tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80465182024-03-14T16:02:15.653+11:00Gaming Rhythms: Play and Counterplay from the situated to the localGlobal gaming networks are heterogenous collectives of localized practices, not unified commercial products. Shifting the analysis of digital games to local specificities that build and perform the global and general, Gaming Rhythms employs ethnographic work conducted in Venezuela and Australia to account for the material experiences of actual game players.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-1477375308200728072010-09-05T20:50:00.003+10:002010-09-05T20:59:46.224+10:00Current DetailsMy publications can be found on my institutional <a href="http://www.une.edu.au/staff/tapperle.php">profile</a>. Most of them are available free and are linked there, but if you can't find one and want to read it go ahead and hit me up.<br /><br />Pdf of the main project is available <a href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/weblog/2010/09/02/tod-6-gaming-rhythms-play-and-counterplay-from-the-situated-to-the-global/">here</a>, through the Institute of Network Cultures.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-36428606748856713652010-05-28T11:06:00.001+10:002010-05-28T12:43:09.467+10:00UNE School Presentation 28/05<div class="prezi-player"><style type="text/css" media="screen">.prezi-player { width: 550px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }</style><object id="prezi_3z0p9dhqlfqe" name="prezi_3z0p9dhqlfqe" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="550" height="400"><param name="movie" value="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf"/><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/><param name="flashvars" value="prezi_id=3z0p9dhqlfqe&lock_to_path=1&color=ffffff&autoplay=no"/><embed id="preziEmbed_3z0p9dhqlfqe" name="preziEmbed_3z0p9dhqlfqe" src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="550" height="400" bgcolor="#ffffff" flashvars="prezi_id=3z0p9dhqlfqe&lock_to_path=1&color=ffffff&autoplay=no"></embed></object><div class="prezi-player-links"><p><a title="Presentation" href="http://prezi.com/3z0p9dhqlfqe/piracy-in-the-caribbean/">Piracy in the Caribbean</a> on <a href="http://prezi.com">Prezi</a></p></div></div>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-14789448653154590742010-01-13T11:23:00.003+11:002010-09-05T20:04:47.583+10:00New Job, New Corporate Logo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YgieCwd-Nyw/S00TW-boZcI/AAAAAAAAABY/F4ipcIOdp4M/s1600-h/Logo.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 96px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YgieCwd-Nyw/S00TW-boZcI/AAAAAAAAABY/F4ipcIOdp4M/s400/Logo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426014411488257474" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-77427714392817244522008-06-05T00:11:00.002+10:002010-09-05T20:07:40.670+10:00Refractory - Issues 13 & 16Issue 13 <a href="http://blogs.arts.unimelb.edu.au/refractory/2008/05/25/games-and-metamateriality/">Refractory</a> with Darshana Jayemanne and Christian McCrea.<br /><br />Issue 16 <a href="http://blogs.arts.unimelb.edu.au/refractory/category/browse-past-volumes/volume-16/">Refractory</a> with Justin Clemens.<br /><br /><strong>Enjoy.</strong>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-43907000794594158782008-01-20T11:51:00.001+11:002010-09-05T20:08:59.137+10:00Good NewsDean Chan also invited me to be on his panel at the Asian Studies Association of Australia conference in Melbourne next July, the theme of which will be popular culture. Its gonna be refereed (stoked).Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-44186778259540575952007-12-17T01:28:00.001+11:002010-09-05T20:09:48.743+10:00What Happened to Me?I don't suppose there is anyone still out there that reads this. But just in case I'm not dead. I've just been really busy.<br /><br />Highlights:<br /><br />New job at <a href="http://www.deakin.edu.au/">Deakin University </a>- I'm a Research Fellow in Literacy Education<br /><br />Hundreds of hours playing Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, and Xbox (and a few PC games also)<br /><br />The blogs staying alive until I finish my PhD at least.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-6201640146064458332007-04-20T23:17:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:11:00.138+10:00Abstract - Open Source Culture<span style="font-weight: bold;">Open Source Culture: Participatory Culture and the Digital Divide</span><br /><br />Henry Jenkins’ recent publications on convergence have focused on the way that the active audience, equipped with the productive and distributive tools of digital technology might transform the waning public sphere in the <st1:country-region><st1:place>USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>, at the expense of effectively excluding discussion of the transnational and uneven practices of cultural convergence. However, in his work the stakes of convergence culture are clearly established: empowered consumers (potentially) have an active role in transforming – and democratizing – governments and corporations. This article will examine what this emergent politicized form of consumption/production means in the context of the unevenness of global participation in the information economy.<br /><br />By focusing on the tactics of participation that are deployed in the global ‘South’ through a case study of media practices and consumption in Venezuela this article will demonstrate what is at stake in the shift to a media paradigm of convergence. In particular I will focus on the role that media piracy plays in providing a heterogeneous space of participation outside the news and telecommunications media, which have come under increasingly strict government controls since Hugo Chávez’s 2006 re-election.<br /><br />To address this precarious participation in global media production, enabled through illegal practices that are disciplined by both local and global forces, I will turn to the work of Néstor García Canclini and George Yúdice on the uneven relationship between consumption and citizenship in order to contest dominant dialogues of piracy. Finally the article will re-examine piracy in the context of open source, in order to argue that to extend the consumer/citizen empowerment of convergence globally the notion of open source must be extended to include hardware, and education, as well as software.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-74148003573939205672007-04-13T15:34:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:12:07.667+10:00Hunkering downIts time to get the rest of my PhD out of the way. No commitments for the next six weeks (apart from teaching), so I need to do some good solid writing.<br /><br />The trip to <a href="http://www.csudh.edu/" target="_blank">CSU Dominguez Hills</a> was cool, I still don't understand how I was there for 3 days and was gone from Audtralia for five. Time is confusing, especially when combined with space.<br /><br />Interesting that no one that I spoke to in the USA has heard of <span style="font-style: italic;">Second Life</span>, or even of <span style="font-style: italic;">America's Army</span>.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-91648690087475929632007-04-03T14:22:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:13:34.932+10:00Abstract - Border Politics of MMOs<span>(with Dr. Katarina Damjanov)</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />The Border Politics of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games: </span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Gaming in the ‘Free’ World</span><br /></div><br />As a notion of place ‘the border’ has been deployed in a number of ways, of particular interest to this article is the way that ‘the border’ has been invoked as a shifting and immaterial boundary, and a metaphor for global mobility and hybridity. In this regard we wish to highlight two aspects of Pablo Vila’s (2000) work: his critique of a homogenous concept of ‘the border’; and his focus on uneven dynamics that borders impose.<br /><br />The concept of the border will be used in this article to explore the exclusionary boundaries of massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), both in regard to access to the games, and of access within the games themselves. This investigation elaborates on the established uneven power dynamic in MMORPGs between the corporate owners of the game, and the players of the game. The aim of the article is to open up the category of players of MMORPGs to explore stratification within, and between, games that is derived from an unevenness of access.<br /><br />The article will examine the ways that this unevenness stems from economics, technology, and culture through an ethnographic investigation of MMORPG play in Belgrade, Serbia, Melbourne, Australia, and Caracas, Venezuela. The discussion will focus on games popular at all sites: Tibia (CipSoft, 1996), Flyff (AeonSoft, 2004), and Second Life (Linden Labs, 2003). Through an analysis of this empirical data, the notion of the border in relation to MMORPGs will be explored, to argue while this genre of videogames represents a form of international space, that the inequalities and unevenness that characterize the demarcation of borders between states are carried through to the virtual game worlds, replicating and reproducing off-line hierarchies. Of particular interest will be the stakes and status of playing these games for free, vis-à-vis a system that allows people who are free-players and fee-paying subscribes to both play together and co-produce a virtual economy.<br /><br />References<br />Vila, P. (2000). <span style="font-style: italic;">Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders: Social Categories, Metaphors, and Narrative Identities on the U.S.-Mexico Frontier</span>. Austin: University of Texas Press.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-9837759732972082432007-04-02T09:05:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:14:57.203+10:00More Rejections... ...But Some HopeI got another rejection letter from RMIT, this one was worded very kindly, thanking me for the effort I had made in applying. I had read their mission statement, and specifically addressed how I could help them achieve their mission.... anyway they wish me luck in my future career, which I can say <span style="font-style: italic;">without sarcasm</span> is kind of them, because no one else has bothered to say that!