Connected Communities:

How Meaning and Identity are Socially Constructed in the Destiny Gamespace
Dr. Matt Cox
Submitted on 12/14/2014

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Introduction
Since Magnavox first released the Odyssey in 1972,videogames have become a
staple of home entertainment across the world. Studies purport that, as of 2011, over half
(58%) of households in the United States owned at least one videogame console
(Graziano 2012). Much like society has evolved over time, so have videogames. Long
gone is the era of 8-bit solitary gaming; in its place reside photorealistic visual arenas that
unite millions of users across the globe in shared virtual experiences. Videogames have
become highly involved community-driven experiences that allow individuals to discover
new ways of constructing meaning and identifying themselves as active members in an
ever-growing culture. However, there is arguably an existing reluctance on behalf of the
academy to embrace pop-culture centric genres as not being of educational merit. This
mosaic essay aims to advocate that, using the aforementioned as its central premise, the
gaming community (and other emergent communities) serve as exemplars for
legitimately incorporating modern digitized culture into our studies of community and
rhetoric.
How I Came to Identify as a Gamer
My first experience with videogames occurred when I was eight years old. My
father, who spent most of his waking moments engaged with his work, had recently left
for a business trip overseas. My mother had decided to travel with him, and arranged for
me to stay with my grandmother for two weeks. This was the longest duration of time
that I had ever spent away from my parents, and my mother purchased me a Nintendo
Game Boy to ensure that I remained occupied while they were gone. It was not long
before I found myself immersed in new virtual worlds, vicariously embarking on new
adventures and exploring possibilities not afforded by reality. This would serve as the
foundation of a long and involved relationship. As time progressed, I worked actively to
stay current with developing videogame technologies. I have owned near every home
console released during my lifetime, and invest numerous hours prowling the parameters
of cyberspace. I have competed in tournaments, participated in pre-release beta testing,
and been a participant in gaming-driven forums and social networks. In regards to the
context of Destiny, I have registered a collective 200 hours within the gamespace and,
both solitarily and with other players, engaged in every activity that space provides.

Explaining the Destiny Gamespace

Destiny is a videogame that was developed by Bungie (Halo) and produced by
Activision (Call of Duty). It was released in 2014, and has been classified as a
multiplayer online role-playing first-person shooter. First-person refers to the perspective
through which players interact with the gamespace, while shooter implies that the

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majority of gamespace interactions center on gunplay (See fig. 1-2). Players assume the
role of one of the few remaining guardians, an individual who is tasked with saving the
last bastion of society from the ever-growing threat of the forces of darkness. The player
determines the race, gender, and appearance of their character. The player also chooses
one of three available classes which each encompasses their own specialized sets of
skills and abilities. The warlock, for instance, possesses the ability to control destructive
magical energies while the titan acts as a defender that can shield friendly players from
aggressive computer-controlled enemy forces. The game operates on a level system; this
means that the more one engages with the gamespace, the more customization and play
options will be made available to them. In other words, a level five player will not be able
to engage with the space to the extent that a level 20 player would. At any point, players
can partner with up to six others as they tackle a wide variety of game-posed challenges.
Along the way, new weapons and abilities become available, which allows the player to
customize their experience to meet their individual desires. As such, Destiny encourages
participants to cultivate their own styles of play as they interact with others to overcome
challenges and defeat the evil that threatens their existence.

(Fig. 1-2: Destiny in-game screenshots captured from the perspectives of the user)

Establishing the World of Destiny as a Community

For this essay to truly realize its argument, it must first establish that players of
Destiny interact like members of a distinct and specialized community. In order to do
this, I draw attention to communities of practice, an ideology set forth by social theorist
Etienne Wenger (1998). Wenger hypothesizes that communities revolve around three
core concepts:
Domain
This encompasses the shared body of interest to which membership in the CoP
mandates commitment. The domain may or may not hold value outside of the CoP.
Community
This refers to the establishing of communicative relationships and the open sharing of
information between members. Wenger feels this level of interaction to be essential.
Practice

