ABSTRACT
This study explores one of the most popular online gaming forums designed for blind gamers and gamers with vision impairment in mainland China. Founded in 2010 by a blind game developer Shichan, Tingyou provides a space for blind gamers to share game sources and strategies, and interact with other game players. Through conducting semi-structural in-depth interviews on five Tingyou members and doing textual analysis on the forum's posts, this study finds that the online gaming community can assist blind gamers to accumulate social capital. The blind gamers in Tingyou do not only share free games resources in the forum but also share common values and collective identity towards the gaming community. The article also identifies four main roles among Tingyou members; they are: game developers, web administrators, active participants, and ordinary participants. Tingyou members contribute to the nurturing of participatory culture in the gaming community; and their online participation, in return, increased their social capital and that of the virtual community.
