My book Battlefields of Negotiation: Control, Agency, and Ownership in World of Warcraft is now also available through Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN).
Grab a copy of the book here (as pdf)!
Battlefields of Negotiation: Control, Agency, and Ownership in World of Warcraft – out now!
After some delays, I am proud to announce that my book Battlefields of Negotiation: Control, Agency, and Ownership in World of Warcraft is out now.
About the book:
The massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft has become one of the most popular computer games of the past decade, introducing millions around the world to community-based play. Within the boundaries set by its design, the game encourages players to appropriate and shape the game to their own wishes, resulting in highly diverse forms of play and participation. This illuminating study frames World of Warcraft as a complex socio-cultural phenomenon defined by and evolving as a result of the negotiations between groups of players as well as the game’s owners, throwing new light on complex consumer-producer relationships in the increasingly participatory but still tightly controlled media of online games.
“In this volume, a multi-year study of a globally bestselling MMOG, Glas offers us detailed descriptions and theoretically informed analysis of the relationships between players and developers of World of Warcraft.Many game studies scholars have argued for the importance of understanding the contexts of gameplay such as platforms and paratexts, but Glas goes further, showing us how players’ exploitation of those parameters affords as well as limits their desires for control and agency in WoW. He also argues that their actions ultimately shape how they understand the game, its fiction and their relationships with other players.This book is required reading for anyone interested in online games, virtual worlds and deviant play.”
Mia Consalvo, Canada Research Chair in Game Studies & Design, Concordia University
The book can be ordered (in some cases pre-ordered) at the following stores:
Amsterdam University Press
Bol.com
Amazon.co.uk
Book Depository
Barnes & Nobles
Waterstones
UPDATE: the book is now also available through open access. Click here to grab a copy!
The Citizen Scientist on the Move: Digital Play, Politics and Epistemology Conference
The site is up for a conference I’m organizing with my colleagues at Utrecht University. It’s called The Citizen Scientist on the Move: Digital Play, Politics and Epistemology and has both a 2-day academic conference as well as a workshop day hosted by Waag Society in Amsterdam. It promises to be an interesting event!
About the conference:
With the advent of digital and mobile technologies scientific knowledge production has changed profoundly. As interactive, affordable, networked and ubiquitous technologies they invite people to engage with, alter and probe scientific ‘facts’. Play is essential to think about this new kind of engagement with science. It offers citizens powerful ways to become involved with and knowledgeable about scientific practices and offers subversive and exciting possibilities to actively contribute to and transform them. During this conference we therefore want to look at current citizen science developments through the lens of play. We will explore how the playful potential of digital media and cultures strengthen citizen’s scientific engagement and knowledge about their environment; and how the relationship between professional and laymen knowledge production is shifting through the ludic use of digital technologies.
For full conference details, registration and other infor, visit the conference site!
Interview about history and future of games.
I did a real fun interview recently with Henk Westbroek for his program on regional television channel RTV Utrecht. It deals with the history and future of digital games, and was filmed in a pool cafe equipped with one of the few remaining arcades in Utrecht – well, in the Netherlands probably. The program also deals with game addiction and games and the elderly. It is all in Dutch, but here’s the LINK.
FYI: Vacancies: 2 PhD Researchers ERC Project ‘Charting the Digital’ (2,0 fte)
For those interested: my colleague Sybille Lammes is looking for two candidates for PhD positions within her Charting the Digital research project. Below is an excerpt from the vacancy text, go HERE for the rest of it. The deadline for applications is March 31, 2012!
The key objective of this research programme is to investigate to what extent and how digital maps can be considered as new techno-cultural phenomena that have altered our way of being in and moving through our spatial environments. Digital maps allow a greater degree of interaction between users and mapping interfaces than analogue maps do. Instead of just reading maps, users have far more influence on how maps look. Whether a navigation device that adjusts its route-display according to where the driver chooses to go, or a map in a computer-game that is partly created by players, maps have become more interactive and are now co-produced by their users.
This project works from the notion that digital mapping always takes place via interfaces. As the term already indicates, interfaces facilitate interaction between map and user. However, this study will not view interfaces as empty vessels that let this interaction ‘come to pass’ but as material signs that are inscribed with socio-spatial ‘programs of action’ (Latour 1999,1993).
My favorite films of 2011
It’s been a busy year, which means I’ve probably missed a good deal of wonderful films (I have yet to see The Artist, Le Gamin au Vélo, Melancholia and A Seperation, to name a few), but I’ve seen plenty enough to make my yearly top 10 list. Actually, it turned into somewhat of a top 20 countdown. Here goes:First the runners-up:
20. The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg, USA/New Zealand)
While 3D as a film format is slowly being destroyed by rubbish horror and sci-fi films, Tintin shows how stunning 3D can be in the right hands. While the tone (especially the humor) was a bit off for my taste here and there, I found Tintin great entertainment.