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This illustrates the collaboration of resources and experiences that Wenger purports to
unite and influence CoP members as practicioners. (Wenger et.al)
In terms of Destiny, the domain is quite clear. The shared body of interest is the
provided gamespace, within which all other player interactions take place. Domain is
realized through the players themselves, as they routinely interact via forums and social
networking sites to share information pertinent to the gamespace. Community is
embraced by Destinys multiplayer nature, which forces social interaction if its true
potential is wished to be realized. Practice, in this case, is fairly self-explanatory; players
interact with what is made available by the game and, subsequently, share their
experiences with each other to construct a commutative understanding of what normative
occupation of the gamespace entails. What results is a community-constructed
experience, where members interact with one-another to create unique, socially
influenced encounters that differ greatly from player to player.

How Ethos Functions in the Destiny Gamespace

`
When examining how meaning and identity are communally constructed within
Destiny, it is imperative that one understands how the Aristotelian notion of ethos
influences both entities. Scholar S. Michael Halloran provides an accessible and
comprehensive definition of the classic rhetorical appeal, stating that an individuals level
of authority and character affects how their argumentative claims are perceived by their
audience (Halloran 1982). In other words, an individuals credibility directly relates to
their persuasive capacity. With the Destiny gamespace being community-driven,
participants who hold ethos are able to significantly shape how others interact within it.
Let us now examine how members of the Destiny community establish ethos.
Perhaps the most immediately identifiable indicator of player ethos is their character
level. As was mentioned earlier, Destiny assigns levels to each participant that are
reflective of their acquired experience within the gamespace. Players gain experience
through completing tasks in mission scenarios, skirmishing against other players, and
discovering rare items. While level 20 is the highest level one can obtain through
experience alone, players can complete other requirements to advance their character to
level 30. These conditions are staunchly more difficult to achieve, which greatly
enhances the perceived authority of players who are able to do so.
Players can also obtain ethos through carefully considering how they outfit their
character avatars. Destiny implements an inspect system; this system allows participants
to explore through inventories of others at the push of a button, which enables them to
closely scrutinize one-anothers customization choices. While this may seem insignificant
to nonpartisans, it provides members of the community ways to assess the experience
levels of others without any verbalized communication. Certain weapons and armors can
only be obtained through completion of difficult game activities, while some mandate
time-consuming gamespace interaction in order to acquire. Each piece of gear in Destiny
is also color-coded in accordance to its established rarity, which immediately correlates

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quality and quantity; in other words, if a player has an abundance of gear classified as
legendary or exotic, then they deductively possess a certain level of credibility within
the community (See fig. 3-4).

(Fig 3-4: The respective inventories of a high ethos (lvl. 30) and low ethos (lvl. 8) Hunter. Here,
it can be observed how rarity of gear correlates with how identity and ethos are situated. )

Building Theoretical Bridges

When examining these two main determinants of ethos in the Destiny gamespace,
it can be argued that one entity functions quintessentially in bothknowledge. To state it
differently, knowledge is the base from which the powers of ethos influence evolve; it is
what allows meanings to be made and subsequently conveyed. In the context of Destiny,
ethos is the byproduct of experience. That experience is what results in the development
of knowledge. Many postmodern scholars have displayed an interest in this powerknowledge dichotomy (Foucault, Gordon, Delanty). It has been theorized that knowledge
grants power to those who possess it because it enables them to control it; these
individuals have the ability to shape and influence the meanings that are constructed by
those who lack their knowledge. This premise can be historically observed. For instance,
consider Guttenbergs first printing of the bible in 1455. Prior to this moment, the text of
the bible was only available in Latin, which few people outside of the elite could read.
This allowed the Catholic Church to wield immense power, because only they had access
to the contextual knowledge. Therefore, they could sculpt the way they presented that
knowledge to the masses in such a way that the desired interpretations would be
constructed and established. When this knowledge became more readily available, it
allowed for the making of deviant meanings and, resultantly, a noteworthy loss of power
for institutionalized religion (Shilling 2005). This essay will hereby refer to the
acquisition of knowledge within the Destiny gamespace as Destiny Literacy.
In Destiny, there is a substantial power-gap between literate and non-literate
participants. A level five character does not have access to the same game features as a
level 26-30 character. To provide a base example, higher levels unlock items and gear
that are only relevant to the gamespace interactions players at those levels would

