Pratiche multimodali nell’interazione in videogiochi online. Marking e offerte di oggetti

This paper focuses on the multimodal nature of collaborative practices in online gaming. The analysis is based on videorecorded data in Italian and English, which include both the voice chat and the synchronized screens of all members of a team. Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis, the paper focuses on the offers of digital objects in the online cooperative battle royale game Fortnite. These offers are formulated by combining linguistic resources with the use of graphic markers that make the object visible to the other players. The analysis highlights the affordances of marking for locating objects in the virtual space and how marking actions are interpreted as collaborative offers, framing the object as available for collection and negotiation. The different formats of marking actions analyzed are shown as variously reducing the verbal component of the turn, thus displaying the multimodal organization of online gaming actions.