Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Social Network Analysis Of Online Gamers' Friendship Networks: Structural Attributes Of Steam Friendships, And Comparison Of Offline-Online Social Ties Of Mmo Gamers, Juan G. Arroyo-Flores

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study traces the boundaries of online-based social networks and its possible extensions and intersections with offline social networks. It focuses on the Massive Multiplayer Online gaming community. Most online gaming research has only addressed one side of the equation, i.e., the online aspect of social interaction, omitting the offline context. The primary objective is to look at both offline and online social contexts of gamers. The analysis suggests that overall offline ties are slightly more important than online. Still, this does not imply that online ties are not meaningful at all. The length of their online relationships plays a …