<br /><br />Still waiting for a rejection letter from Swinburne, I know that I didn't get the job because my colleague and buddy Christian McCrea got the job. Well done Christian!! Still haven't congratulated him in person, but Swinburne has made a smart move snapping him up.<br /><br />As for me, I'm of to the USA for a job interview this week at <a href="http://www.csudh.edu/">California State University - Dominguez Hills</a>, in the College of Liberal Arts, Department of Communication. Should be cool, definitely my biggest challenge yet.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-44006202010667228512007-03-11T12:16:00.001+11:002010-09-05T20:17:10.147+10:00Its Almost All OverI have my PhD completion seminar coming up this week. On Thursday afternoon, the panel will be <a href="http://www.mediacomm.unimelb.edu.au/aboutus/staff/seanc.html" target="_blank">Sean Cubitt</a>, <a href="http://www.mediacomm.unimelb.edu.au/aboutus/staff/umi.html">Umi Khattab</a> and Nikos Papastergaidis. Not to sure about all the details right now, but I'm working towards a 25 minute presentation that includes a chapter summary, and addresses the objectives, methods, findings and significance of the research.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-70142942772133920992007-03-04T10:48:00.001+11:002010-09-05T20:17:37.200+10:00And the Big News...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/home/titles/banner.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/home/titles/banner.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I scored a gig with Christian (McCrea) and Darshana (Jayemanne) guest editing issue 13 of <a href="http://www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/">Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media</a>. Which has to be ready for upload by August 1st (Ulp!!!).<br /><br />Still figuring out the theme within the general topic (videogames of course).Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-25178856814026407412007-03-03T12:56:00.001+11:002010-09-05T20:18:42.300+10:00Made the DiGRA DeadlineWhat a week, lots of stuff happening. First, the <a href="http://www.csreview.unimelb.edu.au/">Cultural Studies Review</a> has asked me to review an article on videogames for them. Its just a small gig, but I hope a promise of things to come: (1) more refereeing for me (2) more articles on videogames in 'straight' journals. I also submitted an abstract for the<a href="http://www.fibreculture.org/"> fibreculture </a>'after convergence' issue, which was pretty rushed so I think has a pretty slender chance of getting accepted (but the awesome thing is, if it doesn't get accepted I don't have to write it). And I got my review of Henry Jenkins <span style="font-style: italic;">Convergence Culture</span> in to <span style="font-style: italic;">Media International Australia</span> (should be appearing in August). Then on friday I managed to get DiGRA in, its a substantially revised version of 'Everyday Empowerment', the paper that I presented on the 9/2 at Victoria University, it was submitted paper number 153 - only 50 papers will be accepted, so its very competitive. Great thing is its in Japan, so if I don't get accepted I don't have to figure out how to get there!<br /><br />On top of that I started teaching at the University of Melbourne last week, and applied for two jobs, one at Swinburne University of Technology and one at RMIT University. The Swinburne one was for a position (level A) in the Games program, the RMIT job was in the Communications area, focusing on teaching the masters program. Also got a rejection letter from RMIT about the job I applied for in the games program there.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-71576911313986392742007-02-13T13:06:00.001+11:002010-09-05T20:19:07.468+10:00My Project for Tal's Burda Centre BookOf Sins, Vices and Pecados: The Cultural Context of Videogame Play<br /><br />Using a case study of <span style="font-style: italic;">Grand Theft Auto 3: Vice City</span> this paper will examine the cultural context of videogame consumption in Caracas, Venezuela in Summer 2005. Using data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation and interviews over that period, this paper will examine the features of <span style="font-style: italic;">Vice City</span> that made it the most often played single player game in Internet cafes. I will argue that in this case rather than any graphic or narrative elements that the game contained, it is the flexibility in terms of styles and approaches to play the game allowed that led to the game becoming a standard feature within Venezuelan gaming life. I will maintain that his is because it both catered to the requirements of the intense social space of the offline interactions within the Internet café, and superseded the limitations and difficulties imposed by the various social, economic and technological factors facing the game playing audience in Venezuela.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-1249756007861489812007-02-09T16:09:00.000+11:002007-02-09T16:13:46.081+11:00Mo(ve)ments paper: Everyday EmpowermentHi Folks, I'm putting this one online for a while, until I can figure out what to do with it. Drop me a line if you want me to mail you a copy... the footnotes didn't come out...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Everyday Empowerment? Videogames in the Developing World:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Situated Study of Caracas, Venezuela</span><br /></div><br />Abstract:<br /><br />In her groundbreaking book Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Videogames: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1991), Marsha Kinder maintains that the interactive nature of videogames gives children a sense of empowerment. A key caveat that she places on this sense of empowerment is that it is linked to acts of consumption, both within the game, and outside the game. Kinder locates this phenomenon of empowerment through the play and consumption of videogames in a global context. In this paper, I will re-evaluate Kinder’s claims in the light of the inequality of the power relations between the global videogame industry and their audience. In order to do this I will turn to the ethnographic data gained during fieldwork in Caracas, Venezuela from March through July 2005.<br /><br />My intervention in Kinder’s argument takes the form of the following question: Can the interactivity of videogames be empowering in the developing world, in the same manner as they are in the wealthier countries of the ‘developed world’? This paper examines the ways in which game players’ that are otherwise excluded from consumptive practices due to lack of resources may nevertheless be empowered through game-play. Through a investigation of videogames in the context of the everyday lives of the players’ I will argue that empowerment in the context of Venezuela, is not so much linked to empowerment through consumption; but rather to empowerment through community, participation, and creativity.<br /><br />Keywords: Global Media, Participatory Culture, Software Piracy, Videogame Industry<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">These youngsters on the street[s of Caracas], with their Nintendo dreams and Nike shoes, experience life in the larger context of global and transnational processes</span> (1999, Márquez, p. 220).<br /><br />Patricia Márquez in her book The Street Is My Home, a detailed ethnography of street and barrio children in Caracas, Venezuela, argues that the children in her study construct their identities in relation to various global and local media. The role of traditional media like Venezuelan music and telenovelas, is emphasized, along with the growing importance of transnational media forms, such as gangster rap, and important for the concerns of this paper, videogames. By drawing on fieldwork conducted between March and July of 2005, as a part of a larger project that examines the role that localized situations have on videogame consumption, and reception, this paper’s aim is to explore the significance of the ‘Nintendo dreams’ of Caracas’ youth. With this purpose in mind, I will first examine the notion of ‘participatory culture’; then I will use this notion to highlight the uneven surface of – and contradictory attitude towards – global participation, through an examination of the context of videogame play in Caracas.<br /><br />Participatory Culture<br /><br />Participatory culture is often evoked in order to mark the change from mass media notions of media reception, production and dissemination that is understood to be precipitated by the qualities which are associated with new or digital media. In the following discussion I would like to highlight a shift in how participatory culture has been conceptualized by contrasting the approach taken by Marsha Kinder in Playing with Power (1991), and Henry Jenkins in Convergence Culture (2006). In the fifteen years between the two publications the internet became the key object of discussion for scholars of participatory culture. While Kinder’s discussion predates the introduction of the term participatory culture, her concern is to examine the new subjectivities that were emerging through children’s engagement with interactive media. In this sense Kinder and Jenkins are engaging with the same phenomena, but on a sliding scale of cultural significance. Interactivity, ghettoized in videogames in 1991, is in Jenkins’ description of convergence culture now paradigmatic for the understanding of media, and media cultures.