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undertake. Without access to this knowledge, lower level players must rely on those in
superior positions of identity to explain how these items are to be acquired and
manipulated. This does nothing if not perpetuate the status quo, and the emergence of
new meaning is heavily restricted.
Connective Reflections:
My Initial Experience
with the Vault of Glass
Perhaps the most
prestigiously revered
element of the Destiny
gamespace is the Vault of
Glass (VoG). By modern
role-playing game
nomenclature, the VoG is
classified as a raid. A raid
is an in-game scenario
that drastically alters
normative gameplay by greatly enhancing difficulty and incorporating unique
foundational mechanics (see attached video). Gamespaces often require that players reach
a certain level before they can participate in a raid, which reinforces the separation
instigated by player literacies. Defeating the challenges set forth by the raid rewards
players with exclusive gear that further elevates their ethos in the eyes of the community
elite.
A unique aspect of the VoG is that it does not incorporate a matchmaking system.
A matchmaking system is a tool that multiplayer gamespaces use to partner up similarly
experienced players to play with or against each other in a particular game scenario.
Destiny not employing such a tool in its raid is worthy of note, because it effectively
increases the exclusivity of player community at higher experience levels. To compensate
for the absence of matchmaking, community members have created membership-required
forum websites for the purposes of soliciting participation. Posters on forums set rigid
specifications as to the types of members they will allow in their raid communities. In the
case of Destiny, players often will often discriminate on grounds of character level,
character class, armament choices, physical location, spoken language, and access to
voice communications. My personal experience with user-created forums has been
reminiscent of theoretical posits made by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities
(1983). Through engagement with these spaces I observed the creation of numerous
smaller communities, each of them established around the shared perspectives of their
members. Each thread creator held their own prototype for what constituted acceptable
candidacy, and players of similar persuasions slowly sequestered themselves away in
ever-smaller publics. Confined, high-ethos camps are essentially controlling the
transmission of valued knowledge. In order to obtain this knowledge, one must assimilate
to the expectations held by the community they seek to join.

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After spending about 45 minutes searching for a community to play with, I was
able to start the VoG. Within moments, it became easily observable as to which players
were contesting for ethos in the gamespace. The group leader, a level 30 player,
immediately initiated dialectic with a level 29 player regarding which strategies the group
would implement. After coming to a consensus, they assigned roles to the other members
of the community, none of whom were using characters higher than level 28. If those
roles were not followed, the leader had the authority to remove individuals of his
choosing from the community. The sheer threat of exclusion from the raid group
appeared to be a sufficient motivator for players to demonstrate accepted behaviors, as
each member did as they were directed. Destiny arguably gives players no choice in the
matterthe raid differs so vastly from the normative gamespace that it cannot be
successfully completed without accepting the meanings constructed by those with ethos.
Thus, the same knowledge will be continually passed down to future players as they
engage with the VoG. In Language as Symbolic Action, Kenneth Burke describes his
concept of terministic screens (1966). These entities function as lenses that shape how
individuals perceive the contexts they are a part of, and are constructed through past
experiences and innate biases. When considering the raid, this phenomenon is very much
existent within the Destiny gamespace; its restriction of knowledge has created a highly
specialized community mindset that prevents the acceptance of new meanings that do not
conform to their own. As long as these screens are in effect, assessing player literacy in
Destiny will be based upon the ideology constructed by those who bare the power of
ethos.
How Competitive Multiplayer Further Constructs Identity and Meaning
Until this point, this essay has considered how meaning and identity are
influenced through user interaction with cooperative-play gamespace elements. Now, it
aims to explore how this socialized construction occurs within competitive-play
gamespace environments. The community has classified these spaces as peer versus peer
(PvP) multiplayer arenas. Destinys PvP gamespaces place up to 12 individuals in distinct
arenas (maps) where they compete against each other to accomplish game-assigned
individual and team objectives. By there very nature, these spaces revolve around ethos;
they enable players to directly impose their authority and knowledge over others in order
to further the promotion of their own identity. Player performance is evaluated by the
gamespace, with statistics and other assessment information displayed after each match
has been completed. Destiny also uses slight visual clues in transitioning cinematics that
draw emphasis to the player that it views as being the most accomplished (See fig. 5)
(Fig. 5, Pre-Match Cinematic: The player
avatar wielding his/her teams flag is
chosen by gamespace algorithms that are
designed to assess player ability. Being
selected lends ethos to player identity.)

