Non-human gaming

In this talk, I will critically analyse the rise of video games that require limited human intervention to be played. Idle games such as Cookie Clicker and Adventure Capitalist, games made by algorithms such as No Man’s Sky, the programming of AI to play games such as Screeps, Drivatars and ghost cars in racing games, all suggest that human beings are becoming peripheral in the act of playing and in the definition of video games. Drawing on Sonia Fizek’s analysis of Slavoj Zizek and Robert Pfaller’s concept of interpassivity, and on studies on gamification and self-tracking, I will argue that Non-Human Gaming is not necessarily an exception to oppose to ‘standard’ video games, or a temporary trend. I will argue that the non-human has always been haunting the medium, and that studies on interactivity, agency, and player’s competences have been providing, so far, a comforting perspective that places the human at the centre. In fact, Non-Human Gaming is an adequate response to the disappearance of life from Earth – as it has been imagined, feared, and prophesised by scientists in the last few decades. Alexander Galloway’s concept of video games as allegories of life will be deployed to argue that digital games are transforming into living things, which could entirely replace human players and play by themselves. From this perspective, video games might be seen in relation to the rise of self-driving cars, algorithmic trade exchange, and remote warfare, which could be functioning by themselves after human extinction. Roger Caillois, in his early work on mimicry and mythology, was already prefiguring a similar hypothesis: living beings develop forms of dispersal and waste of energy (of which games are an example) that cannot be explained through a rationalistic view on evolution and species preservation, but are nonetheless defining characteristics of life

Narratives of independent production in video game culture

Independent gaming, by describing itself as 'independent', automatically establishes its opposing force: a 'dependent', mainstream industry to be emancipated from. However, such a narrative of emancipation does not seem to propose a solid ground for its definition. Independent gaming is often presented as based on a technological revolution in the processes of game development. Also, it appears to be based on the alleged freedom of the independent developers, who overcome the restrictions imposed by the mainstream industry in order to express themselves through a personal, almost intimate work. Such enthusiastic descriptions can be easily counter-balanced by noting the difficulties and risks of independent game development, which forces the designers to struggle to find sufficient budget and exposure to produce and promote their work. The concept of ‘independence’ seems to have emerged in video game culture as a discursive redefinition of some of the practices of production of a game product. As such, it is not only descriptive but also generative of further practices and interpretations. In this paper I would like to propose an understanding of independent gaming not as based on an actual revolution (being it technological, economic or based on a different organization of work), but more as a change in the discourses surrounding contemporary video game culture. As such, it can be understood for the influences it receives and replicates, such as those coming from the creative industries and contemporary forms of immaterial labor. I will look at some specific cases, such as the ways in which articles, public events and the documentary 'Indie game: the movie' present independent gaming. I will debate which kind of 'independence' is outlined through the discourses produced within these contexts. This analysis does not intend to flatten independent gaming as a mere mirroring of practices coming from other media contexts, but rather proposes to look at it from a different perspective, which could possibly support a partial redefinition of its narrative. This could advocate a milder focus on the individual as an agent of artistic and cultural innovation, and more attention instead to the practices of co-operation which might emerge from a more flexible organization in the production of digital games

Future Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture

This book is not about the future of video games. It is not an attempt to predict the moods of the market, the changing profile of gamers, the benevolence or malevolence of the medium. This book is about those predictions. It is about the ways in which the past, present and future notions of games are narrated and negotiated by a small group of producers, journalists and gamers, and about how invested these narrators are in telling the story of tomorrow. In Future Gaming Paolo Ruffino suggests the story could be told another way. Considering game culture, from the gamification of self-improvement to GamerGate’s sexism and violence, Ruffino lays out an alternative, creative mode of thinking about the medium: a sophisticated critical take that blurs the distinctions among studying, playing, making and living with video games. Offering a series of stories that provide alternative narratives of digital gaming, Ruffino aims to encourage all of us who study and play (with) games to raise ethical questions, both about our own role in shaping the objects of research, and about our involvement in the discourses we produce as gamers and scholars. For researchers and students seeking a fresh approach to game studies, and for anyone with an interest in breaking open the current locked-box discourse, Future Gaming offers a radical lens with which to view the future

Video game subcultures: playing at the periphery of mainstream culture [special issue of GAME Journal]

