by posts featuring fans and fan creations. Results show that fans or their fanworks are featured in 8–24% of all posts depending on a game and in the most common categories of painting and cosplay they generate a comparable level of user engagement as traditional promotional posts.

Author Biographies

Jan Švelch, Charles University

His research focuses on video game paratextuality, glitches, microtransactions, fan communities, and fan cultures. He works as a freelance journalist covering video games for various Czech magazines.

Tereza Krobová

Her research focuses on issues related to gender and representation in media, especially in video games. She cooperates with NGOs that deal with human rights and gender mainstreaming.

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