<br /><br />In Kinder’s writing she regards the key innovation of videogames to be the choices and physical challenges posed by interactivity. This suggests a new form of empowerment, albeit one that is defined by consumption. At the game screen – which is not simply eyes looking at the screen, but also hands and fingers on controls and buttons – they are constructed as ‘consumerist subjects who can more readily assimilate and accommodate whatever objects they encounter’. For Kinder, videogames ‘help prepare young players for full participation in this new age of interactive multimedia – specifically, by linking interactivity with consumerism’ [my emphasis]. Kinder reads this link at the textual level, her study conducted with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) version of Super Mario Bros: Mario Madness (1988) notes how empowerment – and transformation – within the game is always through consumption. In addition Kinder reads this trope linking interactivity with consumerism at a meta-level, where she recognizes videogames as heralding a new media aesthetic, that she dubs ‘transmedia intertextuality’, and an imbricated form of commodification, the ‘supersystem’. In this configuration, the consumption of one text leads to directly to another through deliberate intertextual linkages forming a contained media supersystem that crosses many media platforms. The Matrix (1999-2003) trilogy affords an excellent example of the supersystem, the three films containing deliberate lacunae that are filled in by other The Matrix® products, The Animatrix (2003) collection of anime, The Matrix Comics (2003), and the videogame Enter the Matrix (Shiny Entertainment, 2003). Space precludes elaborating this supersystem, which expands far beyond what I have described here.<br /><br />P. David Marshall in his recent publication New Media Cultures (2004) reiterates the tension that Kinder has located between commodification and technological empowerment. Marshall regards the supersystem as a commercial usurpation and structuring of play that is: ‘designed to have a complete system of interaction for the audience with all forms of investment and engagement made possible and realizable’. This closed system of engagement envisioned by Marshall is the antithesis of the creativity and dynamism that is typically associated with ‘free play’. In fact, Alexander Galloway in Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (2006), recently argued that the interactivity that is so-valorized in discussions on videogames, is an allegory for what Deleuze in ‘Postscript on Control Society’ dubbed ‘the control society’, a shift from confinement in molds – Foucault’s disciplinary society – to confinement through modulation.<br /><br />The imbrication of play and commerce follows Deleuze’s argument that in the society of control nothing is ever finished, that there is a breakdown of the discreet activities of the disciplinary society into coexisting unfinished and open, metastable states. I suggest that this means that the subjectivities produced through play, are not solely playful, experimental, or creative, but linked to, and imbricated in, a modulated system of controlled consumption. During my fieldwork in the cyber café Avila, I noticed one man, in his early twenties, whose ragged clothes and homemade tattoos, suggested association with malandro – a criminal underclass – subculture playing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), several times. Once I was caught by the owner of the café watching at this strange figure, slouched down in his chair, gazing intently at the screen where he was guiding Harry Potter through the game with subtle motions of the mouse. The owner remarked – without fear of being overheard because of the headphones the malandro was wearing – ‘this guy is crazy, this game is for children’. Although I never spoke with this Caraqueno I don’t understand his actions in this way. The ‘Nintendo dreams’ of the Caracas youth must be read in the context the breakdown between work and play, and also between the romanticized notion of the free and creative play of childhood and that of the empowerment of interactive consumption. While videogame play performs a liminal role in opening spaces of escape from the pressures of the everyday, it also allows the players to consume media culture on a global level.<br /><br />In Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006), Jenkins situates transmedia intextuality in a radically new form of media culture, which is characterized by the participatory power of the audience precipitated by digital networked technology. Behind this is a global system of co-operation between media industries through conglomeration, partnerships and licensing. Jenkins describes the participatory audience as ‘migratory’, in the sense that they will: ‘seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content’. Jenkins emphasizes the audiences’ productive role and how this shapes and influences narrative arcs and genres by mobilizing their collective power. However, again this can be read in the context of the society of control; what occurs through the internet is a metastable modulation of the audience and the media producers. Fans’ productions are imitated by corporations as promotions; the participation is encouraged and organized into channels, and individuals productions become genres of, and assets within, the supersystem. Jenkins reads the phenomena in positive light and while I cannot say I share his enthusiasm, I suggest that the significance of the audience and media being in a state of metastable coexistence is the notion that media products are produced through a process of modulation that must simultaneously encapsulate the commercial imperative of the industry, the integrity of the intellectual property being developed, and the audiences’ expectation of participation.<br /><br />Kinder is explicit in underscoring the global nature of the videogame phenomena, but specifically with reference to Japan. She suggests that the dominance of Nintendo in the USA’s videogame industry since the 1985 release of the NES foreshadowed the end of the dominance of USA owned companies in the entertainment industry. Jenkins’ also focuses on the USA. This is a problem, especially when we consider the stakes that Kinder and Jenkins place on participatory culture. Because if participation is equated to empowerment, then the inability to participate equally dis-empowering. In the gigantic mall of Sambil, the three shops selling videogames were mostly empty, but outside them often children would congregate, to watch the displays endlessly repeating the start sequence of Super Mario Sunshine (Nintendo, 2002), or FIFA Football 2005 (EA Canada, 2004). Reduced to watching an interactive media, these children were – at that moment at least – locked out of participatory culture, readers in a world increasingly defined by the interplay of reading and writing, observers in a media, and media paradigm characterized by action.<br /><br />Global Videogames Industry<br /><br />In order to explore the viability of participatory culture globally I will now examine the state of the global videogame industry. In Digital|Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing (2003), Stephen Kline and his co-authors, locate a specific inequality that they describe as being a contradiction between ‘enclosure and access’ in the global patterns of consumption of videogames. This problem is manifest in three areas of the industry:<br />• The uneven global labor practices that locate the software industry in the ‘North’ – primarily Canada, Japan and the U.S.A., even Europe is relatively periphery –while the videogame consoles are generally produced in the maquiladoras of the ‘South’. In contrast, both the software and hardware are generally consumed in the ‘North’. The global industry is exclusionary in practice because hardware is material: videogames require expensive hardware, and potentially – for many contemporary games – a high-speed internet connection. This expense was felt heavily in Caracas, where even after the release of the Xbox 360, the original Xbox console was still selling for 800,000 Bolivars (480 Aus$), approximately a month’s salary for a newspaper journalist.<br />• The orthodox production cycle of commercial videogames mobilizes the audience in the production process, through beta testing. ‘patches’, and open source releases of game development tools. This breakdown between play and work, and the proprietary and legal issues that it raises has become something of a refrain in videogame scholarship. I suggest that this is an example of industry practices that are adjusting to capture the migratory audience, and harness their creative and productive power.<br />• This breakdown between consumer and producer is linked with the conflict between the software industry and pirates. Kline and his co-authors state that: ‘piracy is the shadow aspect of the interactive play industry’s own labor practices’. A substantial proportion of the global videogame piracy industry involves the black market software economy in countries of the ‘South’ that is a tactical response to global inequalities.<br />Deleuze points out that piracy is one of the few remaining dangers that remains to the control society, so the existence of a global media culture of pirated videogame play potentially challenges the global smoothness of that notion. In addition piracy plays an important role in equalizing global variances in the ability to take part in the comsumerist empowerment of participatory culture.<br /><br />Piracy in Venezuela<br /><br />Piracy was ubiquitously evident in my ethnographic research. On the streets, stalls selling pirated software, DVDs, playstation one games, and music CDs – not to mention bootleg publications of popular books – were common, especially in Libertador the municipal district of Caracas in which I made my investigation, which has a large area of barrios (shanty towns) and a predominently chavista local government (supporters of President Chávez). But even away from the streets, piracy was common. The videogames stores, empty of customers, kept a few dusty originals in glass cases, but my inquiries about games were met by the clerk producing either a folder or file of pirated games that were available from behind the counter, which if desired could be brought in from the back room. The clerks of the stores where I tried to buy pirated games were bemused and vague at the question of the location of the games origins: Chino or Asia was the standard reply. Only console games were available this way, computer games were so easily copied and cracked across ‘warez’ networks, that the transnational black market could gain no toehold in Venezuela.