This issue of GAME Journal offers an overview and a series of case studies on video games from the point of view of subcultural theory. There has been little work in game studies from this perspective, which offers a theoretical frame for the ever growing complexity of the audiences involved with the medium of the video game. The study of subcultures on the other hand has a long standing and complex tradition which culminates in what has been recently defined as the “post-subcultural” theoretical scenario

Non-Human Gaming: Video Games in the Post-Anthropocene

In this presentation, I will address the possibility of an imminent mass extinction of all living beings from planet Earth, and the implications of such a catastrophic event for games studies. The Anthropocene, a term popularized by the end of the 20th century to refer to the geological impact of human beings on planet Earth, assumes a temporal development, a ‘before’ and ‘after’ the appearance of humankind. The ‘after’ period, known as the Post-Anthropocene, is repeatedly claimed by scientists to be approaching within the next few decades, as over-consumption is destroying vital resources of the planet. Allegedly, the sixth mass extinction in the history of our planet is already unfolding, and might determine the disappearance of life from Earth and, as far as we know, from the Universe and beyond (Zylinska 2014; Wark 2015; Haraway 2016; Thacker 2010). Video games have been responding to the arrival of the Post-Anthropocene. In recent years, an increasing number of games appear to capture the fascination and creepiness of a world with no humans. This impending future is not just imagined in fictional settings (e.g. The Legenda of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Nintendo, 2000; Horizon: Zero Dawn, Guerrilla Games, 2017), but within game design. In the last decade an increasing number of video games requiring limited human intervention has been released. Idle games such as Cookie Clicker (Julien Thiennot, 2013) and AdVenture Capitalist (Hyper Hippo Productions, 2014) require an initial input from the player to start, and then keep playing themselves in the background operations of a laptop or smartphone. Virtual environments can be entirely designed by algorithms, as experimented by Hello Games for No Man’s Sky (2016). Artificial Intelligence is also used to play games. Screeps, a massive-multiplayer online game, requires players to program an AI that will play the game in their place, and which will ‘live within the game even while you are offline’ (Screeps Team, 2014). Ghost cars in racing games replace the human actor with a representation of their performance. The same concept is further explored by the Drivatar of the Forza Motorsport series (Microsoft Studios, 2005-2017), which simulates the driving style of the player and competes online against other AI-controlled cars (Bittanti 2015). These are only some of the example that suggest that human beings are becoming peripheral in the act of playing games. The video installation Emissaries, at MoMA PS1, by Ian Cheng (2017), and Twitch streaming of computer-controlled avatars in Grand Theft Auto by Ben Watanabe (San Andreas Deer Cam, 2016; San Andreas Community Cam, 2017) are further investigations in how games could play themselves even after the disappearance of human beings. Drawing on Sonia Fizek’s analysis of the concept of interpassivity in digital games (via the work of Robert Pfaller and Slavoj Zizek), and on studies on gamification and self-tracking, I argue that Non-Human Gaming is not necessarily an exception to oppose to ‘standard’ video games, or a (con)temporary trend (Fizek 2018; Ruffino 2016). The non-human has always been haunting the medium, and studies on interactivity, agency, and player’s skills and competences have been providing, so far, a comforting perspective that places the human at the center, or at an equal hierarchical importance than the machine (Giddings 2005; Björk and Juul 2012). Alexander Galloway imagined how machines could take the lead in the process of enacting a video game, creating ‘ambience acts’ where the game plays itself with no need for the human being to be present (Galloway 2006). Galloway was concerned with the allegories that computer games provide, and the ways in which games mimic the social reality in which we live in. Since 2006, fears of economic, political, social, and geological crises at global level have been prominent. Non-Human gaming can be interpreted as a response to those fears, and put in relation to the rise of self-driving cars, algorithmic trade exchange, and remote warfare, which similarly operate by replacing human beings. In fact, Non-Human Gaming is an adequate response to the disappearance of life from Earth – as it has been imagined, feared, and prophesized by scientists in recent years, and even more insistently since the time of Galloway’s contribution. In this talk I will attempt to map the broad category of Non-Human gaming. Roger Caillois, in his early work on mimicry and mythology, was already describing how living beings develop forms of dispersal and waste of energy that cannot be explained through a rationalistic view on evolution and preservation, and which bring the organism closer to its own disappearance and assimilation in the surrounding environment, but are nonetheless defining characteristics of life (Caillois 1934; 1935). My concern is to highlight the weirdness and creepiness, the irony and spoofs, the paradoxes and contradictions of video games made by no one and/or for no one. As Haraway’s vision of the cyborg did with cybernetics, Non-Human gaming confuses and complicates the ontologies of digital texts, and could be used to shed light on the situatedness, temporality, and partiality of our knowledge, of both humans and games (Haraway 1991; Kember 2018). Life might be disappearing from Earth at some point, but we are not there yet. We are in-between birth and death, the beginning and the end, and we have always been. Non-Human gaming helps us articulating this space and time in-between, and has the potential to re-route gaming (and game studies) from false myths of agency, interactivity, and instrumentalism (the ‘games for’ health, education, self-improvement, and so on). Non-human games are companions for earthly survival. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bittanti, M. (2015) Orizzonti di Forza: Fenomenologia della Guida Videoludica, Edizioni Unicopli Björk, S. and Juul, J. (2012) ‘Zero-Player Games, or: What We Talk About When We Talk About Players’, presented at the Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, Madrid 2012 Caillois, R. (1934) [2014] ‘The Praying Mantis: from Biology to Psychoanalysis’, in The Edge of Surrealism: A Roger Caillois Reader, Durkham: Duke University Press Caillois, R. (1935) [1984] ‘Mimicry and Legendary Psychastenia’, in October (31), Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press Fizek, S. (2018) ‘Interpassivity and the Joy of Delegated Play’. ToDiGRA Journal (to be published). Galloway, A. (2006) Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press. Giddings, S. (2005) Playing with non-humans: digital games as technocultural form. In: Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing Views - Worlds in Play, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 16-20 June 2005. Haraway, D. J. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books. Haraway, D. J. (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press Kember, S. (2017) ‘After the Anthropocene: the photographic for earthly survival?’ in Digital Creativity, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 348-353 Ruffino, P. (2016) ‘Games to Live With: Speculations Regarding NikeFuel’ in Digital Culture and Society, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 153-`159 Thacker, E. (2010) After Life, London and Chicago: Chicago University Press Wark, M. (2015) Molecular Red. Theory for the Anthropocence. London: Verso. Zylinska, J. (2014) Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene. Michigan (MA): Open Humanities Pres

