Comparing the Structures and Characteristics of Different Game Social Networks -- The Steam Case
Enrica Loria, Alessia Antelmi, Johanna Pirker

TL;DR
This study analyzes Steam's player social networks across 200 games, revealing that user-defined tags better characterize community structures than genres, and team-based games foster more cohesive social networks.
Contribution
It provides an initial comparative analysis of game social networks, highlighting the influence of game mechanics and player perceptions on community formation.
Findings
User-defined tags better characterize communities than genres
Team-based games have more cohesive and clustered networks
Playing together in teams fosters social capital among players
Abstract
In most games, social connections are an essential part of the gaming experience. Players connect in communities inside or around games and form friendships, which can be translated into other games or even in the real world. Recent research has investigated social phenomena within the player social network of several multiplayer games, yet we still know very little about how these networks are shaped and formed. Specifically, we are unaware of how the game type and its mechanics are related to its community structure and how those structures vary in different games. This paper presents an initial analysis of Steam users and how friendships on Steam are formed around 200 games. We examine the friendship graphs of these 200 games by dividing them into clusters to compare their network properties and their specific characteristics (e.g., genre, game elements, and mechanics). We found how…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsDigital Games and Media · Complex Network Analysis Techniques · Peer-to-Peer Network Technologies
