If you haven’t seen my first blog on this project you can check it out here.
Throughout the first lockdown I started getting back into playing video games. I had a few friends that wanted to play with me and we ended up playing together online. We played a few games, but settled with Minecraft as we had all played it as kids and wanted to re-live some good memories.
15 months later and our discord has grown, but not by much.
I am setting out to expand it further and push it exponentially. Check out how in this video…
Following the inspiration that started The Zone, I am setting out to grow my server into one similar to AddstarMC. With a strong and consistent community, this server has inspired The Zone to reach out for new players and grow the server as a Digital Space. You can find AddstarMC on their website, Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch as well as in their discord.
The biggest name in Minecraft streaming at the moment is Dream. Dream plays on an exclusive Minecraft server where he is known for speed runs of the game as well as custom challenges…
His YouTube sits at 25.4 million subscribers and his Twitch with 5.3 million followers.
The Zone is a community server and always will be. Over the next 7 weeks, I’ll be researching Minecraft gamers and communities like this to gain an insight into the gaming world. From this, The Zone will adapt to grow its community.
To see more about my process and plan read my previous update here.
Until then, check out our videos on twitch and follow us so that you get become part of our gaming community!
See you in the Discord…
Boswell's Brain 
Hi Boswell, your pitch offers a deep understanding of your digital artefact and media niche, the platform it will be based on, and shows some research as to leading creators in this niche. However, you have failed to answer almost all of the marking criteria for this pitch assignment, with no inclusion of any of the following: a field site, a field of enquiry, your online persona, how you will develop this online persona, the auto-ethnographic research methods you will use (such as observations) to develop your knowledge as an audience member of this niche, the timeline of your project, the weekly tasks you will complete, ethical considerations when researching and the inclusion of secondary resources to support and show your understanding of the subject material.
It is clear to me through this pitch that there is little to no engagement with the weekly materials from you and a failure to address this assessment adequately. I have some suggestions as to what you could have included to answer some of the marking criteria for this pitch and to help you figure out how you will conduct your research for the semester:
The topic of your project is Minecraft gaming; through identifying this, you have already begun creating your field site, including large creators that stream Minecraft on discord. To create your field site, you need to think of the elements of this niche; what kind of people watch Minecraft streams, what do they watch them on, how do they access them, what creators are they likely to access, how frequently do they access them, what other media do they access, other video games they play? Answering these questions will lead you to develop what you wish to research as an audience member of this niche, possibly ‘how Minecraft servers can create a feeling of community within gamers’, as this is a topic you mention in your pitch.
By explicitly stating what you wish to research about this niche, you can then explore how you will research this. This could be done through engaging in the online community, documenting how being an audience member in this community makes you feel, gathering any evidence of members in your server gaining a sense of community. These observations and insights will then demonstrate your ethnographic research.
If you do wish to explore this theme within your nominated niche, here is some background information about Minecraft and community building, which may be helpful to use as secondary research when you report your findings: https://suicideline.org.au/mental-health/gaming-a-cure-for-isolation-and-loneliness/ and https://theconversation.com/playing-video-games-can-ease-loneliness-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-134198
This article may also help you in how you will build your server community: https://medium.com/@fionabee/popular-discord-server-950a0c078ff9
I wish you luck on this project and hope that my feedback will help you develop your interest in Minecraft servers into an actual ethnographic study.
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Hi Boswell,
This was a very well structured pitch and your DA sounds like something you’re really passionate about and enjoy participating in, which is great for an autoethnographic study. The Zone is creating a great community base for gamers!
I found that your contextual blog post was repeating what was already said in the pitch. Potentially you could’ve utilised this space to communicate your research plan further and perhaps expand on your field site with a visual component. While you included some great research of other Minecraft and Twitch communities, I feel like you lacked academic sources or links to any BCM241 given readings and materials. Are there any academic sources that could further the research of your audience?
I loved to see that you have an excellent grasp on developing your online persona which is already underway. I found that you focused a lot on wanting to grow the server, which is fantastic, but didn’t tell me much about what you wish to discover about the audience. You noted that “Over the next 7 weeks, I’ll be researching Minecraft gamers and communities like this to gain an insight into the gaming world.” Which is a great time frame. My only question is perhaps you could niche in what that ‘insight’ is. This simple article on why twitch streaming is so popular could help you discover more about your intended audience and why they want to be an active member in ‘The Zone’ community: https://theconversation.com/crucible-the-science-behind-why-watching-others-playing-video-games-has-become-so-popular-139190
Not sure if this is something you would want to check out, but this research article (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586975/full ) delves into the psychology of twitch users highlighting how the platform helps viewers to cope in difficult times of life, particularly teenagers and young adults. Since you touched on how your server aims to take people from “playing alone to playing together”, you could use this information and pose questions to the community in your discord server. How do the people in your community feel when they’re in ‘The Zone’? Is it a safe haven and a break from the real world? Whatever path you go down, I think it would be really beneficial for your research to discover why your audience enjoys Minecraft and watching live streams. Perhaps this could help lead you to a really nice target audience who you could really sculpt your streams around to grow your community.
Overall there was a great flow to this pitch and I’m excited to see where you take ‘The Zone’!
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Hi,
It’s clear that you already have an interest in your media niche.
I think in your written blog post you spent a bit too long talking about the backstory of playing video games with your friends in lockdown, this is interesting, but I feel you could’ve used the 250 words more effectively.
I don’t know much about gaming or discord for gaming and felt you explained this well in the introduction to your video. You also linked to other creators in your niche well, and are clearly already observing them.
However, you are missing some of the assessment criteria.
Leading up to your beta, consider including the auto-ethnographic skills you will use in your research such as problematising, reflexivity, conceptualising, Sensitivity etc.
I would also recommend that you include how you have engaged with the subject materials and other academic and popular sources.
Here are some academic sources I have found that I think you could utilise:
https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/21878/james_baguley_thesis_final.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5381616/
Click to access 104-Mueller.pdf
I would also recommend that you start developing your field site. To do this I would start by writing down as many aspects of your media niche that you can think of e.g what platforms does it exist cross, who are the major public figures, what are some common characteristics of the audience that you have observed, what other games do they play, the affordances and limitations of the platforms, etc.
I also think you need to use narrowing and problematising to work out exactly what you want to study about this niche, as it still feels a bit broad to me.
You should also consider making a detailed timeline/plan of what you expect to complete for your DA and what you plan to do each week. This will help give you a clear outline to work towards, and help you to keep on track with your research and online presence.
I would also have liked it if you had included what the final shape and form of your DA will be, this would also help you as you will have a clear idea of what you are working towards.
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Hi Boswell,
‘The Zone’ sounds like a very interesting digital artefact and very thought out. Your video pitch was good as for me who doesn’t know much about ‘Minecraft and gaming itself, it provided me with much-needed background information and insight about both areas. But the blog post seems to repeat what you had already mentioned in your pitch video. Which I think for the future you should use the blog post to attach a timeline of your digital artefact, field map of your media niche, but also information relating to the lecture or reading weekly content. Moreover, even though your background information was very well-spoken, and a lot of background had seemed to be used on gamers, I think you needed to add what style of autoethnographic research you were going to focus on e.g. thick description. But also what ethical considerations/issues you need to either avoid or beware for your digital artefact. Overall, a good pitch just a couple of minor things that you need to work on for your upcoming beta. But look forward to seeing the upcoming works on ‘The Zone’!
– Jade
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