Mirror mirror

The idea that we live in the age of the image has been so thoroughly drilled into us, that all discourse now defines our era in these terms. Paradoxically, it has never been more difficult for each of us to read, analyse and interpret them. The speed with which images are broadcast, especially with new technologies, seems to be inversely proportional to our capacity to understand them in all their complexity. The one object that has been inextricably linked to the idea of image across all ages and art forms, from art to literature, new media to design, must surely be the mirror. As well as its reflective function, it is has also been imbued with strong symbolic connotations. The mirror is thus associated with an array of myths across many cultures. The exhibition Mirror Mirror takes the form of a series of chapters and aims to bridge the microscopic gap separating our image from our being. Our reflection is utterly specific, making it undoubtedly the most complex of all images. In it, recognition and illusion are confused, giving rise to an inner disorder linked to our constant desire to read our identity here. Each chapter tackles a specific theme relating to the mirror or reflections, and presents an array of design objects, complemented by others from the worlds of contemporary art and photography. Artists, whether famous or emerging, offer their take on the idea which, on the frozen surface of the window, now defines our being in the world

Indie Game Studies workshop

At DiGRA 2013 (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA), the Indie Game Studies panel and dedicated issue of the journal Loading…, curated by Prof Bart Simon, brought the emerging forms of independent game development to the attention of game scholars (Parker 2014). Five years later, the indie scene has become richer and varied, and has been adapting to mutating contexts of production and distribution. Festivals, incubators for start-ups and small companies, workshops and mentoring schemes, have been proliferating in the USA, Canada, Australia, Northern Europe, and the United Kingdom. Numerous independent companies have been founded in the geographical areas where the video game industry was already solid, and a significant presence is establishing in parts of the world that have been traditionally distant from the main hubs of video game development. While the differences (economic, managerial, ideological) with the mainstream productions have always been contested, the recent proliferation of independent companies has further confused the boundaries that appeared to separate the independent territories from the ‘official’ video game industry. In 2013 the trade association TIGA estimated that in the United Kingdom ‘83% of all studios that started up in 2011 and 2012 were independent (as opposed to publisher owned)’ (TIGA 2013). It has been estimated that, in 2014, 95% of video game companies in the United Kingdom were micro or small businesses, according to NESTA (2014) and the British government (GOV.uk 2014). In Australia, independent companies now form the ‘backbone’ of game development (Apperley and Golding 2015, 61; Banks and Cunningham 2016). In 2013, a survey involving 2,500 North American game developers revealed that 53% of them identified as ‘indie’ (GDC 2013), and a subsequent survey by IGDA revealed that 48% of US game developers self-identified as independent (IGDA 2014). Independence is no longer a marginal or alternative mode of production, if it ever was, but the most common type of organization within the video game industry. It appears that almost every game developer is now partially or temporarily ‘indie’ within their career, and the trend is expected to grow, consistently with the recent developments of the cinema, music, and fashion industries (Hesmondhalgh 2013, McRobbie 2016). The workshop will explore the current state, meanings, and values associated with independence in video game culture, through a series of contributions and findings that analyse the domain from different perspectives, disciplines and geographical specificities. What is at stake, in 2018, when making claims of autonomy, self-management, and creative control? Are indie games helping improve the diversity deficit in game makers and audiences? Is there still room for independence, in a production context where short-term contracts, individualism, and financial risks are considered necessary to be involved in game development? The workshop picks up where the 2013 DiGRA panel left off, bringing together the most current research and theorizing on the topic of “indie game studies.” Speakers, including some of from the original panel in Atlanta, will present and compare research in a series of short (approx. 