Videogame cities in motion

Videogame cities are 'real-and-imagined' spaces whose ubiquity as a setting for games illustrates the persistent fascination with the opportunities for play in urban space. In order to describe these videogame cities, we need a framework that considers them as they relate not only to one another, but to other material and immaterial cities as well. Cities, according to landscape architect Douglas Allen, have a constitutional order that describes their structure and a representational order that fills this space with activity. While these concepts are useful for thinking about the way space organizes and afford certain activities, I pose that the addition of an experiential order better addresses the 'specificity' that makes each real-and-imagined city unique. The experience of these videogame cities primarily emerges from the movement of the player as they are embodied as something acting in the space. The videogame city in motion brings to life the 'spaces of flows' - sequences of exchange and interaction ﾖ that sociologist Manuel Castells argues characterize the city in the information/computer age. Thus, not only do videogame cities draw on existing architecture, narratives, and mediations, they exhibit the traits of networked cities in their coordinated processes. By looking at the history of the development of the open-world city, its architectural organization, visual representations, algorithmic infrastructures, and how players traverse space, it is possible to paint a picture of what kinds of places these videogame cities are and how they allow us to reflect on urban form.Ph.D

The value chain in the Asian online gaming industry: a case study of Taiwan

This research examines the changing nature of the Asian online gaming industry and the position of Taiwan in the regional market. The evidence used was gathered through fieldwork conducted in Taiwan, Beijing and Shanghai from January to October in 2007. Firstly, it explores the situation from the perspective of political economy in order to understand the process of commodification, including production, marketing and distribution. The research establishes that the game industry operates within a highly competitive market requiring substantial investments. Since game production requires complex technological skills, there is a high capital cost, and the process is very time consuming. Today's online gaining business has segmented into different sectors with varying roles, i.e. developer, publisher, distributor and operator, controlled by different players in the business. The research shows that Asian game firms seek vertical synergies by expanding complex collaborative networks of production, marketing and operation in order to minimize costs and maximize profits. This implies that an international value chain has been established within the regional economy due to that the capacity of modern East Asian cities to accelerate the integration of the online gaming industry into regional economic activity. Secondly, online gaming overall is a popular form of interactive entertainment in the intra-Asian market. The key theories used to understand digital games are debated between narratology and ludology. However, neither is capable of providing an explanation for the Asian gaming culture. On further examination, certain types of game genres, 'wuxia' and 'cute' games, are found to have a particular appeal for Asian users. The wuxia genre is exclusively circulated in the greater Chinese cultural arena. The 'cute' game originates from the protagonists and themes of Japanese video games. This genre is well accepted by Asian users living in urban environments, and has become a force to unite city gainers in different Asian countries. Lastly, the thesis explores the unique position of Taiwan's game industry, which has been transformed from a test-bed for games aimed at the Chinese market into an intermediary between China and the rest of the world. Before 2002, Taiwan was regarded as a springboard for foreign firms wishing to enter the big Chinese market. Now, China's game industry has emerged and Chinese games have been exported to other Asian countries. Currently Taiwan is the biggest export market. The sophisticated features of the Taiwanese market mean that it can act as a stepping stone for Chinese game firms wishing to expand into wider regional and global markets

Video Conferencing: Infrastructures, Practices, Aesthetics

The COVID-19 pandemic has reorganized existing methods of exchange, turning comparatively marginal technologies into the new normal. Multipoint videoconferencing in particular has become a favored means for web-based forms of remote communication and collaboration without physical copresence. Taking the recent mainstreaming of videoconferencing as its point of departure, this anthology examines the complex mediality of this new form of social interaction. Connecting theoretical reflection with material case studies, the contributors question practices, politics and aesthetics of videoconferencing and the specific meanings it acquires in different historical, cultural and social contexts

Like! Feelings and Friendship In The Age of Algorithms

This dissertation frames the Like button as a locus through which to analyze the politics of social media. The Like button is more than a simple signal of approval or support; instead, the button makes human reactions machine-readable so that pressing Like communicates simultaneously with social media users and with the social media platform. Rendering feelings as information is an act of de-contextualization that enables feelings, or their approximations, to operate at new scales. As a result of this transformation, the Like button gets bound up in some very big problems, including addiction, competition, sensationalism, and manipulation. I treat social media as infrastructure, marking out the ways that social media is part of the built environment and provides the grounds for social interaction, work, commerce, networking, political organizing, and more. Chapter 1 introduces the concept of affective infrastructure, or infrastructure that is affectively responsive, capable of sensing people&rsquo;s feelings and acting upon that information. Chapter 2 traces the origins of the idea of affective infrastructure back to mid-century radio research and re-interprets the media effects tradition of mass communication research in the United States as centrally concerned with media affects, or the ability of communication technologies to shape people&rsquo;s feelings, beliefs, and subsequent actions. Chapter 3 comparatively analyzes the history of interaction design on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and shows how engagement emerged as the organizing paradigm of social media. I argue that the focus on individual engagement comes into conflict with other values, such as well-being, the public good, and democracy. Chapter 4 investigates everyday experiences of affective infrastructure through interviews with artists using Instagram. I argue that social media creates infrastructural feeling rules, or styles of emotional expression reinforced with access to visibility in the form of algorithmic recommendations. Infrastructural feeling rules not only shape what people share on social media but also their sense of self. The concluding chapter reflects on the role of engagement in structuring social interactions and shaping subjectivity, in addition to laying out four provocations for social research in the age of algorithms.</p