As the technology that powers cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, blockchains are associated with volatile and (as yet) largely unregulated financial trade, but they are also about more than money. This capacity to help automate, incentivize and authenticate global trade has numerous potential applications. Blockchain technologies promise efficient transactions, greater accountability of trade and increased/direct payment for creative enterprise. As such, despite their lingering technical challenges, these nascent technologies are already being employed within a wide variety of creative innovation processes. Based upon research into their potential applications within Scotland's digital creative industries, this study explores the ways in which these emerging technologies might disrupt digital creative industries, such as digital media production, digital art, web/interface/experience design, application development, extended reality and gaming, both in Scotland and beyond. Of particular interest are the ways that these emerging technologies might transform value exchange and intellectual property management. Early results indicate that blockchain technologies are poised to substantially disrupt the sale and distribution of creative digital works. Yet, whilst these emerging technologies can encourage open innovation, it also seems likely that they will just as often be used to streamline existing systems designed to control and potentially exploit creativity. The implications for digital disruption theories are discussed, highlighting the need for frameworks that can also account for second‐order disruptions.

The first-person shooter (FPS), with its subjective view point and relentless action, gives its players an intense, often violent, virtual experience. There has been considerable debate about the effects of this mediated experience. Of particular concern is whether these games stage a propaganda campaign for the interests of governments and the military-industrial complex. Some fear that these games are leading us toward a perpetual state of war. However, such discussions have usually focussed on a very narrow selection from the FPS genre. This article examines a large sample, over 160 individual titles, of FPSs with a contemporary setting. The enemies presented by these games are analyzed and found to be far wider than a narrow examination of games based on topical conflicts would suggest, being instead inspired by a range of political, cultural, and literary sources. Any analysis of FPS games needs to take this diversity into account.

Advancements in digital monitoring solutions collaborate closely with electronic medical records. These fine-grained monitoring capacities can generate and process extensive electronic record data. Such capacities promise to enhance mental health care but also risk contributing to further stigmatization, prejudicial decision-making, and fears of disempowerment. This article discusses the problems and solutions identified by nine people with lived experience of being mental health care consumers or informal carers. Over the course of ten facilitated focus group format sessions (two hours) between October 2019 and April 2021, the participants shared their lived experience of mental health challenges, care, and recovery within the Australian context. To support the development, design, and implementation of monitoring technologies, problems, and solutions were outlined in the following areas—access, agency, interactions with medical practitioners, medication management, and self-monitoring. Emergent design insights include recommendations for strengthened consent procedures, flexible service access options, and humanized consumer interactions. While consumers and carers saw value in digital monitoring technologies that could enable them to take on a more proactive involvement in their personal wellness, they had questions about their level of access to such services and expressed concerns about the changes to interactions with health professionals that might emerge from these digitally enabled processes.

No abstract

What does game design theory offer for efforts to reconfigure social value exchange using emerging blockchain technologies in Scotland's Creative Industries? Blockchain eco-systems are platform co-operatives that combine digital networking systems with blockchain peer-to-peer authentication technologies. While digital networks such as these can successfully co-ordinate self-interest for mutual benefit they are not by their nature public services and need to be designed accordingly in order to help manage their societal impact, while also promoting their public benefits. In this chapter, we present a manifesto for the application of game design principles within blockchain eco-systems for social value transformation. As we argue, game design strategies can help to manage tensions between creativity and sustainability, individual versus collective concerns, and quantified versus priceless values. Such speculative opportunities for playful co-operation are considered here within the context of Scotland's creative collectives. The unique contribution of this study is to develop a preliminary exploration for the playful engineering of crypto-based co-operative economies.