Ethnographies of the Videogame

Ethnographies of the Videogame PDF Author: Dr Helen Thornham
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409494373
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Ethnographies of the Videogame uses the medium of the videogame to explore wider significant sociological issues around new media, interaction, identity, performance, memory and mediation. Addressing questions of how we interpret, mediate and use media texts, particularly in the face of claims about the power of new media to continuously shift the parameters of lived experience, gaming is employed as a 'tool' through which we can understand the gendered and socio-culturally constructed phenomenon of our everyday engagement with media. The book is particularly concerned with issues of agency and power, identifying strong correlations between perceptions of gaming and actual gaming practices, as well as the reinforcement, through gaming, of established (gendered, sexed, and classed) power relationships within households. As such, it reveals the manner in which existing relations re-emerge through engagement with new technology. Offering an empirically grounded understanding of what goes on when we mediate technology and media in our everyday lives Ethnographies of the Videogame is more than a timely intervention into game studies. It provides pertinent and reflexive commentary on the relationship between text and audience, highlighting the relationships of gender and power in gaming practice. As such, it will appeal to scholars interested in media and new media, gender and class, and the sociology of leisure.

Ethnographies of the Videogame

Ethnographies of the Videogame PDF Author: Dr Helen Thornham
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409494373
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ethnographies of the Videogame uses the medium of the videogame to explore wider significant sociological issues around new media, interaction, identity, performance, memory and mediation. Addressing questions of how we interpret, mediate and use media texts, particularly in the face of claims about the power of new media to continuously shift the parameters of lived experience, gaming is employed as a 'tool' through which we can understand the gendered and socio-culturally constructed phenomenon of our everyday engagement with media. The book is particularly concerned with issues of agency and power, identifying strong correlations between perceptions of gaming and actual gaming practices, as well as the reinforcement, through gaming, of established (gendered, sexed, and classed) power relationships within households. As such, it reveals the manner in which existing relations re-emerge through engagement with new technology. Offering an empirically grounded understanding of what goes on when we mediate technology and media in our everyday lives Ethnographies of the Videogame is more than a timely intervention into game studies. It provides pertinent and reflexive commentary on the relationship between text and audience, highlighting the relationships of gender and power in gaming practice. As such, it will appeal to scholars interested in media and new media, gender and class, and the sociology of leisure.

Ethnographies of the Videogame

Ethnographies of the Videogame PDF Author: Helen Thornham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317140656
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Ethnographies of the Videogame uses the medium of the videogame to explore wider significant sociological issues around new media, interaction, identity, performance, memory and mediation. Addressing questions of how we interpret, mediate and use media texts, particularly in the face of claims about the power of new media to continuously shift the parameters of lived experience, gaming is employed as a 'tool' through which we can understand the gendered and socio-culturally constructed phenomenon of our everyday engagement with media. The book is particularly concerned with issues of agency and power, identifying strong correlations between perceptions of gaming and actual gaming practices, as well as the reinforcement, through gaming, of established (gendered, sexed, and classed) power relationships within households. As such, it reveals the manner in which existing relations re-emerge through engagement with new technology. Offering an empirically grounded understanding of what goes on when we mediate technology and media in our everyday lives Ethnographies of the Videogame is more than a timely intervention into game studies. It provides pertinent and reflexive commentary on the relationship between text and audience, highlighting the relationships of gender and power in gaming practice. As such, it will appeal to scholars interested in media and new media, gender and class, and the sociology of leisure.

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds PDF Author: Tom Boellstorff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691264864
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
A practical guide to the ethnographic study of online cultures, and beyond Ethnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its kind—a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results. Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography

The Stranger at the Feast

The Stranger at the Feast PDF Author: Tom Boylston
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520296494
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Introduction : prohibition and a ritual regime -- A history of mediation -- Fasting, bodies, and the calendar -- Proliferations of mediators -- Blood, silver, and coffee -- Spirits in the marketplace -- Concrete, bones, and feasts -- Echoes of the host -- The media landscape -- The knowledge of the world -- Conclusion

Developer's Dilemma

Developer's Dilemma PDF Author: Casey O'Donnell
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262028190
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
An examination of work—including the organization of work and the market forces that surround it—through the lens of the collaborative practice of game development. Rank-and-file game developers bring videogames from concept to product, and yet their work is almost invisible, hidden behind the famous names of publishers, executives, or console manufacturers. In this book, Casey O’Donnell examines the creative collaborative practice of typical game developers. His investigation of why game developers work the way they do sheds light on our understanding of work, the organization of work, and the market forces that shape (and are shaped by) media industries. O’Donnell shows that the ability to play with the underlying systems—technical, conceptual, and social—is at the core of creative and collaborative practice, which is central to the New Economy. When access to underlying systems is undermined, so too is creative collaborative process. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in game studios in the United States and India, O’Donnell stakes out new territory empirically, conceptually, and methodologically. Mimicking the structure of videogames, the book is divided into worlds, within which are levels; and each world ends with a boss fight, a “rant” about lessons learned and tools mastered. O’Donnell describes the process of videogame development from pre-production through production, considering such aspects as experimental systems, “socially mandatory” overtime, and the perpetual startup machine that exhausts young, initially enthusiastic workers. He links work practice to broader systems of publishing, manufacturing, and distribution; introduces the concept of a privileged “actor-intra-internetwork”; and describes patent and copyright enforcement by industry and the state.