15 minutes) presentations. The presentation will culminate in a discussion, to which participants will be invited to contribute, identifying patterns, controversies and gaps, with a view toward continuing towards further collaboration, research, publication and dissemination. Speakers’ contributions: Indie Game Studies – 5 years later Paolo Ruffino (Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Lincoln, UK) Ruffino will introduce the workshop. Drawing on Felan Parker’s proposal of ‘indie game studies’, the workshop gathers some of the international scholars who are currently doing research on independent game development (Parker 2014). This presentation looks at the various approaches to the study of independence. It also questions the reasons for doing research on this topic in this particular historical moment, while developers are starting to organise in local/global unions and networks of mutual assistance. It also draws on regionally specific studies regarding the meaning and values of independence, with a view on mapping the contemporary topics and questions of academic research in the field. Game Production Studies: Theory, Method and Practice Casey O’Donnell (Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University, USA) Dr. O'Donnell's addition to this workshop is rooted in a deep interest and care for game production studies, beginning with his early dissertation work with AAA game developers and subsequently working in a variety of fields doing research on game production in the educational, crowdsourcing and "indie" communities. O'Donnell's focus will be on the theories, methods and practices of performing indie game production studies. Game Production Studies explore the wide array of processes, practices, texts, technologies and aspects that take place in and surrounding the game production process. This process is often referred to generally as "game development," which while rooted in the practice of making games actually constitutes a wide variety of tasks, disciplinary perspectives, processes, people and institutions. Indiepocalypse Nadav Lipkin (Assistant Professor of Media, Communication and Technology at La Roche College, Pittsburgh, PA, USA) In his 2013 article for Loading…, Lipkin went about defining independent games. A fear at the heart of that discussion was that larger corporations would co-opt the indie movement by producing games that look indie without being independent from dominant production practices. Since then, subsequent research suggests a different concern is perhaps more worthy of examination. For this workshop, Lipkin will discuss the Indiepocalypse and focus on how the biggest threat to independents is not the mainstream but each other. Overproduction, a glamorization of insecure and unpaid labor, and mainstream distribution partners (especially Steam) who have contradictory financial interests need to be better understood. By examining these conditions, Lipkin intends to connect the games industry more closely to examinations of other creative industries plagued by similarly poor labor and economic conditions. Some notes on the indiefication of game development Olli Sotamaa (Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Game Lab, School of Information Sciences at University of Tampere, Finland) This presentation will draw on my study of the Finnish game development scene that has been going on for almost a decade now. While Finland arguably is a small node in the global circuits of game production, well known hit games like Rovio’s Angry Birds and Supercell’s Clash of Clans have attracted attention worldwide. Following Garda & Grabarczyk (2016), I consider it important to highlight how the notions of independent games are always connected to given time and place. Accordingly, I examine how independence and ‘indie’ get a particular meaning in a North-European game development scene defined by small domestic market and early focus on mobile games. Drawing from diverse examples ranging from Housemarque, an independent studio founded in 1995 and a nominee for the Best Indie Studio in Develop Awards 2018, to Arvi Teikari, the designer of IGF 2018 winner Baba is You, this presentation explores the different understandings of indie in an environment that has never hosted a strong AAA industry. As at least some of the game development practices look increasingly similar, it is clear that we need to take a closer look at the production networks (Tyni 2017) and cultural intermediaries (Parker, Whitson & Simon 2018) and explore how they differ between individual games and companies. The other side of the spectrum – how indies saved VR Paweł Grabarczyk (Post-Doc at ITU Copenhagen, Denmark) As has been pointed out (Juul 2015, Garda & Grabarczyk 2016) pixel art and low (or at least relatively humble) production values have become the de facto aesthetic standard for contemporary independent games. Indie games can typically be run on modest computers as they do not require expensive graphics cards or fast processors. The result of this common association is that independent games with relatively high production values are sometimes dubbed as “AAA indie” (Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice can be a good example of this). Contrary to this VR technologies are typically associated with expensive, high end machines because they require both: the purchase of a relatively powerful computer and the purchase of the headset itself. On the face of it, VR games and indie aesthetics could not be further apart. It is thus very surprising that this expensive technology attracted a substantial number of independent developers (for example, there are currently 1864 games tagged as “independent” “VR” games on the Steam platform). More importantly, many of the most successful