National differences and gender stereotypes in Days of Empire

Days of Empire is a freemium mobile strategy video game developed and published by the company OMET, having actually its headquarter in Fuzhou Fujian, China. The company is specialized in fantasy video games mostly settled in the Middle-East, which are full of references to the history and mythology of the Arab and Turkish peoples. Our aim is to provide a description of the game and to carry out a qualitative analysis of the attitude of chosen players towards the game, their emotional thrusts, and the financial commitment to which many of them undergo to achieve greater success in the game. As in the game many discussions take place in the chat of the game itself, we are interested in the stereotypes referring to the nationality of origin of the players, to gender stereotypes, and even the sexual harassment to which female players are subjected. The first part of the netnographic study has already been carried out in a covered way, at a later time we would ask semi-structured and free questions to the players in a covered way. Using the emic approach, it will be shown the insider’s perspective of the ways in which the players of Days of Empire relate themself to the problematics of nationalism and gender stereotypes, and the emotional connection between single individuals and such kind of freemium game.