Video games have entered the cultural mainstream and in terms of economic profits they now rival established entertainment industries such as film or television. As careers in video game development ...become more common, so do the stories about precarious working conditions and structural inequalities within the industry. Yet, scholars have largely overlooked video game production cultures in favor of studying games themselves and player audiences. In Game Production Studies, an international group of established and emerging researchers takes a closer look at the everyday realities of video game production, ranging from commercial industries to independent creators and cultural intermediaries. Across sixteen chapters, the authors deal with issues related to labour, game development, monetization and publishing, as well as local specificities. As the first edited collection dedicated solely to video game production, this volume provides a timely resource for anyone interested in how games are made and at what costs.
Commented gameplay video is an established form of online media content, attracting millions of viewers on YouTube and Twitch and usually created by fans and players. This article, however, brings ...attention to video game voice actors who use their involvement in game production to create a new genre of gameplay video. Using a mixed-method approach that combines quantitative content analysis and qualitative thematic analysis, we explore three case studies of successful channels run by video game actors. We find that this new genre, which we term “definitive playthrough videos” based on the label used by one of the analyzed channels, is a hybrid form at the intersection of variety streaming and behind-the-scenes narratives. By broadcasting games in which they performed, actors capitalize on their connection to in-game characters, firsthand knowledge of production trivia, and access to other industry insiders, repurposing a genre of user-generated content from the position of industry practitioners.
The book is divided into five main chapters, with the first tracing Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell's own early efforts to design stylish cabinets that would fit into "sophisticated locations," such ...as the famous Pong cabinet; its woodgrain veneer signaled respectability and a break from the bad reputation of the Mafia-linked coin-operated amusement industry (p. 46). Guins paints a picture of a well-organized and professional design process that defies Atari's common media portrayal as a group of rule-breaking hippies; a part of Atari's success can also be attributed to the company's meticulous documentation procedures. A detailed production history of the game Video Pinball (Atari, 1979) reveals not only the complex interplay of various teams but also the interactions between the emerging microcomputer technology and "analog" processes of mechanical engineering and plastic molding.
Video game voice acting does not rank among the core roles of video game production, yet actors in leading roles sometimes achieve wide recognition despite their contingent employment. In this ...article, we explore the role of voice actors in the video game culture using the specific case of the recasting of the video game series Life Is Strange, which was caused by the 2016 to 2017 SAG-AFTRA strike against video game companies. Our qualitative empirical analysis of journalistic coverage (including interviews with voice actors), promotional materials, press releases, and player discussions reconstructs the events of the game’s production and investigates the reception of the recasting with regard to actor-character identification and to labor conditions of voice actors. We find that voice actors, whose status is partly dependent on the popularity of their characters, attempt to rise “above the line” by engaging in relational labor.
Abstract
This article investigates the design of two comparable microcomputers that were built under state socialism in neighboring countries: Poland (Elwro Junior) and Czechoslovakia (Didaktik ...Gama). Both computers were “clones” of the highly popular British ZX Spectrum computer. In our article, we discuss the decisions that informed the design of the local “clones” of the British computer, and how both endeavors were supposed to solve specific problems identified by the communities involved in their design. We argue that different configurations of power—in which the actors that took part in the design of both computers were embedded—were the primary reason why these similar products, the ZX Spectrum clones, were “scripted” in a substantially different manner. The Junior was designed as an “educational computer” envisaged as an aid to schooling, while the Gama was a more flexible “home computer.” Our investigation focuses on how their designers projected, or “scripted,” possible forms of computer use, and who they imagined would be the users of these machines. We also compare both computers with the high-profile One Laptop Per Child project to demonstrate the wider relevance of our study and the usefulness of our investigative toolset to the intersection of design studies and science and technology studies.
This article explores the strategies of queer playing of video games and their relationship to the heteronormative game culture. Its premise is that most video games are, either implicitly or ...explicitly, heteronormative and the inscribed player of such games is in the majority of cases a heterosexual male. In order to achieve the same level of identification with an avatar and to enjoy a similar gameplay experience as the heterosexual player, the LGBT player may have to deploy various strategies to challenge the game and work around it, or to find the LGBT content which some more progressive games offer. The study is based on in-depth qualitative interviews with six players (5 males and 1 female) who identified themselves both as homosexual and as players of the Mass Effect or Dragon Age series, games that include several opportunities to initiate same-sex romance. We have identified three different queer playing strategies: imaginative play (queer reading of unspecified or heterosexual characters), stylized performance (the use of gay stereotypes to mark one as queer) and role-playing of a LGBT character. However, players do not seek sexuality in games to the same extent as they do in film or TV, and they tend to use these strategies, and especially the latter two, reluctantly or with reservations. These reservations may be linked to our finding that LGBT players consider their gay (or lesbian) identities disconnected from their identities as players or gamers. This can be explained by the mutual exclusivity of gay communities and the heteronormative game culture.
In contemporary online culture, Grammar Nazi (GN) is a derogatory term used to label individuals who practice excessive language policing but has also been ironically appropriated by groups of users ...who engage in evaluation of other people’s grammar for entertainment purposes. In this article, we combine approaches from media studies and sociolinguistics to analyze the adoption of the phenomenon by two GN Facebook pages in two languages: English and Czech. Our mixed-method analysis shows that while both pages can be read as examples of media participation, they also exemplify their users’ “literacy privilege” associated with standard language ideology. However, there are differences in the practices associated with the label, reflecting the specific sociolinguistic contexts. While Czech GNs act as “guardians” of the public space, collecting and displaying localized orthographic errors for collective dissection, the English page is more dedicated to sharing jokes and puns typical of international online culture.
This critique of the overlooked Lucasfilm adventure game focuses on the techniques, by which the distance between the avatar and the player is bridged, and the way the game deals with its gameness in ...its fiction.The critique is broken into three sections: the analysis of the fiction, investigation of the interface and, finally, the whole narrative structure.Conclusion is made that the uniqueness and "magic" often mentioned by the game's fans comes about thanks to a series of parallels between the player's and the avatar's situation.
Following the discussion of silences and absences in user participation, this short paper aims to analyze the limits of participation in defining and evaluating quality of user-generated content. It ...focuses on user reviews of the fan-made Czech subtitles for the HBO series Game of Thrones on the fan subtitling website titulky.com. It works from the discovery that many users tend not to `review' the subtitles by evaluating them, choosing instead to praise their author or remain in `silent gratitude'. Based mainly on qualitative analysis of user reviews, the case study identifies two main reasons for this lack of participation, mainly the dependency of the non-contributing users on the translator (who is called a `saviour') and his authority and merits in the community. His dominance in the discussion is bolstered by the fact that his work was approved by the local fandom of the show's source material. Based on the case study, I argue that while gratitude drives participation in creating content, it may also thwart attempts at critiquing the content.
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