VR games belong to the indie category (Job Simulator, SuperHot VR, Beat Saber). I believe that this phenomenon demands further study, because it escapes some of the existing classifications and conceptualizations of independent games market (the move from retro-aesthetics being the most obvious reason for this). I argue that there are three reasons why independent developers were attracted to VR platforms. The first reason is the move from pixel art to low poly art which has been visible in many recent games (and which made the transition from “flat” games to VR games possible). The second reason is the spirit of innovation which permeates both communities (indie developers and VR developers). The third, most intriguing factor is that VR games created an economic niche which resulted from the lack of so called “AAA” games being developed specifically for VR. Project:INDIE Dr Celia Pearce (Associate Professor of Game Design at Northeastern University, USA) Over the past decade, indie games have grown at such a rapid rate that by 2014 roughly half of game developers identified as indie. This explosion is the outcome of a bottom-up, complex, emergent process representing the convergence of a variety of visible and invisible factors, including: emerging technologies, new publication and funding models, game academia, festivals and exhibitions, accessible creation tools, peer-learning and creative communities (e.g. game jams, co-working spaces), as well changes in government and popular perception of games. Project:INDIE is an initiative and consortium formed to develop an overview of the indie ecosystem, mapping the complex interrelationships and influences between its constituent parts. We will do this by aggregating existing research on indie games, identifying gaps and setting research agendas, and conducting comparative analysis on datasets from key players to understand the synergies between various contributing factors to the growth and commercial success of indie and artgames. Independent game industry in Melbourne, Australia Dr Brendan Keogh (Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Australia) Like other countries beyond North America and Japan, Australia has an emerging, grassroots videogame industry consisting primarily of small teams of independent studios creating original IP in precarious conditions. In Australia, this independent game industry has centred on Melbourne, Victoria, where state funding and the support of institutions such as the State Library of Victoria and the Australian Centre of the Moving Image have encouraged the growth of a robust and diverse ecology of videogame makers. Crucially, within this ecology are two interlocking but distinct independent scenes with different practices and approaches. This talk will present preliminary findings from interview research conducted with 40 videogame makers and cultural institutions in Melbourne to highlight the specific tensions, experiences, skills, and identities across these two Melbourne indie game scenes to draw attention to the need to account for a variety of scales of formal and informal creative labour practices within local videogame development fields. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Paweł Grabarczyk is a post-doc researcher at IT University of Copenhagen and adjunct professor at University of Lodz. His research focuses mostly on the boundaries between philosophy and game studies: specifically philosophy of language (ontology of games and conceptual analysis) and philosophy of mind (forms of representation in games and virtual reality). He is also interested in the study of modern and historical trends in games (indie games, shareware games) and demoscene. He is the president of Centre for Philosophical Research and an editor-in-chief of Replay: The Polish Journal of Game Studies. Brendan Keogh is an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Fellow currently conducting research into Australian videogame makers and skills transfer. He is the author of A Play of Bodies: How We Perceive Videogames and Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops The Line. Nadav Lipkin is an Assistant Professor of Media, Communication and Technology at La Roche College in Pittsburgh. His dissertation, “Agents at work: Decision making capacity and creative labor in network society,” explores agency for creative professionals through a cross-industry analysis and a case study of the independent game development community in New York City. His research focuses on independent media production both in and beyond the games industry. Currently, he is examining the responses of YouTube content producers to changes in the platform’s content policies. Casey O'Donnell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. His research examines the creative collaborative work of videogame design and development. This research examines the cultural and collaborative dynamics that occur in both professional "AAA" organizations and formal and informal "independent" game development communities. His first book, "Developer's Dilemma" is published by MIT Press. Casey is an active game developer, releasing "Osy," in 2011, "Against the Gradient," in 2012, "GLITcH" in 2013 and "Kerem B’Yavneh," in 2016. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Health (NIH). Celia Pearce is an award-winning game designer, researcher, writer and curator. She currently holds a position as Associate Professor of Game Design at Northeastern University. She is the author or co-author of numerous of books and papers, including Communities of Play (MIT Press), Ethnography and Virtual Worlds (Princeton) and IndieCade@10: A Decade of Innovation (CMU ETC Press-In Progress), which chronicles the history of IndieCade, the festival she co-founded. Her recent game credits include Fracture, co-designed for the Blinks Platform, and eBee, which won the 2016 award for Innovation in Tabletop Game Design at Boston Festival of Indie Games. Paolo Ruffino is Lecturer in Media Studies at University of Lincoln, UK, and artist with the collective IOCOSE. Ruffino is the author of Future Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture (Goldsmiths and MIT Press), and editor and co-author of numerous publications on games cultures, gamification, and game art. He has been researching in the areas of digital culture, media and cultural studies, media art, and semiotics. Ruffino is President of DiGRA Italia and board member of British DiGRA. Olli Sotamaa is an Associate Professor of game cultures studies at the University of Tampere. His publications cover co-production, user-generated content, game industry analysis & game studies methods. Sotamaa is the co-director of University of Tampere Game Research Lab and a team leader at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (2018-2025). His current research interests include game production studies, creative labour and game policy. BIBLIOGRAPHY Apperley, T. and Golding, D. (2015) “Australia” in In Video Games Around the World (M.J.P. Wolf, dir.), Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press, pp. 57–70. Arsenault, D., and Guay, L.-M. (2015). “Canada”. In Video Games Around the World (M.J.P. Wolf, dir.), Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press, p. 105-118. Garda, M.B. & Grabarczyk, P. (2016). Is Every Indie Game Independent? Towards the Concept of Independent Game. Game Studies, vol. 16, Issue 1. GDC (2013) “GDC State of the Industry research exposes major trends ahead of March show”. GDConf.com. February 28. Available at http://www.gdconf.com /news/gdc_state_of_the_industry_rese/ GOV.uk (2014). “Video games tax relief passes final hurdle”. GOV.uk, 27th March. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/video-games-tax-relief-passes-final-hurdle Gregg, M. (2011) Work’s Intimacy. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press Hesmondhalgh, David. 2013. The Cultural Industries. 3rd Edition. London: Sage. Kultima, A; Alha, K. & Nummenmaa, T. (2016). Building Finnish Game Jam Community through Positive Social Facilitation. Proceedings of the 20th International Academic Mindtrek Conference, pp. 433-440. New York: ACM. Juul, J. (2014). “High-tech Low-tech Authenticity: The Creation of Independent Style at the Independent Games Festival”. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. Fort Lauderdale. Lessard, J. (2012). “Glutomax: Québecois Proto-Indie Game Development”. Loading... Vol. 7, no 11, December 31st. Available at http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/127. Lipkin, N. (2012). “Examining Indie’s Independence: The Meaning of “Indie” Games, the Politics of Production, and Mainstream Cooptation”. Loading... Vol. 7, no 11, December 31st. Available at http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/122. NESTA (2014) “A Map of the UK Games Industry”, Nesta.org, 25th September. Available at https://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/map-uk-games-industry McRobbie, A. 2016. Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries. Cambridge: Polity Press. Parker, F. (2014) “Indie Game Studies Year Eleven”. In Proceedings of DiGRA 2013: DeFragging Game Studies, Vol. 7, August 2014. Available at http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/indie-game-studies-year-eleven/ Parker, F; Whitson, J.R. & Simon, B. (2018). Megabooth: The cultural intermediation of indie games. New Media & Society, 20(5), 1953-1972. Ruffino, P. (2012). “Narratives of Independent Production in Video Game Culture”. Loading... Vol. 7, no 11, December 31st. Available at http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/120. Swalwell, M., and Davidson, M. (2015). “Game History and the Case of ‘Malzak’: Theorizing the Manufacture of ‘local Product’in 1980s New Zealand”. Locating Emerging Media (Ben Aslinger et Germaine R. Halegoua, dirs.), London: Routledge. Swalwell, M. (2012). “The Early Micro User: Games writing, hardware hacking, and the will to mod”. In Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2012 Conference: Local and Global—Games in Culture and Society , June, Tampere\ud Swalwell, M. (2008). “1980s Home coding: The art of amateur programming”. Aotearoa Digital Arts New Media Reader (Stella Brennan and Su Ballard, dirs.), p. 192-201. Tyni, H. (2017). Double Duty: Crowdfunding and the Evolving Game Production Network. Games and Culture, Online First. UKIE (2017) “The UK Video Games Sector: a Blueprint for Growth”. The UK Interactive Entertainment Association. Available at http://ukie.org.uk/blueprin