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Clans and Their Rhetorical Function in Destiny
Scholars have discussed in notable detail how user need for simulated belonging
and interaction in virtual spaces impacts the formation of identity and meaning (Gee,
Turkle, Squire et. al, Yee). These desired notions often result in the development of
micro-communities that hybridize with the larger domain. In competitive multiplayer
gamespaces, it is not uncommon to witness the emergence of clans. Clans are small
player-created communities that, while still viewing Destiny as their domain of interest,
often hold shared values that transcend the game itself. Clans often construct themselves
around perceived identity, drawing upon notions of nationality, gender, political
affiliations, and value. Players in clans often adopt insignias that readily identify their
membership. These indicators are displayed for all users, which further situates player
identity. Clans are often exclusive, occupying restricted-access gamespaces and only
engaging in interactions that encourage the promotion of their clan identity.
In Destiny, a player must petition to a clan leader should they desire to obtain
membership. Various clans employ different screening processes, and existing members
decide mutually as to whether or not they will bestow membership upon a prospective
candidate. Often times, things like player level, gamespace experience, and gear quality
are grounds for scrutiny. Examination of such processes suggests that player ethos is
being evaluated by those who perceive themselves in authority, which underpins the
socially constructed meanings the gamespace creates. Once a clan community has
accepted a player, that clans insignia is displayed on the users playercard. Playercards
display the users gamespace name, clan affiliations, and player level, and are visible to
all participants within the gamespace (See fig. 6). Membership acquisition enables users
to access specific gamespace features, such as nominating other members for
commendation and competitively engaging with members of other clans. Destiny also
rewards players for tackling certain cooperative challenges, such as the VoG, with
members of their clan communities.
(Fig. 6: Playercards for 3 members of the clan
community Vexed Minds, all of which display
the clan name and insignia. Clan names often
situate identity; Vex is the name Destiny gives a
race of computer-controlled enemies that quest for
universal domination)

Connective Reflections: Getting Hands-On with the Iron Banner
It is not uncommon for multiplayer gamespaces to feature occasional competitive
tournaments. These events often modify traditional gamespace parameters, much like
how raids function in cooperative-play arenas. Player achievement within tournament
events is rewarded with genre-specific gear and customization items. These rewards serve
as measurements of player ethos in the PvP sub-community. Tournaments are typically
timed events, meaning that they are only available to access periodically and for short
blocks of time. This adds to the exclusivity of the tournament gamespace, and also

