People, places, and play

Digital games frequently give rise to engaging and meaningful social interactions, both over the internet and in the real and tangible world of the gamer. This is the focus of the present paper, which explores digital gaming as a situated experience, shaped by socio-spatial contingencies. In particular we discuss how co-players, audience, and their spatial organization shape play and player experience and review supporting evidence for this. We present a framework describing social processes underlying situated social play experience and how these are shaped by the player the game's socio-spatial and media context. The core of this framework describes various 'sociality characteristics', and discusses these both in terms of co-located and mediated social game settings.