Breaking up with NikeFuel: how I ended a 2-years long relationship with my quantified self

In this talk I discuss about my personal experience with the self-tracking device NikeFuel. I re-interpret the notion of engagement, a key concept in the literature on gamification and the QS, where it is used to express the attachment that the user feels with the self-tracking device. Engagement is also the term used to describe the particular moment in a couple's relationship when they are about to commit to a more binding relationship. What sorts of engagement is NikeFuel promoting? What is at stake with breaking up the engagement with one's own quantified self? In this talk I argue that our gamified lives have a problem with the idea of movement and change, a problem which is particularly evident in NikeFuel, and which prevents the possibility of a more challenging, involving and fun gamification

GamerGate: Giocare da Parassiti

In questa presentazione offrirò un’interpretazione di come la figura del parassita possa aiutarci a comprendere il fenomeno GamerGate, e valutare la nostra posizione di accademici, giocatori, designer e commentatori. Questo intervento prende spunto da una serie di eventi personali e scambi dialettici emersi mentre portavo avanti la mia ricerca, periodo durante il quale il mio lavoro si ispirava ai commenti del canale GamerGate su Reddit, e veniva ripreso negli stessi spazi dagli utenti del sito. GamerGate è il nome dato a una serie di accuse e minacce rivolte a donne coinvolte nella cultura dei videogiochi. Sebbene la cultura videoludica sia intrisa da sempre di profondo maschilismo, spesso mascherato da libera competizione e nerdismo, il fenomeno GamerGate ha portato questa tendenza alle sue estreme conseguenze tra l'estate 2014 e il 2015 (Dovey and Kennedy 2006: Chess and Shaw 2015; Paul 2018). Nel suo momento peggiore, GamerGate ha prodotto minacce di morte nei confronti di game designer e commentatrici come Zoe Quinn e Anita Sarkeesian. La campagna è nata e si è propagata soprattutto su social network come Twitter, 4chan e Reddit. Il mio intervento prenderà come punto di partenza proprio un commento pubblicato su Reddit nel marzo 2015, da uno user anonimo (nickname ‘koyima’). Il commento si rivolgeva esplicitamente al mondo accademico e ai game studies, visti come istituzioni incapaci di dare il giusto credito ai gamer, e preoccupati solo di difendere il femminismo e la sua presunta agenda politica. Un utente di Reddit contribuiva alla discussione con il seguente commento (mia traduzione): "l'accademia è come un parassita del gioco al momento. Non producono nulla, cercano solo di fare soldi e saggi (per il loro prestigio) sfruttando il lavoro di altre persone. Di solito cercano di distruggere il lavoro altrui attraverso una prospettiva parziale che non ha un'applicazione nella vita reale’ (koyima, 2015). Nonostante i toni dispreggiativi dell’autore, la definizione del ruolo dell’accademico è piuttosto calzante. Gli studiosi raramente producono qualcosa di tangibile, adottano una prospettiva sicuramente parziale e personale, rielaborano il lavoro di altri ricercatori, e talvolta non offrono applicazioni immediate del loro lavoro. Eppure i parassiti possono essere di molti tipi diversi. I parassiti uccidono esseri viventi, ma sono spesso anche vitali per altri organismi. Sono parassiti anche gli organismi simbiotici che rendono possibile la vita. Da una prospettiva più ampia essere un parassita non è affatto una posizione svantaggiosa. Michel Serres, ne Il Parassita (1982), teorizzava come gli organismi parassitari siano cruciali nei processi di scambio e comunicazione, generalizzando quindi la figura del parassita in qualcosa di più ampio. Il parassita può essere un'eccezione alla norma, o un disturbo nei segnali, il rumore o l'interferenza in un sistema. Le interruzioni parassitarie, secondo Serres, non sono solo da considerarsi come esterne ai sistemi, ma come la loro condizione di possibilità. I parassiti vivono ai margini e dunque tracciano i confini, aprendo i sistemi verso l’esterno. Di fatto, rendendoli possibili, grazie al loro scambio con altri sistemi (siano essi organismi, o culture). I parassiti sono mediatori: stabiliscono connessioni e trasformazioni tra cose già esistenti, alterano le strutture degli organismi biologici e danno loro nuove