Sub-Versions: Investigating Videogame Hacking Practices and Subcultures

“Hacking” is an evocative term — one that is mired in tropes that reduce a diverse range of practices into a few stereotypically malicious activities. This thesis aims to explore one hacking practice, videogame hacking, whose practitioners make unauthorized alterations to videogames after their release. Through interviews, game analysis, and reflective writing, this thesis investigates videogame hacking subcultures of production — communities of creative labour that exist in the margins of mediamaking and the fringes of the law. This thesis begins by reviewing popular media and existing accounts of computer hacker culture, primarily Steven Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and Gabriella Coleman’s Coding Freedom, in order to contextualize videogame hacking in broader histories of computer culture. Using this analysis as a starting point, the author then proposes a reflexive methodological framework for studying videogame hacking subcultures, designed to accommodate the ephemerality of virtual communities and the apprehensions of participants. The following two chapters refer to participant interviews to pursue two avenues of research. First, drawing upon Michel de Certeau’s writing on strategies versus tactics and Henry Jenkins chronicling of prohibitionist and collaborationist models, this study explores how intellectual property law serves as a site of tension between media companies and videogame fans. Second, the author explores the diverse motivations of videogame hackers who create works that are undistributable through commercial markets and may face the risk of legal action

Automated state of play: rethinking anthropocentric rules of the game

Automation of play has become an ever more noticeable phenomenon in the domain of video games, expressed by self-playing game worlds, self-acting characters, and non-human agents traversing multiplayer spaces. This article proposes to look at AI-driven non-human play and, what follows, rethink digital games, taking into consideration their cybernetic nature, thus departing from the anthropocentric perspectives dominating the field of Game Studies. A decentralised post-humanist reading, as the author argues, not only allows to rethink digital games and play, but is a necessary condition to critically reflect AI, which due to the fictional character of video games, often plays by very different rules than the so-called “true” AI

Distributed Teaching and Learning in Pokémon Go

abstract: This dissertation shares the results of a study of the community of the mobile augmented reality game Pokémon Go. It also serves to build on and expand the framework of Distributed Teaching and Learning (DTALS), which here is used as a framework through which to explore the game’s community (Gee & Gee, 2016; Holmes, Tran, & Gee, 2017).  DTALS serves to expand on other models which examine learning in out-of-school contexts, and in particular on the connections between classroom and out-of-school learning, which numerous scholars argue is of critical importance (Sefton-Green, 2004; Vadeboncoeur, Kady-Rachid, & Moghtader, 2014). This framework serves to build bridges as well as fill gaps in some key literature on learning in out-of-school contexts, including connected learning (Ito et al., 2009), participatory culture (Jenkins, Purushotma, Weigel, Clinton, & Robison, 2009), learning ecologies (Barron, 2006), and affinity spaces (Gee, 2004; Gee & Hayes, 2012). The model also focuses on teaching in addition to learning in and across informal contexts. While DTALS can be used to examine any number of phenomena, this dissertation focuses on the community around Pokémon Go. The game, with its emphasis on geography and community, presents unique opportunities for research. This research draws on existing video game research which focuses on not only games but their communities, and in particular the learning and literacy activities which occur in these communities (Gee & Hayes, 2012; Hayes & Duncan, 2012; Squire, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006). The results here are presented as three separate manuscripts. Chapter Two takes a broad view of a local community of players, and discusses different player types and how they teach and learn around the game. Chapter Three focuses on families who play the game together, and in particular three focal parents who share their perceptions of the game's merits, especially its potential to promote family bonding and learning. Chapter Four discusses teaching, in particular guides written about the game and the ways in which they are situated in particular Discourses (Gee, 2014). Finally, Chapter Five offers implications from these three chapters, including implications for designers and researchers as well as calls for future research.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 201

Popularity of Pokémon video games

Abstract. Pokémon is one of the most successful media franchises ever and is known all over the world. The idea of Pokémon was created by Satoshi Tajiri in the 1990s. Pokémon started its worldwide journey from Japan in 1996 as two video games on Nintendo’s Game Boy gaming system. Pokémon and its popularity has been researched a lot over the last 27 years as have been video games. More recently multiple researchers have focused on the more recent video game trend, Pokémon GO. However, research focusing on Pokémon video games instead of Pokémon as a whole or just Pokémon GO are scarcer. This research tries to answer what makes Pokémon video games so popular and how the video games have stayed relevant for so long. The research was conducted as a literacy review over existing literacy and research. To work towards understanding the Pokémon games better, this research first takes a look at Pokémon games overall. The concept of Japanese definition of cuteness ‘kawaii’ and its relation to Pokémon is also discussed. The second chapter focuses on Pokémon GO: its rise to popularity and the problems it faced. The third chapter discusses the psychology of video games and how they affect the human brain. A conclusion was drawn from the literacy found and used in this research. A clear reason for the popularity of the Pokémon video games could not be defined, but instead it is a result of multiple factors. Pokémon’s number one selling point are the Pokémon characters themselves. Pokémon not having similar competing products at the time of release and Pokémon video games being solid video games were other notable factors that helped Pokémon video games to gain the popularity they have

Born to Run: A Grounded Theory Study of Cheating in the Online Speedrunning Community

Video games represent a growing genre of media quickly becoming one of the leading forms of entertainment (Jordan, 2014). This popularity has allowed new playstyles to emerge across the video game genre, such as e-Sports and speedrunning. In particular, the speedrunning community has somewhat redefined what it means to “cheat” in a video game by accepting the use certain software and hardware violations that could be seen as “cheating” to the general gaming community. This paper examined the social construction of cheating in this digital community through the use of grounded theory methods

