Modding to the big leagues: Exploring the space between modders and the game industry

First Monday ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hector Postigo
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Participatory Culture ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Post Industrial

Modding is an important characteristic of participatory culture in video games. Studies have shown that PC game modders mod for a host of reasons not least of which as a means of developing the skills and portfolio needed to get a job in the video game industry. Modding culture can be thought of as a point of articulation between the industry and participatory cultural practices. Modding culture is not only concerned with accessing the game industry however, but also puts a high premium on modding for fun or out of love for a particular community or game. Because it effectively straddles market and non-market interests it is important to study how modders negotiate the two sides of modding, which has been at the leading edge of the participatory turn in media consumption and production. This article undertakes an evaluation of modding discourses, first through an evaluation of surveys taken by moderators of modding discussion forums and secondly through an evaluation of discussions regarding technologies used by modders. The article sheds light on the complex ways in which modders' understand the practice of modding. It is framed broadly within political economic theories that have attempted to map modding in post-industrial logics and within theories that have understood it as a participatory culture. Ultimately this paper discusses other participatory practices, drawing parallels with modding and venturing some observations about user participation in the new media environment.

scholarly journals Early adopters: Playing new literacies and pretending new technologies in print-centric classrooms

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen E. Wohlwend
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
New Literacies ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Early Adopters

In this article, semiotic analysis of children's practices and designs with video game conventions considers how children use play and drawing as spatializing literacies that make room to import imagined technologies and user identities. Microanalysis of video data of classroom interactions collected during a three year ethnographic study of children's literacy play in kindergarten and primary classrooms reveals how the leading edge of technology use in print-centric classrooms is pretended into being by five-, six-, and seven-year-old `early adopters' — a marketing term for first wave consumers who avidly buy and explore newly-released technology products.`Early adopters' signals two simultaneous identities for young technology users: (1) as developing learners of new literacies and technologies; and, (2) as curious explorers who willingly play with new media. Children transformed paper and pencil resources into artifacts for enacting cell phone conversations and animating video games, using new technologies and the collaborative nature of new literacies to perform literate identities and to strengthen the cohesiveness of play groups.

Masculine Pleasures as Normalized Practices: Character Design in the Video Game Industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 155541202110347
Author(s):  
Jessica E. Tompkins ◽  
Nicole Martins
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New Media ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Development ◽  
Video Game Industry ◽  
Character Design ◽  
Game Engines ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Game Developers

Scholars have extensively studied video game labor practices (e.g., Bulut, E. (2015). Glamor above, precarity below: Immaterial labor in the video game industry. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 32(3), 193-207. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2015.1047880 , Bulut, E. (2020). White masculinity, creative desires, and production ideology in video game development. Games and Culture, 16, 1555412020939873; Banks, J. (2013). Co-creating videogames. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing; Kerr, A. (2010). The culture of gamework. In M. Deuze (Ed), Managing Media Work (pp. 225-236). London: Sage; O’Donnell (2009). The everyday lives of video game developers: Experimentally understanding underlying systems/structures. Transformative Works and Cultures, 2. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0073 , O’Donnell (2014). Developer’s dilemma: The secret world of videogame creators. Cambridge, MA: MIT press; Johnson, R. S. (2013). Toward greater production diversity. Games and Culture, 8(136), 136-160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412013481848 , Johnson, R. (2014). Hiding in plain sight: Reproducing masculine culture at a video game studio. Communication, Culture & Critique, 7, 578-594. https://doi.org/10.1111/cccr.12023 ); yet, few have exclusively examined the process of character design (e.g., Srauy, S. (2017). Professional norms and race in the North American video game industry. Games and Culture, 14, 478-497. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412017708936 ). Using a grounded theory analysis of 19 interviews with games designers and developers, this work complements existing research with insights on how gender and gendered interactions, technologies, audiences, market logics, and corporate culture integrate and influence character design practices. We found that technological affordances (e.g., game engines and related software; see Whitson, J. R. (2018). Voodoo software and boundary objects in game development: How developers collaborate and conflict with game engines and art tools. New Media & Society, 20, 2315-2332) converged with the masculine, heteronormative identities of game developers to shape normalized valued practices for character design, resulting in formulaic tropes that generally appealed to a masculine audience. Changes in status quo character design were attributed to diversity-conscious individuals, who operated within organizational practices privileging proven formulas over innovative designs.

