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Gaming as Complex Contagion
A disease is a "simple contagion". It can be caught by means of a single exposure to a single source, but multiple sources and exposures 'help'.
Contrariwise, many social phenomena are "complex contagions". To catch one requires exposure to multiple *sources*. Multiple exposures help, but multiple sources are the key.
Cool?
Okay.
So, I say to you that the act of gaming primarily acts as a complex contagion, while the act of selling games is treated (as are almost all things in the market) as a simple contagion. This means that marketing and one-on-one action may produce buyers and collectors, but demonstrations, ongoing games, conventions, geek gatherings, and the like - those produce players.
I give you a reference here, from the American Journal of Sociology:
ftp://hive.soc.cornell.edu/mwm14/webpage/WLT.pdf
Be aware that said reference starts easy, but also includes modeling of such stuff, and a lot of discussion on the kinds of ties over which things spread - short ties or long, strong or weak, and so on.
And I ask you this:
If this is true, what else is true?
Contrariwise, many social phenomena are "complex contagions". To catch one requires exposure to multiple *sources*. Multiple exposures help, but multiple sources are the key.
Cool?
Okay.
So, I say to you that the act of gaming primarily acts as a complex contagion, while the act of selling games is treated (as are almost all things in the market) as a simple contagion. This means that marketing and one-on-one action may produce buyers and collectors, but demonstrations, ongoing games, conventions, geek gatherings, and the like - those produce players.
I give you a reference here, from the American Journal of Sociology:
ftp://hive.soc.cornell.edu/mwm14/webpage/WLT.pdf
Be aware that said reference starts easy, but also includes modeling of such stuff, and a lot of discussion on the kinds of ties over which things spread - short ties or long, strong or weak, and so on.
And I ask you this:
If this is true, what else is true?
Comments
Maybe it can be argued that anything could be a contagion. That doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't something useful to be learned from looking at a subject through the lens of a contagion model.
Because, hey, maybe. I mean, I'm under the impression that chocolate was already fully normalised and generally eaten anywhere I'm likely to go. But if I go to an un-chocolated place, that might be true.
What he is saying, sort of, is that if you make the argument that everything is contagion, gaming is a different kind of contagion than, say, chocolate or lip gloss.
This feels totally true to me. I can individually make the decision to eat chocolate or buy lip gloss (I prefer CoverGirl Wetslicks, btw). I can even individually make the decision to buy a game. But I really can't individually make the decision to play that game. I need others to be "infected" that agree to play with me.
As for the assertion that, to infect those others, there must be an additional source, I'm not so sure. They could easily be infected by me. (Unless, the source that infected me is considered one source for the players and I am another, but that's not what I think "multiple sources" means. I assume the "multiple source" idea is that the players must get infected by both me and something else.)
I say that almost all current gamers are the people with low thresholds.
It may also imply that the best possible thing that can happen to your game is to have some kid cite it as the reason he went crazy and murdered a bunch of people.