Indie Video Game Development Work

Indie Video Game Development Work PDF Author: Alexander Styhre
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030455459
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book presents a study of so-called indie video game developers that are widely regarded as the creative and innovative fringe of the video game industry. The video game industry is an exemplary entrepreneurial high growth industry that combines digital media, cinematographic representations and interactive gaming technologies, and uses global digital distribution channels to reach local gaming communities. The study examines a number of issues, concerns, challenges, and opportunities that indie developers are handling as part of their development work. The love of gaming and video games more specifically is the shared and unifying force of both so-called Triple-A developers and the indie developer community. Still, issues such as how to raise financial capital or otherwise fund the development work, or how to optimize the return on investment when video games are released on digital platforms are issues that indie developers need to cope with. The study is theoretically framed as a case of an innovation-led sector of the economy, yet being anchored in the Swedish welfare state model, wherein e.g., free tertiary education and social insurances and health case at low cost are provided and supportive of enterprising. This book will be valuable reading for academics working in the fields of knowledge management, innovation, and the creative economy.

Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames

Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames PDF Author: Ross Clare
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135015721X
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This volume presents an original framework for the study of video games that use visual materials and narrative conventions from ancient Greece and Rome. It focuses on the culturally rich continuum of ancient Greek and Roman games, treating them not just as representations, but as functional interactive products that require the player to interpret, communicate with and alter them. Tracking the movement of such concepts across different media, the study builds an interconnected picture of antiquity in video games within a wider transmedial environment. Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames presents a wide array of games from several different genres, ranging from the blood-spilling violence of god-killing and gladiatorial combat to meticulous strategizing over virtual Roman Empires and often bizarre adventures in pseudo-ancient places. Readers encounter instances in which players become intimately engaged with the “epic mode” of spectacle in God of War, moments of negotiation with colonised lands in Rome: Total War and Imperium Romanum, and multi-layered narratives rich with ancient traditions in games such as Eleusis and Salammbo. The case study approach draws on close analysis of outstanding examples of the genre to uncover how both representation and gameplay function in such “ancient games”.

Gamer Citizens

Gamer Citizens PDF Author: Ilya Brookwell
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040038956
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
This book examines the politics of being a gamer in the digital age with an in-depth study of the communities of gamers who populate live-video streaming sites. This text offers an innovative theoretical and methodological study of gamers in their community. It explores gamers as citizens and asks how gamers are political in view of their activities on stream. Ilya Brookwell examines how gamers live out their daily lives on live-video streams and how they use their associated new platforms and tools, including live-video streams such as Twitch.tv and online web fora, to engage with “live-video politics”. It explores the relationship between gamers, gaming, and streaming, highlighting how gamers develop a notion of self that is fundamentally located in community. Gamers consequently create, inhabit, as well as inherit a political world. With streaming communities offering unique insights into what it means to live in a digital age, the book explores how gamers find hopeful openings, as well as limits, through streaming. The book highlights how gamers can take an active role in politics and democracy in a digital age. Interesting reading for undergraduate students, postgraduate researchers, and academics of media, cultural and communication studies, video game studies, and digital media studies.

The Performance of Video Games

The Performance of Video Games PDF Author: Kelly I. Aliano
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476685495
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
When viewed through the context of an interactive play, a video game player fulfills the roles of both actor and spectator, watching and influencing a game's story in real time. This book presents video gaming as a virtual medium for performance, scrutinizing the ways in which a player's interaction with the narrative informs personal, historical, social and cultural understanding. Centering the author's own experiences as both video game player and performance scholar, the book thoroughly applies concepts from theatre and performance studies. Chapters argue that the posthuman player position now challenges what can be contextualized as a lived experience, and how video games can change players' relationships with historical events and contemporary concerns, ultimately impacting how they develop a sense of self. Using the author's own gaming experiences as a framework, the book focuses on the intersection between player and narrative, exploring what engagement with a storyline reveals about identity and society.

Video Games as Culture

Video Games as Culture PDF Author: Daniel Muriel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317223926
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Video games are becoming culturally dominant. But what does their popularity say about our contemporary society? This book explores video game culture, but in doing so, utilizes video games as a lens through which to understand contemporary social life. Video games are becoming an increasingly central part of our cultural lives, impacting on various aspects of everyday life such as our consumption, communities, and identity formation. Drawing on new and original empirical data – including interviews with gamers, as well as key representatives from the video game industry, media, education, and cultural sector – Video Games as Culture not only considers contemporary video game culture, but also explores how video games provide important insights into the modern nature of digital and participatory culture, patterns of consumption and identity formation, late modernity, and contemporary political rationalities. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such Video Games, Sociology, and Media and Cultural Studies. It will also be useful for those interested in the wider role of culture, technology, and consumption in the transformation of society, identities, and communities.