Social Opportunities and Digitalized Communication of Genshin Impact Players

Abstract

Genshin Impact (GI) became a global trend for online gaming culture in 2020. Many players greatly value it because of what it offers to their community. This study was conducted to understand the social interactions and communicative practices of Ilokano players of Genshin Impact. Guided by the concepts of the ethnomethodology tradition of qualitative communication research, 6 GI players participated in in-depth interviews and virtual immersion to document their narratives and practices on their social interactions and communicative practices. The theorizing evinced that social opportunities are the achievement in playing GI that is comprised of six sub-themes, which include: (1) Virtual Amity; (2) Virtual Emotional Sharing; (3) Introvert Friendly; (4) Cross-Cultural Virtual Encounters; (5) Otaku Community; and (6) Third-place. Meanwhile, digitalized communication emerged as the core category describing the communicative practices of GI players that consists of four sub-themes which include: (1) Discord (Extension of CMC); (2) Meta (Extension of CMC); (3) Genshin Impact Emojis; and (4) Face-to-Face. Hence, this theorizing revealed that playing Genshin Impact provides social opportunities and digitalized communication, improving GI players' social lives.