<br /><br />The street-sellers – the homegrown entrepreneurial ‘hackers’ – of Caracas uniformly confessed to obtaining their games using file trading protocols, transnationally, either with strangers or in many cases acquaintances: relatives, friends, or partners – members of the post-Chávez middle-class diaspora that support folks back home by sending them software. Some businesses used a publish-to-order system, for example the innovative street hackers tu pana (Australian translation: your mate), running a business from home, downloading software, films and music to order, and delivering them anywhere in Caracas by motorbike. These combined methods were efficient, a new game being available readily on the street within 48 hours of its North American release was a standard that I witnessed many times, especially with much anticipated high profile releases like The Sims 2 (Maxis, 2004).<br /><br />Interview subjects described to me how they would watch the game sellers carefully while they were walking on the street, in order to see if there was anything new which sparked their interest. With a cost of just 6000 Bolivars (4$ AUS) for most games, some players told me they would buy their own copies of the game even if they did not have a computer at home, so that they could ensure they could play a game that interested them. Taking it to the cyber café them selves and giving free copies to staff, to make sure that it ended up on the computers there. On the second or third day of my fieldwork, a café employee copied all of the games I had brought with me, all of which were historic strategy games in English that I had with me for a project I was working on. He then installed several of the games Medieval: Total War (Creative Assembly, 2002), Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun (Paradox Interactive, 2003), and Civilization II: Test of Time (1999), all of which were played sporadically by customers over the next five months. Other games would be installed and then just as quickly removed, as the café strove to keep up with consumer interest.<br /><br />The media industries in Venezuela have been adversely affected, and are deeply critical of the lack of official response to the endemic piracy. The most critical anti-Chávez media outlets accuse the President of adopting a ‘bread and circuses’ approach to the poor masses in Caracas’ many barrios. Since Chávez’s presidency, the media has become a key site of contestation between the President and his opponents. In the first case this means that the content of media has become focused on political issues, either pro- or anti- chavista. However, beyond this it also means that the production of media itself has become an increasingly political act, which is subject to intense regulations and scrutiny by the government; primarily because the privately owned media is perceived as having global business concerns which compromise their coverage of the Revolucion Bolivariana. This has been the key motivation for the development of Telesur, a Pan-Latino network with links to al-Jeezera, widely perceived in the USA as being a propaganda tool for Chávez, that will be used to export the Revolucion Bolivariana across Latin-America. This was the also motivation behind the government’s recent refusal to renew the license for Radio Caracas Television that will expire this March.<br /><br />Conclusion<br /><br />This ideological conflict with the perceived USA-dominated global media and Chávez’s desire to make life easier for Venezuela’s millions of jobless barrio-dwellers has created a situation where piracy of global entertainment media is almost universally ignored, while media covering local issues are under severe restrictions. I suggest then that that stakes of videogame play in the context of participatory culture in Venezuela are dual:<br />1. Videogame piracy allows consumers to participate in a new, and global media culture;<br />2. Videogames are one of a few media that are outside the control and regulation of the state in Venezuela.<br />Thus I will conclude by suggesting that the Nintendo dreams of the ‘children’ of Venezuela have a political subtext that extends beyond the new form of empowered consumerism outlined by Kinder and Jenkins. Videogame play in this part of the globe is precarious in that it is caught between the global regulation of intellectual property and the local regulation of global media.<br /><br /><br /><br />Works Cited<br /><br />The Animatrix. (2003). Peter Chung, Andy Jones, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Takeshi Koike, Mahiro Maeda, Kôji Morimoto, & Shinichirô Watanabe [Directors]. Village Roadshow Pictures, distributed by Warner Brothers.<br /><br />Banks, J. (2003). Gamers as Co-creators: Enlisting the virtual audience – a report from the netface. In Virginia Nightengale & Karen Ross (Eds.). Critical Readings: Media and Audiences (pp. 268-278). Maidenhead: Open University Press.<br /><br />Castronova, E. (2003). On Virtual Economies. Game Studies, 3(2). Retrieved 9 January, 2006, from http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/castronova/<br /><br />Chávez to Shut Down Opposition TV. (2006, December 29). BBC News. Retrieved February 8, 2007, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/6215815.stm<br /><br />Darley, A. (2000). Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres. London: Routledge.<br /><br />Deleuze, G. (1995). Negotiations 1972-1990 [Trans. M. Joughin]. New York: Columbia University Press.<br /><br />Enter the Matrix. (2003). Shiney Entertainment, USA. Published in the USA by Atari and Warner Brothers Interactive.<br /><br />Flew, T. (2005). New Media: An Introduction. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press [Second Edition].<br /><br />Flew, T. & Humphreys, S. (2005) Games: Technology, Industry, Culture. In Terry Flew (Ed.). New Media: An Introduction (pp. 101-114). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press [Second Edition].<br /><br />Galloway, A. (2006). Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press.<br /><br />Herz, J. C. (1997). Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts and Rewired Our Minds. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.<br /><br />Humphreys, S. (2003). Online multi-user games: Playing for real. Australian Journal of Communication, 30(1), 79-91.<br /><br />Humphreys, S. (2005). Productive Players: Online computer games’ challenge to traditional media forms. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 2(1), 37-51.<br /><br />Humphreys, S., Fitzgerald, B., Banks, J., & Suzor, N. (2005). Fan-based production for computer games: User-led innovation, the ‘drift of value’ and intellectual property rights. Media International Australia, 114, 16-29.<br /><br />Jansz & Martens. (2005). Gaming at a LAN event: the social context of playing video games. New Media & Society 7(?). 333-355.<br /><br />Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.<br /><br />Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York; London: New York University Press.<br /><br />Kerr, A. (2006). The Business and Culture of Digital Games: Gamework/Gameplay. London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: Sage.<br /><br />Kinder, M. (1991). Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Videogames: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Berkley: University of California.<br /><br />Klang, M. (2004). Avatar: From deity to corporate property: A philosophical inquiry into digital property in online games. Information, Communication, and Society, 7(3), 389-402.<br /><br />Kline, S., Dyer-Witheford, N., & Peuter, G. (2003). Digital|Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing. Montréal: McGill-Queens University Press.<br /><br />Lugo, J., Sampson, T., & Lossada, M. (2002). Latin America’s New Cultural Industries Still Play Old Games – From Banana Republic to Donkey Kong. Game Studies 2(2). Retrieved February 5, 2007, from http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/<br /><br />Manovich, L. (2000). The Language of New Media. Cambridge; London: The MIT Press.<br /><br />Márquez, P. C. (1999). The Street Is My Home: Youth and Violence in Caracas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.<br /><br />Marshall, P. D. (2004). New Media Cultures. London: Arnold.<br /><br />The Matrix. (1999). Wachowski Bros. [Directors]. Warner Brothers.<br /><br />The Matrix: Reloaded. (2003). Wachowski Bros. [Directors]. Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow Pictures.<br /><br />The Matrix: Revolutions. (2003). Wachowski Bros. [Directors]. Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow Pictures.<br /><br />Kücklich, J. (2005). Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital Games Industry. Fibreculture 5. Retrieved on 9 January, 2006, from http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/kucklich.html<br /><br />Lastokwa, G. (2006). Law and Game Studies. Games and Culture, 1(1), 25-28.<br /><br />Mazinger Z. (1972-1974). Toei Animation, Japan. Created by Go Nagai.<br /><br />Mazinger Z Salva a Venezuela. (2002). Mediatech, Venezuela. Published in Venezuela by Mediatech.<br /><br />Moore, C. (2005). Commonizing the enclosure: Online games and reforming intellectual property regimes. Australian Journal of Emerging Technology and Society, 3(2), 94-108.<br /><br />Morris, S (2004a). Co-creative media: Online multiplayer computer game culture. Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture, 1(1). Retrieved December 22, 2005 from http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=16<br /><br />Pearce, C. (2002). Emergent authorship: The next interactive revolution. Computers and Graphics, 26(1), 21-29.<br /><br />Pearce, C. (2006). Productive Play: Game culture from the bottom up. Games and Culture, 1(1), 17-24.<br /><br />Postigo, H. (2003). From Pong to Planet Quake: Post-Industrial transitions from leisure to work. Information, Communication, and Society, 6(4), 593-607.<br /><br />Ruggill, J. E., McAllister, K. S., & Menchaca, D. (2004). Gamework. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 1(4), 297-312.<br /><br />Super Mario Bros: Mario Madness. (1988). Nintendo, Japan. Published by Nintendo for the Nintendo entertainment System.<br /><br />Takahasi, D. (2002). Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft’s Plan to launch an Entertainment Revolution. New York: Prima Lifestyles.