cyberanthropology—anthropology of cyberculture

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↑BUDKA, PHILIPP AND ↑MANFRED KREMSER. 2004. “↑CyberAnthropology—Anthropology of CyberCulture” [.pdf | 715KB], in Contemporary issues in socio-cultural anthropology: Perspectives and research activities from Austria edited by S. Khittel, B. Plankensteiner and M. Six-Hohenbalken (eds.), pp. 213-226. Vienna: Loecker.
 

abstract:
This article investigates the historical development, the major theories and the ethnographic domains of an anthropology of cyberculture. In doing so, the authors use Arturo Escobar’s influential paper on cyberanthropology, written in 1994, and connect potential research questions posed in this text with research projects recently conducted at the Viennese Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. The authors conclude that the anthropology of cyberculture is not a new sub-discipline of socio-cultural anthropology, but a new field of inquiry with clear-cut domains and areas of ethnographic research.
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computer game research 101

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↑SMITH, JONAS HEIDE. 2002. ↑Computer game research 101: A brief introduction to the literature. ↑Game Research, December 2002.
 

abstract:
A few years ago there wasn’t much to talk about. Now, however, computer game research is booming resulting in common terminology, competing paradigms and serious discussion on the subjects of games and gaming. This article attempts to provide an introduction to the field of computer game research.
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co-creative media

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↑MORRIS, SUE. 2004. ↑Co-creative media: Online multiplayer computer game culture. ↑Scan: Journal of media arts culture ↑1(1).
 

abstract:
As a new and emerging research area, computer games demand the development of new theoretical frameworks for research and analysis. In addition to the specific requirements of a new medium, the advent and rapidly rising popularity of multiplayer computer gaming creates further challenges for researchers when the text under analysis forms a locus for human interaction – structuring and mediating communication between large numbers of people, and spawning social practices and identifications within a cultural economy extending beyond the game itself. While multiplayer gaming practices develop within existing social, cultural, technological and economic structures, they are also producing significant shifts within these structures.

Here I will be discussing the gaming practices surrounding multiplayer, first-person shooter (FPS) computer games such as Quake III Arena and Half-Life Counter-Strike. Since the mid-1990s, a large and remarkably cohesive online community has developed around these games, involving hundreds of thousands of players, with up to 100,000 FPS gamers actively playing online at any one time (http://www.gamespy.com/stats, Mar 5, 2003). In addition to actual gameplay, the FPS community engages in practices of game development, criticism, commentary, debate, information exchange, file-sharing and social organisation. Online access to open-source game development tools, the provision of venues for distribution and publicity of player-generated game content and modifications, the use of the online community in game testing, and increased communication between game development companies and players are currently shifting the boundaries between the traditional roles of media producers and consumers and changing the ways in which these games are made. Study of the practices surrounding multiplayer FPS games can provide insight into new and emerging models of media production, consumption and distribution, play, community formation and challenges to existing structures of social and economic power.

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gaming at a lan event

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↑JANSZ, JEROEN AND LONNEKE MARTENS. 2005. ↑Gaming at a LAN event:
the social context of playing video games. [.pdf | 235KB] ↑new media & society ↑7(↑3):333-355.
 

abstract:
An exploratory survey was undertaken about the appeal of
playing video games at a Local Area Network (LAN) event
where personal computers are linked in order to play both
face-to-face and online. First, we wanted to know who
the visitors of a LAN event were, because there is hardly
any research available about this class of gamers. Second,
we wanted to know why they participated in a LAN
event. The survey showed that LAN gamers were almost
exclusively male, with a mean age of 19.5 years. They
devoted about 2.6 hours each day to gaming. They were
motivated by social contact and a need to know more
about games. The competition motive was third in the
total sample. A subgroup of heavy gamers obtained a
higher score on competition. This article emphasizes the
importance of the social context of gaming and interprets
its results as a nuance of the stereotype of the solitary,
adolescent gamer.

keywords:
gender differences, interactive media, LAN event, motives, video games

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history and development of lan groups

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↑SWALWELL, MELANIE. 2004. ↑The history and development of lan groups: An australasian case study. [.pdf | 160KB] ↑Proceedings of the ↑Other Players Conference, Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. 6-8 December 2004.
 

abstract:
Few research projects have inquired into Lanning, the practice where gamers play multiplayer games with and against each other, usually over purpose built local area networks (LAN), or Lans (the exceptions are Swalwell, 2003; Jansz). Lan gaming is not only an important precursor to newer forms of networked gaming; it is also an evolving form of gaming in its own right. This paper reports on research into the history and development of several Lan gaming groups in Australasia. It addresses the development of Lans and their changes over time, through reporting on conversations with Lan organizers.

