Orangutan play on and beyond a touchscreen.

Non-humans in captivity require enrichment, which often takes the form of play. Over the course of past decades, various technologies have been introduced in zoos around the world to support captive animals' wellbeing. With a critical design / player ethnography approach, TOUCH project brings computer technologies to orangutans living at the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Centre in Indonesia. This paper discusses the role of play in the lives of two young male orangutans, Bento and Is, and explores how play can serve as a basis for cross-species communication between humans and orangutans

Orangutan play on and beyond a touchscreen.

Non-humans in captivity require enrichment, which often takes the form of play. Over the course of past decades, various technologies have been introduced in zoos around the world to support captive animals' wellbeing. With a critical design / player ethnography approach, TOUCH project brings computer technologies to orangutans living at the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Centre in Indonesia. This paper discusses the role of play in the lives of two young male orangutans, Bento and Is, and explores how play can serve as a basis for cross-species communication between humans and orangutans

Game Production Studies

Video games have entered the cultural mainstream and in terms of economic profits they now rival established entertainment industries such as film or television. As careers in video game development become more common, so do the stories about precarious working conditions and structural inequalities within the industry. Yet, scholars have largely overlooked video game production cultures in favor of studying games themselves and player audiences. In Game Production Studies, an international group of established and emerging researchers takes a closer look at the everyday realities of video game production, ranging from commercial industries to independent creators and cultural intermediaries. Across sixteen chapters, the authors deal with issues related to labour, game development, monetization and publishing, as well as local specificities. As the first edited collection dedicated solely to video game production, this volume provides a timely resource for anyone interested in how games are made and at what costs

Multispecies methods, technologies for play

School of Desig

Multispecies Communities

Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter, Dr. Pablo Abend und Prof. Dr. Benjamin Beil sind Herausgeber der Reihe. Die Herausgeber*innen der einzelnen Hefte sind renommierte Wissenschaftler*innen aus dem In- und Ausland."Multispecies Communities" sind nicht mehr alleine auf den Menschen fixiert und bringen andere Akteure ins Spiel. Damit ergeben sich neue Formen der Kommunikationen und Kollaborationen, der Verantwortlichkeiten und der Rücksichtnahmen (awareness), der Vergemeinschaftungen und der Teilhaben: Diese finden statt zwischen Menschen und Tieren, Pflanzen und Algorithmen, Artefakten und Biofakten, Maschinen und Medien; zwischen den Sphären von belebt und unbelebt, real und virtuell, unberührt und augmentiert. Der Umgang mit Technik ist längst kein menschliches Privileg mehr, wie die Ausdifferenzierungen von Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) oder Plant-Computer Interaction (PCI) verdeutlichen. Diese Ausdifferenzierungen finden ihren Niederschlag ebenso in den verschiedenen Disziplinen der Wissenschaft und in der Kunst sowie in gesellschaftlichen, sozialen, ethischen und politischen Aushandlungen des gemeinsamen Miteinanders. In dieser Ausgabe sind für diesen Diskussionszusammenhang relevante programmatische Texte versammelt und erstmals für den deutschsprachigen Raum zugänglich gemacht."Multispecies communities" are no longer focused on humans alone and bring other actors into play. This results in new forms of communication and collaboration, of responsibilities and awareness, of communalisation and participation: These take place between humans and animals, plants and algorithms, artefacts and biofacts, machines and media; between the spheres of animate and inanimate, real and virtual, untouched and augmented. Dealing with technology is no longer a human privilege, as the differentiations from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) into Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) or Plant-Computer Interaction (PCI) exemplify. These differentiations are also reflected in the various disciplines of science and art as well as in societal, social, ethical and political negotiations of shared interaction. In this issue, relevant programmatic texts have been collected for this discussion context and made available for the first time for the German-speaking area

Email Interviews in Player Research: The Case of The Sims 2 Skinners

This article discusses the advantages and challenges of email interviewing in player research that concentrates on players’ identity work online. Building on the Cultural Studies tradition of ethnographic interviewing and feminist researchers’ interest in ethically accountable researcher– participant relationships, the article explores how email supports the creation of more equal interview settings and allows benefi ts such as cross-fertilization and generous disclosure of players’ experiences due to asynchrony and remote exchange. The study concentrates on players who create new and altered content, game modifi cations, for The Sims 2 game, and share these with their peers on a Finnish The Sims 2 online forum