Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds

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Celia Pearce (Assistant Professor of Digital Media; Director, Experimental Game Lab; Director, Emergent Game Group, Georgia Institute of Technology) Tom Boellstorff (Professor, University of California, Irvine)

Communities of Play

Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds

Celia Pearce (Assistant Professor of Digital Media; Director, Experimental Game Lab; Director, Emergent Game Group, Georgia Institute of Technology), Tom Boellstorff (Professor, University of California, Irvine), Bonnie A. Nardi

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English

MIT Press
30 September 2011

Popular culture; Media studies; Ethical & social aspects of computing

Series: Communities of Play

The odyssey of a group of ""refugees"" from a closed-down online game and an exploration of emergent fan cultures in virtual worlds.

Play communities existed long before massively multiplayer online games; they have ranged from bridge clubs to sports leagues, from tabletop role-playing games to Civil War reenactments. With the emergence of digital networks, however, new varieties of adult play communities have appeared, most notably within online games and virtual worlds. Players in these networked worlds sometimes develop a sense of community that transcends the game itself.

In Communities of Play, game researcher and designer Celia Pearce explores emergent fan cultures in networked digital worlds-actions by players that do not coincide with the intentions of the game's designers. Pearce looks in particular at the Uru Diaspora-a group of players whose game, Uru- Ages Beyond Myst, closed. These players (primarily baby boomers) immigrated into other worlds, self-identifying as ""refugees""; relocated in There.com, they created a hybrid culture integrating aspects of their old world. Ostracized at first, they became community leaders. Pearce analyzes the properties of virtual worlds and looks at the ways design affects emergent behavior. She discusses the methodologies for studying online games, including a personal account of the sometimes messy process of ethnography. Pearce considers the ""play turn"" in culture and the advent of a participatory global playground enabled by networked digital games every bit as communal as the global village Marshall McLuhan saw united by television. Countering the ludological definition of play as unproductive and pointing to the long history of pre-digital play practices, Pearce argues that play can be a prelude to creativity.

By: Celia Pearce (Assistant Professor of Digital Media; Director Experimental Game Lab; Director Emergent Game Group Georgia Institute of Technology)
Foreword by: Tom Boellstorff (Professor University of California Irvine), Bonnie A. Nardi
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 1
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 178mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 544g
ISBN: 9780262516730
ISBN 10: 026251673X
Series: Communities of Play
Pages: 344
Publication Date: 30 September 2011
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Celia Pearce is Associate Professor of Game Design and Head of the Game Design Program at Northeastern University. She is the author of The Interactive Book- A Guide to the Interactive Revolution. Artemesia is her coauthor and avatar. Bonnie A. Nardi is Professor of Informatics in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and Cofounder of Center for Research in Sustainability, Collapse-preparedness, and Information Technology there. She is the coauthor of Acting with Technology (MIT Press).

Reviews for Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds

""[Celia Pearce's] background as a games designer is evident in the way she respectfully engages readers in clear, vivid prose structured in an original and--can we say it?--entertaining way. From its thoughtful analyses of play and community to its authoritative contextualization of games and virtual worlds, this book repays study on many levels. Enjoy!"" from the foreword by Bonnie Nardi