keywords:
LAN, organisation, experimentation, re- and de-territorialization, fun

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from pong to planet quake

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gamemodding as post-industrial unwaged work

↑POSTIGO, HECTOR R. 2003. ↑From Pong to Planet Quake: Post-industrial transitions from leisure to work [.pdf | 88KB]. ↑Information, Communication & Society ↑6(4):593–607.
 

abstract:
In the closing weeks of 2002, video games were featured in various popular
American news publications and media outlets such as Wired, Entertainment
Weekly, Newsweek and Time Magazine. It is becoming increasingly apparent that
video games are no longer child’s play, but rather that they are poised to become
a major entertainment form for the twenty-first century. Social analysts and
media scholars must begin to formulate an understanding of this emerging
mass-consumer phenomenon because it will increasingly impact social and
economic structures of post-industrial societies. Part of the tremendous value
generated by the American video-game industry is tied into broad global economic
shifts that have created a space where services and ephemeral products,
such as software, can be created and cheaply distributed. The predominance
of ‘high-tech’ production, the rise of the Internet, and the cultural capital
associated with computerization all have contributed to the rise of hobbyist
software developers that currently tinker with commercial video games and
freely add to them increasing levels of sophistication. This paper sees videogame
programmer hobbyists as a source of some of the significant value that
the video-game industry generates, and understands the role of the programmer
hobbyists through the lens of theories on post-industrial work. My analysis
situates the work of hobbyists on the Internet within the context of post-
Fordism and explores some of the motivations for this unwaged work. In the
sections that follow, I will analyse the potential value of the work hobbyist do
as well as analyse its transition to paid work as some commercial software
developers experiment with incorporating these fan bases into the game design
process.

keeywords:
unwaged work, mods, modders, modifications, hackers

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gamer br

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Gamer br
 

↑Gamer br [46:50min | .avi | 147.3MB] by Pedro Bayeux and Flavio Soares
 

is a Brazilian documentary about the game scene around here. It gives voice to gamers, producers, lanhouse owners, journalists, psychologists, anthropologists, politicians, government representatives and game enthusiasts about questions as professional gaming, market, ‘addiction’, piracy, policies of incentive, censorship and the so discussed ‘violence’ in games. [my emphasis]

And finally it builds up to a very sensible discussion of ‘the virtual’. All in all I take Gamer br to be a kind of ethnological documentary. Just for the flavor, here are some snippets from the English subtitles:
 

“I think piracy is harmful, it makes companies lose money … But, if it wasn’t for piracy, we wouldn’t have the game market we have today in Brazil.”
—pablo miyazawa, journalist

“There are many reasons for us not to have a strong game industry in Brazil. The most recent of them is piracy. Well, it’s not a cause of it, it’s actually a consequence, of the absence of a clear policy for content to be cheaper, for it to get to people more easily, for it to be more democratic… So piracy is nothing but one consequence of a strangled market at the mercy of international products that flood into Brazil—and Brazil does not assert itself with an economy of its own.”
—alfredo manevy, ministry of culture representative

“I think some games have very complex narratives, which could also be used as literary theories.”
—hermano vianna, anthropologist

tnx to 2R

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gamer br

xirdalium Posted on by

Title card of 'Gamer br' (Bayeux & Soares 2005)
↓Gamer br [46:50min | .avi | 147.3MB] by Pedro Bayeux and Flavio Soares:

is a Brazilian documentary about the game scene around here. It gives voice to gamers, producers, lanhouse owners, journalists, psychologists, anthropologists, politicians, government representatives and game enthusiasts about questions as professional gaming, market, ‘addiction’, piracy, policies of incentive, censorship and the so discussed ‘violence’ in games. [my emphasis]

And finally it builds up to a very sensible discussion of ‘the virtual’. All in all I take Gamer br to be a kind of ethnological documentary. Just for the flavor, here are some snippets from the English subtitles:

“I think piracy is harmful, it makes companies lose money … But, if it wasn’t for piracy, we wouldn’t have the game market we have today in Brazil.”
—pablo miyazawa, journalist

“There are many reasons for us not to have a strong game industry in Brazil. The most recent of them is piracy. Well, it’s not a cause of it, it’s actually a consequence, of the absence of a clear policy for content to be cheaper, for it to get to people more easily, for it to be more democratic… So piracy is nothing but one consequence of a strangled market at the mercy of international products that flood into Brazil—and Brazil does not assert itself with an economy of its own.”
—alfredo manevy, ministry of culture representative

“I think some games have very complex narratives, which could also be used as literary theories.”
—hermano vianna, anthropologist

BAYEUX, PEDRO AND FLAVIO SOARES. ↓Gamer br [documenatry film]. Brazil. Available online: http://archive.org/details/Gamer_Br_EnglishVersion
tnx to 2R
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