ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the social networks and communities of digital game players. Communities, or social capital have been associated with both physical health and subjective well-being. It is important to note that in the games industry and new media business, it is common to see communities being discussed as something that is produced, and even sold. As video games are a similarly contested phenomenon, the discussion of gaming communities emerges as a topic ridden by tensions into several dimensions. In modern scholarship, the German sociologist and philosopher Ferdinand Tonnies is generally credited as introducing the concept of community, by differentiating it from society. The main contribution of Tonnies was the analytical emphasis and perspective he opened into the ongoing societal changes. In the nineteenth century, the traditional, organic ways of people connecting with each other were being reframed and reorganized in modernization processes that involved urbanization, industrialization, and increasing mobility in many areas of life.
