The central public library in Gothenburg offers videogames for its patrons to play in house. This service is very popular among boys and young men. A lot of patrons in the videogame section of the library choose to spend their time there without gaming and rather to read or spend time with friends. This thesis aims to examine what exactly it is that attracts people to this gaming section of the library, why they do not choose to simply play games in their homes instead, and why the games mostly attract boys and not girls even though there is research that shows that at least one third of Swedish gamers are female. The study was made using short and focused semistructured interviews with the patrons of the gaming section. Patrons were asked while entering or leaving the gaming sections if they could spare a few minutes to answer some questions. 21 people gave useful interviews. The results show that there is another kind of atmosphere to the videogame section than to the rest of the library that attracts young people. The social aspect of gaming in a public area is very attractive to most of the visiting gamers, and it is the same social aspect that dissuades some of the female gamers from partaking in the games. The people who use the game stations in the area are mainly boys and young men who already have access to gaming equipment in their homes, but choose to play in the library for the social aspect of gaming.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hb-26813 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Lundgren, Mikael |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds