As video game production is becoming increasingly data-driven, player surveillance shapes the everyday realities of users and developers. Remote online tracking and the resulting optimization and ...governance of in-game activity subscribe to the Big Data methodology as a way of accounting for entire player populations. By design, player surveillance serves the interests of developers and publishers, who have exclusive access to this proprietary data. Yet, discursively, these parties attempt to present surveillance as a mutually beneficial endeavor aimed at improving video games. A part of this strategy is the video game industry’s selective information disclosure, which I explore empirically on the example of telemetry infographics. Based on a thematic analysis of 200 infographics from 127 games, I show how publicly disseminated infographics contribute to the normalization of player surveillance by presenting it as a source of harmless trivia to be collected and shared by fans and the specialized press.
This article explores the evolution of video game updates and patches from a mechanism of customer support to a tool of control over the way games are played in the ecosystem of digital gaming ...platforms. It charts a historical trajectory across various cultural industries, including literary publishing, screen industries, and music, to show a shift from multiplicity of editions to one perpetually updated contingent commodity. Focusing on the issues of power and control enabled by the always-online platforms, the analysis shows that previously updating was often voluntary. However, now players must actively resist patches if they wish to play the game on their own terms. As illustrated by three case studies of update resistance, developers, publishers, and platform holders wield protocological power, which can be successfully opposed—although the outcome often remains localized and tends to alter a specific iteration of protocol and not the underlying infrastructure.
Developer credit has been a contested issue in the video game industry since the 1970–80s, when Atari prevented its programmers from publicly claiming authorship for games they had developed. The ...negotiations over what constitutes a noteworthy contribution to video game development are ongoing and play out in the unregulated space of in-game credits. Here, some creators get top billing akin to film and television credits, while others struggle to be recognized for their work. By analyzing in-game credits of 100 contemporary games published between 2016 and 2020 and representing four major sectors of video game production (AAA, AA, indie, and freemium games as service), I identify recurrent patterns, such as opening credits, order, role descriptions (or lack thereof), and systematic credit omission, that both reinforce and subvert the notion of core development roles and above-the-line/below-the-line divisions.
Magic: The Gathering is a household name among analog games. Its publisher, Wizards of the Coast, has experimented with digital adaptations since the late 1990s, however, it was only in 2018–2019 ...when the company announced a more radical push for the video game market, including a strategy for streaming and esports. By analyzing streaming content, paratextual elements, and online discussions leading up to the first major digital tournament, I explore the attempted and heavily promoted transition of Magic: The Gathering from a primarily analog card game toward a transmedia esports property. Beside conflicting reactions from players and fans to particular aspects of this transformation, this change brings along deepened mediatization of the game as a way to improve the spectator experience by following the media logics of streaming and esports. Professional players in the newly formed esports league along with other sponsored content creators were recruited to serve as advocates for this transition.
Tabletop role-playing has grown from a niche of analog gaming into a mainstay of popular culture. The original face-to-face way of playing has been complemented by online play using dedicated digital ...tools, and play itself has become spectator entertainment. In this article, I explore the process of mediatization of tabletop role-playing on the example of Critical Role – the most successful ‘actual play’ show, in which performers broadcast tabletop role-playing to audiences. I highlight the importance of commodification as a force in the process of mediatization, involving licensing, merchandising, and advertising. Empirically, the article is grounded in an analysis of Critical Role’s sponsorships and embodied player practices, focusing on the political-economic aspects of the show. While Critical Role presents a profoundly mediated form of tabletop role-playing, it promotes a traditional face-to-face way of playing using physical accessories both by cast members’ preference of such accessories (except for the digital toolset D&D Beyond) and sponsorships from manufacturers of these products. Mediatization of tabletop role-playing thus happens through an economic-driven process of addition – new mediated options for players with new opportunities for commodification exist alongside analog modes of consumption. As shown on the example of Critical Role, the digital and mediated forms of the analog hobby can be harnessed to promote physical consumerism.
With the help of screenshots, human and nonhuman actors alike document their professional and leisure encounters with screen-based technologies. In this article, I investigate how and why screenshots ...have come to be understood as faithful visual records of digital culture. By tracing screenshot’s origins to photographic techniques used for capturing medical imaging, oscillograms, and first applications of computer-aided design, I show a lineage of a straightforward mode of representation built on the assumptions of indexicality and iconic resemblance. However, this initially mechanical act of image reproduction has given rise to transformative practices of promotional and artistic screenshots (represented in this article by in-game photography), which subvert the conventions of accurate representation. By contrasting these visual phenomena, I argue for the redefinition of screenshot and show the need for critical literacy of screenshot-based images.
The video game industry is known for its secretive nature, which limits the amount of public disclosure about video game production. In this context, in which even developer postmortems are believed ...to systematically omit key information, comedy series Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet promises to deliver an authentic, albeit fictionalized representation of the industry. Based on a qualitative analysis, I show that although this TV show, which was co-produced by the video game publisher Ubisoft, satirically addresses various problematic aspects of the video game industry, including workplace hierarchies, diversity, labor conditions, and toxic player communities, it ultimately normalizes the current status quo. As such, it can be understood in terms of the shadow academy-the analytical concept describing the industry practice of mimicking critical discourses, but instead of exposing production cultures, it inoculates them from being challenged in practice and reinforces the existing processes and structures.
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.
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.
In this article, we examine the position of women in Czech video game journalism and the strategies they use to cope with sexism. To this end, we conducted eight in-depth interviews with currently ...active women journalists. According to our respondents, their work is judged more harshly because they are women and they have to deal with gender boundaries and stereotypes, sometimes conforming to them to prevent further harassment. In this regard, our respondents were criticized (as well as praised) for their physical appearance and treated as less competent than their male colleagues. All respondents agreed that they were repeatedly told by various parties—players, colleagues, and developers—that they were not good enough as game journalists (and never would be). We argue that women game journalists are pronouncedly affected by sexism and misogyny as their expert role directly challenges toxic gaming masculinities.
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