forme, mentre creano qualcosa per se stessi. In questo intervento prendo spunto dalla polisemia e polivalenza del parassita, ed illustro l’imperativo etico che sottende la figura parassitaria. La figura del parassita ci permette di decostruire le affiliazioni identitarie, e superare il concetto di rappresentazione come falso mito dei discorsi sul genere (Shaw 2014; Fisher and Harvey 2013). La questione dunque non consiste nello stabilire chi è fuori o dentro alla cultura del videogioco, chi ne entra a fare parte o ne resta escluso. Tale visione porta infatti a considerare i giocatori come categorie (spesso assimilabili a quelle delle indagini di mercato), il cui supposto ingresso nella cultura videoludica viene presentato come un evento. Guardare invece alle molteplici forme di parassitaggio, ovvero ai numerosi modi di scrittura e riscrittura del presente, passato e futuro del mezzo del videogioco, ci permette di considerare le molteplici dinamiche di legittimazione e esclusione di gruppi, persone, e forme di vita. In questa presentazione racconto i modi in cui il mio lavoro è stato ispirato dai commenti degli utenti pro-GamerGate su Reddit, per venire poi ripreso proprio da questi. Offro una prospettiva sui modi in cui l’evento GamerGate è stato recepito dalla comunità accademica e dalla critica (Alexander 2014; Golding 2014), e di come forme di parassitaggio benefico persistano ad opera di autrici e autori dalla complessa categorizzazione (Anna Anthropy, Robert Yang). Citazioni Alexander, Leigh. 2014. ‘Gamers Don’t Have to Be Your Audience: Gamers Are Over’. Gamasutra.com, 28 August. Accessed 27 April 2018. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php. Chess, Shira, and Adrienne Shaw. 2015. ‘A Conspiracy of Fishes, or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying About #GamerGate and Embrace Hegemonic Masculinity’. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 59 (1): 208–20. Dovey, Jon, and Kennedy, Helen. 2006. Game Cultures: Computer Games as New Media. London: Open University Press. Fisher, Stephanie J., and Alison Harvey. 2013. ‘Intervention for Inclusivity: Gender Politics and Indie Game Development’. Loading . . . 7 (11): 25–40. Accessed 27 April 2018. http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/118 Golding, Dan. 2014. ‘The End of Gamers’. Dan Golding blog, 28 August. Accessed 27 April 2018. http://dangolding.tumblr.com/post/95985875943/the-end-of-gamers. koyima. 2015. ‘Post on People Are Now Claiming That GamerGate Is Killing Gaming Archiving’. Reddit, 10 March. Accessed 27 April 2018. www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2ygk0q/people_ are_ now_ claiming_ that_ gamergate_ is_ killing/ cpa6sjh. Paul, Christopher. 2018. The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games: Why Gaming Culture Is the Worst. Minneapolis (MN) and London: University of Minnesota Press Serres, Michel. 1982. The Parasite. Baltimore (MD): The Johns Hopkins University Press. Shaw, Adrienne. 2014. Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture. Minneapolis (MN) and London: University of Minnesota Pres

Rethinking Gamification

Gamification marks a major change to everyday life. It describes the permeation of economic, political, and social contexts by game-elements such as awards, rule structures, and interfaces that are inspired by video games. Sometimes the term is reduced to the implementation of points, badges, and leaderboards as incentives and motivations to be productive. Sometimes it is envisioned as a universal remedy to deeply transform society toward more humane and playful ends. Despite its use by corporations to manage brand communities and personnel, however, gamification is more than just a marketing buzzword. States are beginning to use it as a new tool for governing populations more effectively. It promises to fix what is wrong with reality by making every single one of us fitter, happier, and healthier. Indeed, it seems like all of society is up for being transformed into one massive game. The contributions in this book offer a candid assessment of the gamification hype. They trace back the historical roots of the phenomenon and explore novel design practices and methods. They critically discuss its social implications and even present artistic tactics for resistance. It is time to rethink gamification