<br /><br />Tayor, T. L. & Kolko, B. E. (2003). Boundary Spaces: Majestic and the uncertain state of knowledge, community and self in the information age. Information, Communication, and Society, 6(4), 497-522.<br /><br />Telesur and al-Jazeera Sign Deal. (2006, February 11). BBC News. Retrieved 17 January, 2007, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4669268.stm<br /><br />Wachowski, L & Wachowski, A. (2003). The Matrix Comics. Brooklyn; London: Burlyman.<br /><br />Yee, N. (2006). The Labour of Fun: How computer games blur the boundaries of work and play. Games and Culture, 1(1), 68-71.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-52756020558556399212007-01-16T18:24:00.001+11:002010-09-05T20:22:03.955+10:00Unaustralia Article OnlineAlright, looks like my contribution to the <a href="http://www.csaa.asn.au/">CSAA</a> (Cultural Studies Association of Australasia) 2006 conference on <a href="http://www.unaustralia.com/">Unaustralia</a> is online. [September 2010 - sorry its not on line anymore fee free to request it directly from me].Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-64540012122603981472006-11-29T16:39:00.002+11:002010-09-05T20:22:30.075+10:00Situated Play: Negotiating Place and Identity in Global Gaming Networks<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span><i style=""><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Gunbound: World Champion</span></i><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> is a free Internet-based computer game, that is made by the Korean company Softnyx, which is popular in many parts of the globe. Taking <i style="">Gunbound</i> as a case study, my research explores gaming as a global and transnational phenomena, in particular the flow of gaming products from the North to the South, and the new assemblages of networks that this flow allows. Using data gathered during ethnographic fieldwork in </span><st1:place><st1:city><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Melbourne</span></st1:city><span style="" lang="EN-AU">, </span><st1:country-region><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Australia</span></st1:country-region></st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> during the summer of 2005-6, this paper will focus on the specific local contexts of the play of <i style="">Gunbound</i>. Rather than approaching the game as a text, my concern is to examine the ways by which this game is insinuated into the everyday life of various Chinese speaking diasporic communities, to maintain pre-existing – and establish new – social networks. In this paper I will argue that <i style="">Gunbound</i> acts as a space in which diasporic players may enter into negotiations between a variety of sites, in particular the local and the global. For these players the stakes of play include exploring issues of place and identity in relation to transnational global networks.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-64154629148614301442006-10-30T09:27:00.000+11:002006-10-30T09:31:24.408+11:00Mo(ve)ments Conference Abstract<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.vu.edu.au/library/images/houseboathead_web2.bmp"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.vu.edu.au/library/images/houseboathead_web2.bmp" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Everyday Empowerment? Videogames in the Developing World: A Situated Study of </span></u><st1:place><st1:city><u><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Caracas</span></u></st1:city><u><span style="" lang="EN-AU">, </span></u><st1:country-region><u><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Venezuela<br /></span></u></st1:country-region></st1:place><u><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></u><br /><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p>In her groundbreaking book <i style="">Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Videogames: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i> Marsha Kinder maintains that the interactive nature of videogames gives children a sense of empowerment. A key caveat that she places on this sense of empowerment is that it is linked to acts of consumption, both within the game, and outside the game. Kinder locates this phenomenon of empowerment through the play and consumption of videogames in a global context. In this paper, I will re-evaluate Kinder’s claims in the light of the inequality of the power relations between the global videogame industry and their audience. In order to do this I will turn to the ethnographic data gained during fieldwork in </span><st1:place><st1:city><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Caracas</span></st1:city><span style="" lang="EN-AU">, </span><st1:country-region><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Venezuela</span></st1:country-region></st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> from March through July 2005.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><o:p> </o:p>My intervention in Kinder’s argument takes the form of the following question: Can the interactivity of videogames be empowering in the developing world, in the same manner as they are in the wealthier countries of the ‘developed world’? This paper examines the ways in which game players’ that are otherwise excluded from consumptive practices due to lack of resources may nevertheless be empowered through game-play. Through a investigation of videogames in the context of the everyday lives of the players’ I will argue that empowerment in the context of Venezuela, is not so much linked to empowerment through consumption; but rather to empowerment through community, participation, and creativity.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">The conference is subtitled 'Local, National and Global Carribean Popular Culture', as I recall Venezuela is on the Carribean so its vaguely relevant, and at least the conference is in Melbourne.</span><br /><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-34955715060350988962006-10-02T09:40:00.000+10:002006-10-02T09:44:42.660+10:00Burda: Research ProposalHere is a copy of the research proposal I sent the <a href="http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Centers/burda/">Burda Centre</a>, it was pretty rushed so it isn't as tight as I would have liked it to be.<br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Independent Videogame Production: Creative Industries, Local Content and Global Markets</span><br /></div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Project Overview<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>The videogame industry is dominated by large media concerns like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Focused in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Japan</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> and </span><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">North America</span></st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> the dominance of these companies effectively prevents the smaller developed, and developing, countries from either sustaining a local industry or entering the global market. Consequently, the majority of videogame play outside these dominant nations involves the use of imported content; with a subsequent loss of creative talent, and a lack of local content in this important and growing media stream. This project will examine the potential sustainable industry models that independent videogame development can provide for videogame production within the creative industries, and the production of local content for both the domestic and global market.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Background<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Literature Review<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>Recent writing on videogames has emphasised the transformation that the growing importance of videogames has effected on both the cultural landscape and the traditional media industries (Ruggill et. al., 2004;). While the growth of the videogame industry has disrupted the typical dominance of the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">US</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> as content producers, due to the prominent role played by Japanese companies (Kinder, 1991; Kline et. al., 2003; Wark 1994), it has remained difficult for other nations to enter into the industry on the global stage (Kerr and Boyle, 2003; Lugo et. al., 2002). While opportunities for game developers to flourish outside of the mass global market do exist (Zimmerman, 2003), research has focused on how these companies survive by taking creative approaches to content generation (Banks, 2003). <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Videogames are situated as a key part of participatory culture (Marshall, 2004; Cover, 2005). Participatory culture is characterised by a level of engagement with the media that shifts from consumption – whether configured as passive or active – to production (Jenkins, 2006). This phenomenon is closely associated with the increasing availability of digital media (Lister et. al., 2003). Studies focusing on the benefit to the videogames industry of content generated through videogame player’s production have determined that its contribution is worth hundreds of million dollars annually (Castronova, 2003 & 2006; Yee 2006). <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">This practice has been seized upon by the proponents of the creative industries as being the key to the development of videogames industries in smaller economies (Hartley, 2005; Jenkins, 2005). For example, in 2003 the Australia Council’s New Media Arts Board funded a project that involved making a ‘mod’ (the term for a computer file designed to modify certain aspects of a videogame) for the videogame <i style="">Half-Life: Counter-Strike</i> (Valve Software, 2003), the game while controversial<span style=""> </span>was able to sustain Australian-based designers and generate Australian-themed content, that can be distributed freely at a global level, for a game that is popular on a global scale, without violating and property right of the original games developers’.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Another area where it is possible for smaller players to enter the game development industry is by developing games for mobile phones (Finn 2004, Kerr 2006). Games designed for mobile phones need to take into account the new context of consumption that the devices engender. As gaming becomes mobile it becomes more temporally bound as the practice must fit into small periods of time; also the visual design demands a simple approach due to the small size of the screens. This means that games for mobile phones can be both short and have simple graphics and still be successful. The use of JavaScript for mobile phone interfaces means that there is no problem of compatibility between different platforms and brands. This combined with the ease of distribution through digital networks suggests a model of game design that has a considerably lower capital threshold than the typical industry model.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Method<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>Based on contemporary scholarship on videogames in the field of Media and Communications there are four main approaches to the study of videogames: Industry studies (Kerr, 2006; Kline et. al. 2003); Textual Analysis (Bogost, 2006; Jull, 2005; King & Kryzwinska, 2006); Ethnographic studies (Castronova, 2006; Taylor, 2006); and Pedagogical studies (Gee, 2003). The concern of this project is with industry; however, in order to examine how participation in the industry may be distributed more evenly I will also be scrutinizing the practices of audiences (ethnography), and using textual analysis to see if there are particular genres of videogames that are more appropriate for alternative models of design and distribution. Kline et. al. (2003) remark that any study made of the videogame industry is incomplete without and understanding of the practices of play – that is the practices of the audience of videogames – and the objects that the industry produces, as texts. However, on the last point, the textual analysis of videogames, it is important to note that the current thinking in the field has moved away from regarding games as another kind of media text (e.g. Murray, 1997); and shifted to a notion of understanding gameplay (the interaction of game and player) as a dynamic operation (Galloway, 2006; Myers, 2003; Newman, 2004).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <span style="line-height: 200%;" lang="EN-AU"> </span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Proposed Research<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">This research will focus exploring alternative models for videogame development. This will focus on three main areas: the impact that new developments in technology are having on the industry; the role that new genres of videogames are having on the diversifying the market; and the practices of the audiences which can be harnessed by smaller companies. This will involve a three-pronged approach to research.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>In the case of the technological developments in the industry, as well as conducting research from industry documents, I will make online interviews with game designers and distributors that are utilizing these new technologies. For this I hope to be able to take advantage of relations that I have developed with Paradox Interactive a Swedish game design company that has recently launched its own online game publishing and distribution system, and CipSoft GmbH, a German company that has been an innovative an popular producer of Massive Multiplayer Online Games and mobile phone games.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>New genres of games which are diversifying the videogame market include newsgames, serious games, advergames and alternate reality games. I will make a survey of industry reports to gauge the impact of each of these genres on the videogame market, and make interviews with designers from the Uruguayan company Newsgaming, pioneers of the use of videogames for political advertising.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>The final thread of the investigation centres on the practices of players. Here I will be examining general trends in the industry as they have responded to player demand, as well as the innovative practices of the audiences themselves. Here I will focus on content creation, the growing incorporation of players into technical roles in the game design process, and the use of gamers to maintain and organise ongoing gaming communities. By interviewing with twenty players from around the world involved in the industry at these levels I hope to demonstrate the key importance that these groups play in sustaining the industry now, and suggest how alternative models of production and distribution may ensure and constructively manage their contributions.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Contribution to Research<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">The key contribution of this research will be to explore how the power dynamics created by an uneven distribution of content creation may be overcome by looking at alternative practices in the margins of the game industry which can be nurtured at a local level but still have a global impact. This approach is also innovative because it combines industry analysis, with analysis of games and game genres, in the context of the practices of the audiences.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research Plan<o:p></o:p></span></p> <table class="MsoTableGrid" style="border: medium none ; border-collapse: collapse;" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr style=""> <td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">2006<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: solid solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">March<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on gaming technology; Conduct interviews with staff of Paradox Interactive<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">April<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on gaming technology; Conduct Interviews with staff of CipSoft GmbH<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">May<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on gaming technology; Progress report to Burda Centre<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">June<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on Gaming Audiences; Conduct Interviews in </span><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Hong Kong</span></st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> and </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">China</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="" lang="EN-AU">; Present Work at Edutainment 2007 Conference in </span><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Hong Kong</span></st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">; <o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">July<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on Gaming Audiences; Conduct Interviews Online; write Report on Edutainment 2007<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">August<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on Gaming Audiences; Conduct Interviews Online; Progress report to Burda<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">September<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on new game genres; Present Work at DiGRA 2007 Conference in Tokoyo; Fieldwork in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Uruguay</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="" lang="EN-AU">: Interviews and Research at Newsgaming <o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">October<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on new game genres; Prepare Publication; write Report on DiGRA 2007<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 59.4pt;" valign="top" width="79"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">November<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 383.7pt;" valign="top" width="512"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Research on new game genres; Final Report to Burda; Submit Publication<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Budget<o:p></o:p></span></p> <table class="MsoTableGrid" style="border: medium none ; border-collapse: collapse;" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr style=""> <td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 320.4pt;" valign="top" width="427"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Item<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: solid solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 122.7pt;" valign="top" width="164"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Cost<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 320.4pt;" valign="top" width="427"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Materials (Tapes, photocopying, games)<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 122.7pt;" valign="top" width="164"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">1400<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 320.4pt;" valign="top" width="427"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Return Flight Melbourne-Hong Kong<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 122.7pt;" valign="top" width="164"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">900<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 320.4pt;" valign="top" width="427"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Return Flight Melbourne-Tokoyo<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 122.7pt;" valign="top" width="164"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">1850<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 320.4pt;" valign="top" width="427"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Return Flight Melbourne-Montevideo<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 122.7pt;" valign="top" width="164"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">2500<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 320.4pt;" valign="top" width="427"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Per diem allowance (accommodation, transport and food)<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 122.7pt;" valign="top" width="164"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">2400 (16 days)<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style=""> <td style="border-style: none solid solid; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 320.4pt;" valign="top" width="427"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Total<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> <td style="border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 122.7pt;" valign="top" width="164"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU">905</span></p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><o:p> </o:p>Delivery of Research Outcomes<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>The aim of this project is to produce useful information for policymakers regarding the funding and support of the videogames industry. In this regarding I will submit a final report on my research to the Burda centre in November 2007. Prior to this I will submit two short progress reports in May and August 2007. This final report will be approximately 60-80 pages in length, and I would enjoy the chance to come a present these findings in seminar form at the Burda Centre, if possible.