Ben Ashby
Digital Ethnography
In this assemblage, the topic of discussion is that of the inner workings of an online community pertaining to a popular computer video game. The discussion will be centered around a main theme, known as community cohesion. This is the root of the existence and persistence of said online community. The video game in question goes by the title of Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, described shortly as a game that groups together one hundred people, on a large interactive playing field. Each player starts out with the same tools, and is given a choice to jump from a plane’s randomized trajectory at any point in time. Players search for tools (guns) and other accessories to enable them to eliminate everyone else not partnered with them with an end goal of seeing the prized screen with the text of ‘Winner Winner Chicken Dinner’. It is a fight to the top and an ultra realistic fight to the (virtual) death. The community in question that was created in accordance with this game is found on a popular site known as reddit. Reddit is comprised of ‘sub-reddits’, which specialize in a specific topic. Reddit community members ambiguously travel between sub-reddits akin to their hobbies and likes, carrying on a generalized reddit online community subculture. This write-up aims to analyze this game’s particular sub-reddit’s sub-culture through a series of observations and interactions.
Page Banner for reddit.com/r/PUBATTLEGROUNDS/
The question posed here is one of enquiry into what this sub-reddit community is about. Why was this community within a community created? What kind of individuals would be drawn to this community? What do the members of the community aim to achieve through participating and enriching this image board? These are all questions that were asked in the initial conception of analyzing this online community. The journey began simply by lurking on this website’s sub-reddit. In a larger scope of perspective, this sub-community is directly influenced by the website’s existing community mentality. This is something to keep in mind when analyzing this current sub-reddit, as many of the styles of communication have cascaded from the generalized perspectives and actions of the reddit community.
*An example of compounding comments; commenting on a comment that comments on a comment.
Observation was the start of the analytic process of this community. To be specific, the observation of the way that communication among members occurred can be paralleled to the structure in the above screenshot. This is important to keep in mind when analyzing the communication style of this particular video games subreddit. The above screenshot also depicts the way that posts are displayed at the beginning of the comments section. The top comments have more points, and thus all posts are display in descending order of points. This hierarchy of displayed communications also pertains to posts themselves on the subreddit's homepage. 
To the left is an example of this hierarchy that presents itself as the first posts that a user views upon visiting this online community portal. This ranked post list is made possible by a series of individuals ‘up-voting’ the posts’ ranks by an increment of one point per person. The result for both portal post position on page and comment post position on the post page is directly related a feedback effect. This feedback effect can be described by the fact that top posts / comments are available to the individual at the beginning of their venture into this online community. This in turn gives posts with higher ranking a better chance of keeping their rank - if the community member at the time of page load can relate and feels the need to participate in furthering the posts / comments rank. Through a combination of observation and interaction, one would be able to learn what posts are most desirable and thereby shape the way they communicate via the upvoting and choice of word.
The methods to analyze this community required prior knowledge of community at a higher score; such can be known by the presence of the main community’s name in the name of this more specialized community; a sub-reddit.
An example of post topics: Highlight, Game News, and Media
In the above screenshot, we witness three categories of posts all present on the first page of the community portal. The first post depicts an in game action, where the poster adheres to community posting standards on the topic of distributing amusing and entertaining in-game moments. The second post depicts another user's post with main goal of distributing information about the video games status. Many times these types of posts can be directed towards providing important information about the game itself. The third category depicted is a community member seeking to provide helpful information for users on a topic that is knowingly frustrating among all game players.
These types of posts that are available show a general language shared among these community members. Helping individuals with relevant game information and providing entertainment seem to be the forms of communication that posters choose, and the post types that recur most often. This behavior exhibited is one based on a pattern, and solidifies the notion of community cohesion.
Having played the game itself, as well as having an understanding of an existing communication style by frequenting reddit in the past - it is interesting to see how the cohesion of individuals in this community is directly related to in-game play. Due to the fact that there is the option to play with team members in this game - already going into any sort of communication regarding the game, carries the notion of team-work and inner squad communication. The game itself is known for its long, drawn out periods of time of non-interaction, to only be abruptly ended in a matter of seconds. This in turn creates a sense of urgency to work together and share information among team members, in an effort to better an individual's chance of survival. The fact that the topics of the top up-voted posts are consistent in nature with sharing information, providing moral support through healthy entertainment, and overall ‘good guy greg’ mentalities- paints a clear picture of how what has brought the community together also allows for its evolving self-propagation. No matter the geographic location on this planet, this pubg community continues to cohesively interact. It is with these statements that one can come to the conclusion that the mind space created through interaction with this community can be depicted as a ‘real life’ community.
