Playing With Our Selves

Jenson, Jennifer; Taylor, Nicholas; Castell, Suzanne de; Dilouya, Barry

doi:10.1080/14680777.2015.1006652

“…Researchers have also focused on understanding gamers and game culture from perspectives not "inside" virtual worlds. For example, studying MMORPG players in a laboratory setting (Bergstrom, Fisher, & Jenson, 2016;Bergstrom, Jenson, Hydomako, & de Castell, 2015;Fisher & Jenson, 2017;Jenson, 2015;Taylor, Jenson, de Castell, & Dilouya, 2014), and through ethnographies of competitive Halo 3 (a first-person shooter) players (Taylor, 2011). Of particular note is T.L.…”

Section: An Epistemological and Historical Theory Of Playmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently the question of gender in games has turned back towards a methodology that works inductively, focusing on geographic communities, and in-person interviews and surveys (Bergstrom, Fisher, & Jenson, 2016;Fisher and Jenson, 2017;Jenson & de Castell, 2010Jenson, 2015). Fisher & Harvey's (2013) use of feminist action research methods to interview and work collaboratively with is a great example of this.…”

Section: An Epistemological and Historical Theory Of Playmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributing productive play: a materialist analysis of Steam

Joseph¹

2021

Preprint

0

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Valve Corporation’s digital game distribution platform, Steam, is the largest distributor of games on personal computers, analyzed here as a site where control over the production, design and use of digital games is established. Steam creates and exercises processes and techniques such as monopolization and enclosure over creative products, online labour, and exchange among game designers. Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding framework places communication at the centre of the political economy, here of digital commodities distributed and produced by online platforms like Steam. James Gibson’s affordance theory allows the market Steam’s owners create for its users to be cast in terms of visuality and interaction design. These theories are largely neglected in the existing literature in game studies, platform studies, and political economy, but they allow intervention in an ongoing debate concerning the ontological status of work and play as distinct, separate human activities by offering a specific focus on the political economy of visual or algorithmic communication. Three case studies then analyze Steam as a site where the slippage between game-play and work is constant and deepening. The first isolates three sales promotions on Steam as forms of work disguised as online shopping. The second is a discourse analysis of a crisis within the community of mod creators for the game Skyrim, triggered by changes implemented on Steam. The third case study critiques Valve Corporation’s positioning of Steam as a new space to extract value from play by demonstrating historical continuity with consumer monopolies. A concluding discussion argues Steam is a platform that evolves to meet distinct crises and problems in the production and circulation of its digital commodities as contradictions arise. Ultimately, Steam shows how the cycle of capital accumulation encourages monopolization and centralization.

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“…Similar work, such as Nick Taylor's ( 2011) study of competitive Halo 3 players also stands out as an example of games' research influenced by feminist methodologies, that work in concert with accepted qualitative sociological and social science methods to understand the sociology of games. These studies all come in the wake of Jenson's (2015) and Jenson & de Castell's (2010 work on gender, games, and education, all of which contextualized the gendered qualities of games and technology.…”

Section: An Epistemological and Historical Theory Of Playmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributing productive play: a materialist analysis of Steam

Joseph¹

2021

Preprint

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Valve Corporation’s digital game distribution platform, Steam, is the largest distributor of games on personal computers, analyzed here as a site where control over the production, design and use of digital games is established. Steam creates and exercises processes and techniques such as monopolization and enclosure over creative products, online labour, and exchange among game designers. Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding framework places communication at the centre of the political economy, here of digital commodities distributed and produced by online platforms like Steam. James Gibson’s affordance theory allows the market Steam’s owners create for its users to be cast in terms of visuality and interaction design. These theories are largely neglected in the existing literature in game studies, platform studies, and political economy, but they allow intervention in an ongoing debate concerning the ontological status of work and play as distinct, separate human activities by offering a specific focus on the political economy of visual or algorithmic communication. Three case studies then analyze Steam as a site where the slippage between game-play and work is constant and deepening. The first isolates three sales promotions on Steam as forms of work disguised as online shopping. The second is a discourse analysis of a crisis within the community of mod creators for the game Skyrim, triggered by changes implemented on Steam. The third case study critiques Valve Corporation’s positioning of Steam as a new space to extract value from play by demonstrating historical continuity with consumer monopolies. A concluding discussion argues Steam is a platform that evolves to meet distinct crises and problems in the production and circulation of its digital commodities as contradictions arise. Ultimately, Steam shows how the cycle of capital accumulation encourages monopolization and centralization.

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“…A number of studies refer to this practice as gender swapping, but this practice would be better understood as sex swapping because the vast majority of games force the player to choose between male or female (Barnett & Coulson, 2010). Avatar sex swapping in games is quite common, with one study reporting 20% of female and 32% of male World of Warcraft players using at least one sex-swapped avatar (Jenson et al, 2015). Qualitative studies that consider gendered avatar identification beyond the behavioral assumptions of sex selection found that even those players who seemingly fit into gendered roles held various reasonings which did not fit with typical assumptions (Hayes, 2007(Hayes, , 2008T.…”

Section: Beyond Binaries Of Sex and Gender: Evolving Work In Literarymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research suggests that women tend to build or choose virtual self-representations in ways that closely reflect their gender identification (Ratan, Fordham, Leith, & Williams, 2019). In contrast, men tend to create avatars that stray further from their gender identity (Jenson, Taylor, de Castell, & Dilouya, 2015; Paik & Shi, 2013; Yee, Ducheneaut, Yao, & Nelson, 2011). While the act of avatar creation is influenced by game genre and specific type of player–avatar relationship (Banks, 2015) and is thus largely context dependent, the gendered elements of these choices about avatars have been found across multiple genres.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sentimental Avatars: Gender Identification and Vehicles of Selfhood in Popular Media From Nineteenth-Century Novels to Modern Video Games

Mendelman

¹

,

Ratan

²

,

Fordham

³

et al. 2019

Games and Culture

2

0

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This article examines how the embodied experience of contemporary avatar use overlaps with 19th-century American sentimental literature and cultural assumptions about gender and readerly identification in that period. Drawing on recent quantitative and qualitative research on avatar use and ongoing scholarship on nineteenth-century literature, we offer theoretical insights about the resonance between historical and contemporary understandings of media consumption as it intersects with cultural notions of sex and gender differences. Theories of sentimentalism help us to reconsider how gender is conceptualized in quantitative studies of avatars. Our cross-disciplinary study of embodiment and visceral experience thus argues for expanding modes of inquiry within quantitative games scholarship to more fully capture the interplay between gender identity and individual factors in avatar experiences. We conclude with three strategies for quantitative games scholars to consider as a means to enrich our understanding of the complexities of gender in modern game contexts.

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Playing With Our Selves

Cited by 17 publications

References 22 publications

Distributing productive play: a materialist analysis of Steam

Distributing productive play: a materialist analysis of Steam

Distributing productive play: a materialist analysis of Steam

Sentimental Avatars: Gender Identification and Vehicles of Selfhood in Popular Media From Nineteenth-Century Novels to Modern Video Games

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