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>In June and September 2007, I will travel to </span><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Asia</span></st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> to attend the Edutainment 2007 conference in </span><st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU">Hong Kong</span></st1:place><span style="" lang="EN-AU"> and the DiGRA (Digital Games Research) 2007 conference in Tokoyo. I will present at both conferences work from the project under development with the Burda centre, with the aim of soliciting feedback from international academics in the field of games research. Each conference also publishes its full proceedings online, and I would write a brief report of the conferences to be published in a prominent Media and Communications journal.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="" lang="EN-AU"><span style=""> </span>Finally, I will use the material from the project for an article to be published in a prestigious interdisciplinary Media and Communications journal (e.g. <i style="">Media, Culture, and Society</i>), to be submitted in November 2007.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-58015350727454440532006-09-30T11:26:00.002+10:002010-09-05T20:25:56.909+10:00Finished the CSAA PaperWow, some serious work this past week and a virtual all-nighter last night (just 3:30am) and now is its done. Well I sent it to my sister for some editing, and then I'll look over it again tonight before I actually submit it.<br /><br />Its so strange to actually make the deadline for something... ...whats happening to me?Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-36718569327128941112006-09-19T10:00:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:26:35.667+10:00Unaustralia Conference<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/1974/982/1600/unaustralia2.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/1974/982/400/unaustralia2.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />So the annual <a href="http://www.csaa.asn.au/">Cultural Studies Association of Australasia</a> Conference is coming soon in December. The theme is <a href="http://www.unaustralia.com/">Unaustralia</a>, and I managed to do a bit of a procrustean feat on one of my old research streams that I have been looking to publish. Basically, its going to be an update of the final chapter of my honors thesis, with current literature (its amazing how much stuff has come out on strategy games - and how much my research skills have improved), and refocused on <a href="http://au.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/europauniversalis2/index.html?q=europa%20universalis"><span style="font-style: italic;">Europa Universalis</span></a> (Paradox Interactive, 2000) and <a href="http://au.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/victoria/index.html?q=victoria"><span style="font-style: italic;">Victoria: Empire Under the Sun</span></a> (Paradox Interactice, 2002). The dissertation version used <span style="font-style: italic;">Civilization III</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Medieval: Total War</span>, both of which are getting a bit long in the tooth, and also importantly don't explicitly reference the Australian colonial period. In EU2 Australia is unclaimed by any European power, and its colonization can take place during the game, in Vicky South and East Australia are Bristish colonies but anything can happen, I've played games where the Netherlands colonized North and West Australia, and one where Britian traded Australia to Brazil for the Phillipines. Here is the abstract that got accepted:<br /><br /> <p class="MsoNormal"><u style="font-style: italic;">Virtual Unaustralia: Videogames and </u><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;"><st1:place><u>Australia</u></st1:place></st1:country-region><u style="font-style: italic;">’s Colonial History<o:p></o:p></u><br /><o:p style="font-style: italic;"></o:p><span style="font-style: italic;">In this paper I will discuss the representations of </span><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;"><st1:place>Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-style: italic;"> in the videogames </span><i style="font-style: italic;">Europa Universalis II </i><span style="font-style: italic;">and </span><i style="font-style: italic;">Victoria: Empire Under the Sun</i><span style="font-style: italic;">. The first game deals with the historical period of 1400-1820, the second from 1838 to 1920. In both games </span><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;"><st1:place>Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-style: italic;"> is portrayed as an empty space on these games’ map, which may during the course of play, be revealed and colonized. Many scholars over the past few years have made a point of arguing these games involve players uncritically accepting and applying the logic of colonialism. However, an examination of the community forums of these games reveals what I believe is a more complex picture of the players’ engagement with the representations of colonialism within the games. Drawing on these sources, and on textual analysis of the games I will argue that these games reflect the colonial ideology by exploiting the potentiality of the empty map which portrays </span><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;"><st1:place>Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-style: italic;"> as a virtual non-space waiting to be actualized. Following from this, despite a dominant logic of colonialism an examination of players’ reports of their games reveals that this non-space may be actualized in multiple ways, leading to trajectories of history being actualized within the game that radically diverge from traditional representations of the past. Finally, that by opening up the notion of </span><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;"><st1:place>Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-style: italic;"> to a multiplicity these games confronts the players with alternatives to the reality of the colonial moment, which can be considered more or less ethical than what actually occurred.</span><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This has to be finnished by the end of the month, so I am starting my write up of the new draft featuring the <a href="http://www.paradoxplaza.com/">Paradox Interactive</a> games today.<br /></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-39307572037585226172006-09-18T20:17:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:26:50.570+10:00Sad But True<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/1974/982/1600/phd053106s.0.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/1974/982/400/phd053106s.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-59433500319469082962006-09-18T16:29:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:28:07.909+10:00Flux Conference Panel Proposal<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:Georgia;font-size:14;color:black;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Here is the proposal for a panel on Actor-Network-Theory that my buddies Bjorn and <a href="http://mdieter.blogspot.com/">Michael </a></span></span><a href="http://mdieter.blogspot.com/"><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:Georgia;font-size:14;color:black;" >and I have put together for the</span></a><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:Georgia;font-size:14;color:black;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.ahcca.unimelb.edu.au/flux/"> flux </a>postgraduate conference run by the cinema studies department this November.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Panel: Assembling the ANT: Ventilators, Maps, Videogames</span><o:p></o:p></span><br /><span lang="EN-AU" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p>This panel seeks to bring together diverse work within cultural and media studies that utilises the framework outlined by Bruno Latour and Actor-Network-Theory. This approach broadly redefines sociology through an inclusive methodology that attempts to capture movements; it is an act of tracing associations between heterogeneous elements. Crucially, it redefines our understanding of the social world, arguing that the heterogeneity found in such associations is not exclusively composed of human ties, and that focusing solely on the human entails a fundamental misunderstanding as it ignores the participation of objects, technologies and non-human entities in the social world; from mechanical ventilators, GPS technology and videogame algorithms.<o:p><br /></o:p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Keywords:</span> Actor-Network-Theory, Bruno Latour, Non-humans<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color:black;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="line-height: 200%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Machine Breaths</span><o:p></o:p><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:Georgia;font-size:14;color:black;" ><o:p><br />-</o:p></span>Bjorn Nansen<o:p></o:p></p> <span style="color:black;"></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p><span style=""></span>The term flux operates as a kind of metonym for the mutable conditions of postmodernity, suggesting a range of movements, fluidities and becomings. These familiar tropes saturate our current milieu, and cluster prominently around conceptions of the body, identity and self as something able to be constructed, changed and transformed through modes of consumption and a range of fashion, dietary and exercise practices.<span style=""> </span>Even more radical are the potential transformations enabled through medical technologies of transplantation, prosthesis and reconstruction.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p><span style=""></span>As such, both essential and regulated images of the self are abandoned in favor of choice, agency and flexibility.<span style=""> </span>Inherent to these notions is a popular celebration in possibility and a common sense perception of technology as instrumental. Alternatively, technology is framed as autonomous, threatening and destructive to the human; this view is aligned with a sense that fluidity translates into fragmentation and erasure. The mechanical ventilator is a technology generally framed within this dialectic; either radically destabilising human life, creating new and ambiguous states such as brain-death; or as a simple prosthetic device, serving an instrumental purpose through simulating the function of breathing for patients whose own ventilatory abilities are diminished or lost.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color:black;"><o:p> </o:p><span style=""></span>Bruno Latour argues, however, that this perpetuates a false dichotomy; humans and technologies are not separate, but continuous and co-emergent; and objects mediate and act within the social world.<span style=""> </span>Latour’s inclusion of non-humans invites us to re-assess the ways entities are mutually constituted through their relations, and how each participates in defining and redefining each other.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color:black;"><o:p> </o:p><span style=""></span>I want to deploy Latour’s methodology and idiom to consider the reconfigured and distributed ontology of the human-mechanical ventilator relation; to trace the tensions between enabling and attenuating bodily practices; and to discuss how this relation complicates notions of fluidity and choice privileged in contemporary life.<o:p><br /></o:p></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:Georgia;" lang="EN-AU">Keywords</span><span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-weight: bold;">:</span> Actor-Network-Theory, Embodiment, Medical Technology, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color:black;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="line-height: 200%;font-family:Georgia;font-size:14;" lang="EN-AU" ><a href="http://mdieter.blogspot.com/">Objective Memories: On Assembling Things through Locative Media</a> <o:p></o:p></span><br /><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p>-Michael Dieter<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-AU">Locative media has routinely been understood through theories concentrated on spatial analysis and the virtual annotation of urban landscapes. Such discourses often rely on a utopian desire to recover stable relations and place-bound modes of community in a global era characterised by the flux of compressed networks of time-space. Paradoxically, these practices rely on the very technologies of reproduction and simulation that Andreas Huyssen understands as being ‘leading players in the morality play of memory.’</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p> </o:p>My paper will apply the recent work of Bruno Latour on political assemblies, ‘matters of concern’ and<i style=""> object-orientated</i> democracy in order to examine the instrumental position that projects like Proboscis’ <i style="">Urban Tapestries</i> or <i style="">Milk</i> by Ieva Auzina and Esther Polak maintain in relation to imagining technologies. In particular, I want to examine how a reflexive approach, inspired by actor-network-theory, might bring into consideration the function of new media in these works as non-human <i style="">actants</i>. That is, if such projects are based on a reflexive approach to memory, the role of forgetting or disappearance should not be overlooked, especially concerning the material apparatus itself. This is of critical importance, I will argue, in order to distinguish the function of mobile and digital devices from the imperatives of control, surveillance and commercial spectacle characteristic of the contemporary urban experience.<br /><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:Georgia;" lang="EN-AU">Keywords</span><span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-weight: bold;">:</span> Actor-Network-Theory, Locative Media, Memory.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Analysis through Design: Examining the Technological and Social Actors in a Videogaming Ecology</span></span><o:p></o:p><br />-Thomas Apperley<o:p></o:p></p> <span lang="EN-AU"></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p> </o:p>This paper will argue that – rather than ‘great graphics’ or a ‘compelling story’ – the key to a videogames’ acceptance and adoption by an audience is the appropriateness of its design in relation to the context of its play. Through an ethnographic examination of two situated videogaming ecologies in Melbourne, Australia and Caracas, Venezuela I maintain that factors aside from narrative have a crucial role in shaping the experience of play. Of particular importance are the interoperability of the gaming technology, which takes effect in the relationship between software and hardware, and the capacity of the game to be played across a network. This points to the role of both the technological and the social in shaping the videogame experience, and being equally important as narrative or visual concerns when selecting what game is played in a given context or situation. The paper will argue that the practices involved in the consumption of videogames constitute a complex ecology, formed by the interplay of both the social and the technological contexts of their play. I will examine the influence of technology and the social on shaping the experience of play through Latour’s (2005) notion of Actor-Network-Theory. Using Latour’s notion as a starting point I will outline, and argue in favor, of a theory of videogames based on design, that incorporates narrative and visual aesthetics as elements without privileging them, using the game <i style="">Gunbound: World Champion</i> (softnyx, 2005) as an example of the utility of this framework.<br /><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:Georgia;" lang="EN-AU">Keywords<o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-weight: bold;">:</span> Actor-Network-Theory, Media Ecology, Situated Gaming, Videogame Design.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-40478694410832004072006-09-18T14:35:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:28:28.125+10:00Mobile Media Abstract Accepted!<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><em></em></strong><strong style="font-weight: normal;">The organizers of <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.mobilemedia2007.net/default.html">Mobile Media</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">: an international conference </span></strong><strong style="font-weight: bold;">on social and cultural aspects of </strong><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">mobile phones, convergent media, and wireless technologies</span>, Larissa Hjorth and Gerard Goggin have accepted my abstract to the conference. Good news for me, have to have a written version of the paper availible for refereeing by the 15/01/07, thats a long time away now.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">Don't have much other information about whats going to happen, except for that its on the 02-04/07/07, and its in Sydney. The organizers say there's going to be a lot of people there from around the world so should be cool.</span><br /></strong></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046518.post-69213642760856510682006-09-16T23:56:00.001+10:002010-09-05T20:29:21.244+10:00Videogames: Issues in Research and Learning<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/1974/982/1600/default_cover.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/1974/982/200/default_cover.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />So in December 2005 and March 2006, the Sage Journal <a href="http://www.sagepublications.com/promos/video_games.htm">Simulation & Gaming</a> published a two part special issue on videogames. Included was my article on Videogames and Genres, which appeared in the March 2006 issue (stoked!). Don't know why I haven't mentioned it until now, been out of blogging mode I guess. Anyhow sheck out their site and hopefully you can find out a way to download it legitimately (or just click the link on the bottom of the sidebar).<br />The editors describe my research: "Apperley examines the aesthetic components of video games, contrasting market-driven genres that pigeonhole video games into prior media genres versus genres based on visual aesthetic or narrative structure. His conclusions highlight the disassociation of video game play, content, and analysis from previously embedded conventions of market, culture and critique." Could not have put it better myself, I love it how some people can just explain to you what the hell you are doing, its like the whole situated play epiphany I had a few moments ago after I discovered what the rest of the world was calling the kind of research I do.<br />Bottom line for me is that genre is a useful was to explore the complex interrelation between the narrative, the representational and the ludic. That is not all that I think genre can do for Game Studies... ...but more on that later.<br />Anyway the article is still in the journals top-ten most downloaded (read) articles, at number nine after six months, it was number one from April-June, before slipping to number five and then 8. It has consistently been the most popular from the symposium issue. Hey I guess someone had to write an article about videogame genres didn't they?Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05653386517992051684noreply@blogger.com0