Sound Research WIKINDX
Sound Research WIKINDX |
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Morris, S. 2003, WADs, bots and mods Multiplayer FPS games as co-creative media. Unpublished paper presented at DIGRA. Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard (3/2/06, 1:23 PM) |
| Resource type: Conference Paper BibTeX citation key: Morris2003 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: First Person Shooters Creators: Morris Collection: DIGRA |
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| Abstract |
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Since the mid-1990s, a large and remarkably cohesive online community has developed around first-person-shooter (FPS) games, with up to 100,000 FPS gamers actively playing online at any one time. In addition to actual gameplay, the FPS community engages in practices of game development, criticism, commentary, debate, information exchange, file-sharing and social organisation, demonstrating a high level of involvement and investment by players in an online community that is vocal, influential, highly social and considers itself self-regulating and, to a certain degree, self-determining. Unlike the film, television and music industries, which tend to actively discourage fans from modifying content by adhering to rigid interpretations of copyright, FPS game developers have actively encouraged the creative efforts of players, and an active ãmod sceneä has developed around FPS games. Online access to open-source game development tools, the provision of venues for distribution and publicity of player-generated game content and modifications, the use of the online community in game testing, and increased communication between game development companies and players are currently shifting the boundaries between the traditional roles of media producers and consumers. This paper will focus on the inter-relationships between media, technology and culture as demonstrated by the online multiplayer FPS scene, and will make explicit the degree to which game texts and associated technology facilitate culture and the formation of community, and how in turn such social structures inflect and determine the development of computer games, related Internet technologies and subsequent models for software development and distribution. Beyond the idea of participatory media, I argue that multiplayer FPS games have become co-creative media; neither developers nor players can be solely responsible for production of the final assemblage regarded as the game, it requires the input of both. Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard |
| Notes |
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Mostly on fan bases and communities that develop around FPS games such as Q3A.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard |