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Entangled with Numbers: Quantified Self and Others in a Team-Based Online Game

Published: 01 November 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Quantification is a process that produces and communicates numbers, imbued with the expectation of generating knowledge and optimizing human behavior and social process. In this paper, we explore how quantification mediates virtual teamwork through an ethnographic study of quantification in League of Legends, a popular team-based online game with a highly competitive culture. In the game, rich statistics about each individual player's gaming history and performance are publicly available, analyzed and displayed on numerous third-party sites. We describe how players were entangled with numbers. They derived knowledge from numbers but struggled with proper ways of interpretation. They utilized numbers to quantify teammates and opponents, but in-game tensions and conflicts easily ensued. They noticed how quantification became burdensome and stressed the importance of proper use. We discuss how this case of quantified self and others manifests complex relationships between self-knowledge, numerical authority, and virtual teamwork.

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 2, Issue CSCW
November 2018
4104 pages
EISSN:2573-0142
DOI:10.1145/3290265
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 01 November 2018
Published in PACMHCI Volume 2, Issue CSCW

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Author Tags

  1. communicative trust
  2. interpretive flexibility
  3. league of legends
  4. moba
  5. multiplayer online battle arena
  6. numerical authority
  7. quantification
  8. quantified others
  9. quantified self
  10. self-knowledge
  11. virtual team

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  • (2024)CUPID: Improving Battle Fairness and Position Satisfaction in Online MOBA Games with a Re-matchmaking SystemProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869788:CSCW2(1-39)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Exploring Activity-Sharing Response Differences Between Broad-Purpose and Dedicated Online Social PlatformsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36868988:CSCW2(1-37)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
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