scholarly journals EXPLORING VIDEO-GAME PRODUCTION’S CONTINGENCY ON LIVE-STREAMING PLATFORMS: THE CASE OF TWITCH

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charilaos Papaevangelou ◽  
Elina Roinioti
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Production Cycle ◽  
Live Streaming ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Cultural Contingency ◽  
Political Economic

This article studies the cultural contingency of video-game production on Amazon’s live-streaming platform, Twitch. It looks at this phenomenon from a political-economic perspective to unearth Twitch’s platformisation strategy to better understand what it means for the video-game industry. Platformisation signifies the infrastructural embeddedness of platforms, supported by a business strategy of expanding beyond their services’ boundaries to standardise appropriation, processing and exploitation of data, resulting in a dependency of content creators on digital platforms. Subsequently, we wish to grasp what dependencies are created and how it is made possible. We argue that Twitch is transforming into an integral part of the video-game production cycle by expanding its services to every stage of a game’s life cycle. Consequently, game developers are incentivised to apply these features in their game design, thus creating an economic feedback loop that a) aspires to increase user acquisition, retention and revenue, b) locks-in game developers and viewers alike, and c) “platformises” the gaming experience.

scholarly journals O kilku związkach Chrisa Markera z kulturą popularną

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 369-382
Author(s):  
Barbara Kita
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Video Game ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Terry Gilliam ◽  
The 1960S

In the French avant-garde artist’s and new technology experimentalist’s rich output, one may find interesting references to popular culture, though the latter is not usually commensurate with niche, experimental works. Marker was not always an active author of such pop cultural experiences but even his famous photo-novel created in the 1960s — Jetty was adapted into a science-fiction film 12 Monkeys (1995) by Terry Gilliam. Moreover, Marker — an artist constantly searching for new forms of expression — was often inspired by technical novelties and new media were used in his works — evolving from documentaries-essays, through experimental short videos (Zapping Zone, 1985–1994) to an interactive CD Rom, Immemory (1997), which attracted new audiences. Being fascinated with technological possibilities, Marker effectively made use of new technologies while adapting a video game (Level 5, 1996) or entering virtual reality (Guillaume’s blog from Egypt, starting from 2007) and, at the same time, entering the sphere of pop-cultural practices.

Bluehole: Bluehole’s spectacular success in the video game industry

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-155
Author(s):  
Yongjin Oh ◽  
Seungchul Lee ◽  
Jaewon Lee
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Video Game Industry ◽  
Game Industry

Stories from Ultrasonographic Abyss

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matylda Szewczyk
Keyword(s):  
Prenatal Care ◽  
New Media ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Prenatal Ultrasound ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Medical Imagery ◽  
The Future ◽  
Different Cultures

The article presents a reflection on the experience of prenatal ultrasound and on the nature of cultural beings, it creates. It exploits chosen ethnographic and cultural descriptions of prenatal ultrasounds in different cultures, as well as documentary and artistic reflections on medical imagery and new media technologies. It discusses different ways of defining the role of ultrasound in prenatal care and the cultural contexts build around it. Although the prenatal ultrasounds often function in the space of enormous tensions (although they are also supposed to give pleasure), it seems they will accompany us further in the future. It is worthwhile to find some new ways of describing them and to invent new cultural practices to deal with them.

An Author as Literature. (Visual) Autofiction of Dorota Masłowska

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Michalak
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Conceptual Art ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
The Creation

Using the promotional meeting of Dorota Masłowska’s book "More than you can eat" (16 April 2015 in the Bar Studio, Warsaw), as a case study, the article examines the role author plays in it and try to show how the author itself can become the literature. As a result of the transformation of cultural practices associated with the new media, the author’s figure has gained much greater visibility which consequently changed its meaning. In the article, Masłowska’s artistic strategy is compared to visual autofiction in conceptual art and interpreted through the role of the performance and visual representations in the creation of the image or author’s brand.

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