1000 Word Blog post

Collaboration is very important in society. We couldn't get things done without collaborating with one another in order to achieve a certain goal. Collaboration is when people come together and work out problems and issues with one another in order to solve them. With the rise of technology collaboration has been useful in online communities. People from different parts of the world come together in order to seek help with an issue or tackle one all together. One example is in video games. Video games now require a lot more collaboration from fellow players now more then ever. With the rise of MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and hero shooter genres, players will need to come together in order to win a match. Players pick their avatar in a match while they are placed in a team with players they probably never met before. In order to win players need to think of a plan in order to capture an objective or take certain parts of the enemies base in to advance. Tuckmans five stages of group development can describes groups of any variety, either being large or small, offline or online. The five stages can play an important role in video game teams. For instance, the forming stage can be the assembly of a team, picking out avatars and being placed in a match of random people. The storming stage is were the team start bumping heads on where the direction for the group should. In a video game it could be how each player has a different strategies that can be good enough to capture and objective and other members of the team hinder there view on which one is the best one or players not looking up to other players standards (more on that later). The norming stage could be where players start to understands the other members on there team and can tell how they play. They will come up with strategies that will work with the other members on there team and provide advance and a clear path that they might actually win the match. The preforming stage is when the group is at the final moment of deciding the fate of there goal. For a team in a video game its the last few minutes in a match where they need to capture the last objective or finish off the remaining players on the enemy team. This also is the stage where the team find out if they reached there goal or not. The adjourning stage is where the team disbands after the match. It could either be leaving the match out of frustration due to a loss or staying in and finding new players to play with for the next match.

Photo by: pocru ( CCO Creative Commons)

Online communities can be a good way to connect with one another over long distances, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Xbox live,  but depending on who communicate with can dampen your view on how these groups communicate. There will be people who will try to go out of there way to just annoy you and insult you for for either being frustrated or finding it amusing. The toxic environment in online communities can hinder your experience from enjoying what the group has to offer. For example the communities from video games has some of the worst communities to be apart of. League of legends is a good example. League is has the biggest gaming community around, its also  the most toxic. A lot of people play this game ranging from all over the globe. There are some who try to play the casually just for enjoyment, while there are some who take it very serious. The gaming community has expanded to where games have there own national championships to compete with different teams called e sports.  To be apart of these you have to be a really good player and to be a good player you have to be dedicated. So there are some people who take league very serious. So serious that they will get frustrated if things don't look to good in a match and call out the people who they think aren't playing to good. There is a chat in league which includes both text and voice controls. There are some instances where players will call each other obscure names which contain vulgarity, racism and sexism that will degrade other players and try to hinder there experience. Video games now these days require a lot of collaboration with fellow players in order to conquer an objective or defeat the enemy team, this usually where the storming stage of tuckmans five stages of group development takes place where teams will bicker and fight on how the team should operate in order to fulfill their goals. Players will have to come together and work up a plan on how to win. If they succeed they will move on to the other stages.

Image by: Mark Miller (CCO Creative Commons)

The gaming  community is made up of a large group ranging from all over the globe bringing in a whole spectrum of different kinds of people, some who just want to play video games for enjoyment, some who play them for a challenge, and there are some who just play them to hurt others. Gaming can get frustrating if a match isn't looking to good and if other players insult you if you didn't play your best, or are just looking for a way to hurt you shouldn't keep away from gaming. You either win or lose in a video game but that's the whole experience. You have fun either way so why should other players insults affect you. Its okay to make mistakes in a match. Don't stop playing, do what you love. There are other players that are just like you who just play to have fun and take up the majority of the gaming community.

Citations:
Tuckmans Five Stages Of Group Development. By Tuckman, B.

Can a video game company tame toxic behaviour? By Brendan Maher