ABSTRACT
The social demand of playing video games stems from the presence of real and artificial game partners. The presence of others allows for the emergence of traditional communicative processes but also for the rise of new social phenomena, such as embodying digital self-representations or “avatars” and interacting with computer-controlled characters. This chapter revisits previous definitions of social demands and articulates a communication framework that subsumes common themes in research describing social processes involved in playing video games. This framework identifies several research programs that place an emphasis on messages, medium, context, sender, receiver, feedback, and noise. Based on the above, this chapter defines social demands as any part of the communicative process (i.e., message, medium, context, sender, receiver, feedback, and noise) that has an impact on the quantity and quality of the social ties of players and game audiences.