Casual Play, Hardcore Community: Social and Spatial Ecosystems in Location-Based Mobile Gameplay

This thesis explores the social and spatial dynamics of two major Location-Based Mobile Games communities in Montréal. By conducting interviews and play sessions with fifteen active members of the local Ingress (Niantic, 2012) and Pokémon Go (Niantic, 2016) player communities, I identify that the social ecosystems that have developed around both games have generated forms of play that extend far beyond the limits of the games themselves. In the first chapter, I draw from Celia Pearce’s understanding of ‘communities of play’ and T.L. Taylor’s notion of ‘power gaming’ to posit that Location-based games communities and their social practices exist somewhere between those found in MMOGs and those found in Social Games. Further, as players are often involved in moderation, research, and organizational activities, I found that interviewees’ engagement with their game of choice means that the typical boundaries between labour and play sometimes disintegrate entirely. Accordingly, I explore the emergent theme of cheating, highlighting how each community perceives, negotiates punishes forms of rule-breaking within their social spheres. As locative gameplay takes place within both the realm of the physical and digital, it can be thought of as having simultaneous modalities of presence. Accordingly, the second chapter investigates how co-presence in locative play can generate tensions between players and non-players in the ‘real world’ and explores how spatial awareness of local play areas transforms through a process of mental mapping. Moreover, spatial experience often correlates with either habitual (everyday) play habits or situational (event-based) instances of play. Like many other games’ communities, the social and spatial ecosystems of Ingress and Pokémon Go are “messy, contested and constantly under negotiation” (Taylor, 153); yet conducting a qualitative analysis around active players within these communities has helped provided a research framework for a more nuanced understanding of how localized micro-communities operate, coordinate and experience locative play

Interactivity, Ethical Behaviors, and Transmediation in Esports: An Analysis of Pokémon Through Uses and Gratifications Theory

Nintendo’s Pokémon is a family-friendly transmedia franchise that recently added esports to its diverse forms of entertainment. This thesis analyzes how the esports practices of Pokémon maintain an inclusive community along with the cultural values and ideology of its company. Elihu Katz et al.’s framing of uses and gratifications theory is used to analyze Pokémon esports practices and its transmediation because it emphasizes the importance of fulfillment and belonging for media consumers based on their needs. By examining Pokémon esports competitions through uses and gratifications theory, I argue Pokémon increases interactivity, promotes ethical behaviors, and expands its brand value across media to address its community’s specific needs. My research furthers the work of media studies scholars Yu-Ling Lin et al., Tanner Higgin, Henry Jenkins, and others. By examining how Pokémon’s gaming franchise is inclusive and accessible to players, the thesis broadens existing scholarship on the social, ethical, and entertainment aspects of esports

Research for Design of Playful Mobile Services for Social Experiences between Nearby Strangers

Having positive interpersonal interactions is a fundamental human need and source of well-being. While fulfilling this need is usually associated with strong ties, research has shown that meaningful social experiences are not limited to those. This research explores the largely untapped social potential of nearby strangers and ways that mobile services can be designed to take advantage of these social opportunities. Play and playfulness appear to be particularly worthwhile ways to achieve this end: play is meaningful in itself (i.e., does not require an external goal) and takes place outside the context of real life. In addition, playful design tends to make digital services more engaging. This research focuses on playfulness as a design quality and explores the social implications of playful mobile services for nearby strangers. This doctoral thesis asks two research questions: What kind of social experiences emerge between nearby strangers from the use of playful mobile services? How can playful mobile services be designed to encourage social experiences between nearby strangers? The research contributes to the field of human-computer interaction and provides insights into mobile service design through six research articles. Two of the studies charted expected experiences with early-stage mobile application concepts for playful interaction between nearby strangers. One of these concepts was further developed into a fully functional mobile application, and a large-scale, in-the-wild study was arranged to explore the actual social experiences it generated. Two of the studies investigated social experiences between nearby strangers in the context of commercial mobile games. The sixth study explored the design space of playful interactions between nearby strangers through co-design workshops. The playful mobile services investigated in this research were found to induce various behaviors that resulted in social experiences between nearby strangers. Examples of such behaviors are the active exploration of the outside world, community building, communicating and collaborating with strangers, and interacting in crowds. I found that playful and social experiences such as competition, surprise, curiosity, inspiration, and benevolence motivated individuals to use these services

Re-curating the Accident: Speedrunning as Community and Practice

This thesis is concerned with speedrunning, the practice of completing a video game as quickly as possible without the use of cheats or cheat devices as well as the community of players that unite around this sort of play. As video games become increasingly ubiquitous in popular media and culture, the project of accounting for and analysing how people interact with these pieces of software becomes more relevant than ever before. As such, this thesis emerges as an initiatory treatment of a relatively niche segment of game culture that has gone underrepresented in extant game and media scholarship. The text begins by discussing speedrunning as a community. By chronicling the community’s beginnings on SpeedDemosArchive.com and examining its growth with the emergence of contemporary content hosting sites like YouTube and Twitch, this thesis presents speedrunning as a collaborative and fast-growing community of practice made up of players who revel in playing games quickly. From there, an analysis of space and speed, both natural and virtual, is undertaken with a view to understanding how speedrunning as a practice relates to games as narrative spaces. Discussions of rule systems in games and within the speedrunning community itself follow. It is ultimately argued that speedrunning is a museum of accidents, a re-curating of a game according to what this thesis calls its explicit rules. This claim is expanded upon through the coining of a concept dubbed curatorial play as well as several case studies of developer responses to various games being speedrun