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enhances the perceived value of the rewards it offers participants. Multiplayer PvP
tournament events can be analogously compared to the end-season tournaments
commonplace in professional sports; securing top rankings is the culmination of
prolonged exposure to the multiplayer gamespace, and those who emerge victorious
instantaneously assume roles of ethos until they are once again challenged to defend it in
subsequent tournaments.
Destiny refers to its episodic tournament as the Iron Banner. Through competing
in the Iron Banner, players earn specialized currency and reputation that they can
exchange for gear and customization options. Users can only access the game-controlled
vendor that approves these transactions while the tournament event is active. While most
of Destinys traditional PvP mechanics remain unchanged, the Iron Banner does pose one
heavily significant alteration to the normative. Whereas traditional multiplayer game
variants balance player and equipment levels to ensure universally non-partial
interactions, the Iron Banner imposes no such regulations; players of higher levels who
possess more advanced equipment are able to capitalize on the bonuses therein provided,
which places them in a position of advantage. In other words, Destiny effectively ensures
that only players it deems as being of worth are able to actively participate in high-stakes
events like the Iron Banner. Users that have established identities of authority within the
gamespace have the ability to further construct and shape meaning, while those of lesser
ethos have their access to such formation controlled.
I first attempted the Iron Banner while playing as a level 14 character. At the
time, the gear with which my character was outfitted allowed me to perform qualitatively
in the traditional multiplayer gamespace. To elaborate, player performance in the types of
PvP scenarios found in first-person shooter gamespaces is evaluated using a particular
measuring apparatus known as a kill-death ratio (KDR). This ratio presents a numerical
assessment of player skill through analyzing the number of times a user was defeated and
how many other players they defeated. In other words, if a user obtained four kills within
the gamespace while only dying twice, that players KDR would be a 2.0. The higher a
players KDR is, the higher their perceived authority over others within that space.
My KDR averaged between 2.2-2.9 after playing with my level 14 character in
five traditional multiplayer matches. I then proceeded to play five matches of the Iron
Banner tournament. Upon completion of the fifth match, I averaged my comprehensive
KDR as being 1.3. It can be reasonably argued that such an observable decrease in player
ability was caused by a migration into a high-ethos gamespace. To further explore this
possibility, I replayed the same five Iron Banner scenarios against the differing
participants, this time using a level 30 character of the same class. I observed two
noteworthy differences that resulted from my introduction of a high-ethos character into
the equation. Firstly, My KDR average after the culmination of the last match was a 3.0.
This is a 1.7 increase from the average obtained through engagement with my level 14
character. Secondly, Users assigned to my team were more openly willing to
communicate ideas with me and consider my strategic suggestions. When engaging with
the space as a level 14 character, all attempts at team communication were either ignored
or otherwise dismissed.

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I argue that the latter of these two observances is more telling of how ethos, identity, and
meaning exist interdependently within the Destiny gamespace. It can be said that, in any
given scenario, having the proper tools for the task at hand will increase the likelihood of
successful outcomes; a shovel is inarguably a better tool for digging a ditch than is a
spoon. In context, my chances of performing more qualitatively in the Iron Banner will
obviously be impacted by my choosing to engage with that space using a better-equipped
character. However, I was not expecting the degrees of player-to-player communication
to vary so drastically.
While playing as my level 14 character, I attempted several times to verbally
connect with the users assigned to my team. I started by asking other users where they
intended to set up defensive positions, using universally understood map landmarks as
references. I received no response. I routinely attempted to check in with other users,
documenting my current locations and reporting observations of enemy players. At times,
other users would respond cooperatively. However, many users expressed discontent with
my repeated attempts at communication, spouting utterances like no one cares and other
offensive remarks. When I re-entered the Iron Banner using my level 30 character, I
employed the same communicative tactics. Other users seemed more reactive to my
inquiries, providing their locations and detailing strategic plans. After situating myself in
a high-ethos identity, I did not receive any objections to my assertion of authority within
the gamespace. When compared with my experiences assuming a low-ethos identity, this
showcases how Destiny Literacies work to manipulate player interactions within the
gamespace; because I was perceived to be gamespace literate, other users exhibited
limited reserve in following my instructive leads. While the argument could certainly be
made that my second-round observations were the result of a more embracive group of
external participants, I feel as though the extent of the dissonance that exists between my
two sets of observations attests to the existence of something more. I firmly believe that
the lack of challenge I encountered was stimulated the re-positioning of my identity
within the contextual community.

Conclusion
This essay concludes, through comprehensively examining both the singleplayer
cooperative-play and multiplayer competitive-play gamespaces afforded by Destiny, that:

meaning and user identity within these realms are socially constructed
community-centric entities
player interactions within the gamespace are heavily dictated by perceived user
ethos, which is determined and assessed through specialized parameters
established by and unique to the gamespace they encompass

It is my hope that, as the author of this essay, the content disclosed herein persuades
cultural and community scholars to more readily engage with emergent digitized

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communities as they evolve their understandings as to how these entities influence the
rhetoric at work within them. It is the view of the author that academia displays a certain
level of resistance when considering the educational merit of seemingly leisurely genres
of exposition. In reality, these spaces offer new insightful perspectives on the impact that
external forces hold over rhetoric, and present notions that are supported by accepted
theoretical reasoning. If the academy continues to deny acceptance to these embryonic
community spaces, then it will limit scholarly interaction with what could very well be
the future of our fields rhetorical understandings.

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