19. X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaugh, USA)
My favorite of this year’s big superhero flicks. Makes me loath X-Men: The Last Stand even more.
18. The People vs. George Lucas (Alexandre O. Philippe, USA/UK)
It might be a geeky topic, the discussion whether Lucas still owns Star Wars and can do with it what he wants (including refusing to release the original version to the public) or if it belongs to the fans now is relevant for all interested in participatory culture and the like.
17. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, UK/France)
South London teenage street gang meet alien invasion: “This is too much madness to explain in one text!”
16. Super 8 (J.J. Abrams, USA)
If only the final 30 minutes or so weren’t somewhat of a letdown, this film would have been in my top 10. It’s one big love letter to Spielbergian 80s cinema.
15. The Tree of Life (Terence Malick, USA)
I love Malick’s work, but for me, this beautiful piece of cinema crossed the line between philosophical and pretentious a bit too often, with its rather corny (oh, sorry, spiritual) finale not doing it any good either.
14. True Grit (Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, USA)
More westerns please!
13. The Arbor (Clio Barnard, UK)
This documentary does not just offer a portrayal of the tragic life of British playwright Andrea Dunbar, it does so in a fascinatingly experimental form, blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, and between film and theater.
12. Rango (Gore Verbinsk, USA)
Much weirder than expected from a big studio animated feature, and with beautiful animation from ILM. Excellent surprise.
11. A Stoker (Aleksey Balabanov, Russia)
I’m fascinated with Balabanov’s brand of pitch-black comedy and with A Stoker (Kochegar) he’s once more on a roll. Balabanov fills even the grimmest situations of human misery with dry, wry humor.
Which brings us to my top 10 favorite films of 2011:
10. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL (Brad Bird, USA)
Whereas Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the antithesis of a spy action film, Brad Bird shames even the best Bond’s with his take on Mission Impossible. This is not Tom Cruise’s, but his film. It reminds us what action films can become under the right direction: an often awe-inspiring, beautifully choreographed rollercoaster ride. See it on IMAX.
9. RUNDSKOP(Michael R. Roskam, Belgium)
Year after year, it are the Flemish who must remind the Dutch how to make good films. This year’s prime example is this bleak journey into the world of the hormone maffia, with a great Matthias Schoenaerts as a tormented (and, due to steroids, huge) cattle farmer Jacky.
8. RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (Rupert Wyatt, USA)
While I’m not in the Oscar for Andy camp (such an award should be given to or at least shared with the animators), Andy Sirkis’ Ceasar is a terrific (and terrifying) creation. Ceasar’s rise to freedom and power is done so well that it made me forgive the bland performances of James Franco and Frida Pinto (though John Lithgow is great, but he is always great). The smart and cheeky ways in which the film is tied to the original Planet of the Apes make it a strong addition to the series. Also, we can now just forget Tim Burton’s awful remake.
7. BALADA TRISTE DE TROMPETA (Álex de la Iglesia, Spain/France)
De la Iglesia has delivered a biting commentary on Spain’s Franco years, and has chosen sad clowns do to so. Violent, disfigured, armed sad clowns. Did I mention the violent, disfigured, armed sad clowns? A wonderfully grotesque and unexpectedly epic black comedy/drama which has future cult classic written all over it.
6. INSIDE JOB (Charles Ferguson, USA)
Director Ferguson said it best when we accepted a deserved Best Documentary Oscar: “Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that’s wrong”.
5. THE GUARD (John Michael McDonagh, Ireland)
“let me slip into something a bit more uncomfortable” – Brendan Gleeson’s sergeant Gerry Boyle is one of this year’s best – and endlessly quotable – comedic creations. As a film, it’s this year’s In Bruges.
4. TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Tomas Alfredson, France/UK/Germany)
Not many films made such an impression on me in terms of its impeccably detailed look and feel. Its stylized (but for some understandably annoying) refusal to be intelligible, with much of its narrative more implied than explained, actually makes me want to see it again soon. I also loved to see Gary Oldman doing the opposite of chewing scenery.
3. TYRANNOSAUR (Paddy Considine, UK)
Considine’s directorial debut is a harsh social drama of the Ken Loach variety. Peter Mullan might have gotten most of the attention, playing such a convincing self-destructive wreck of a person, Olivia Colman as the Christian charity shop owner grudgingly helping him out, made quit the impression too. Why this film didn’t reach Dutch cinemas is beyond me. (EDIT: apparantly, it is coming out in the Netherlands – this week even. A bit late, but hey, better late than never).
2. 13 ASSASINS (Takashi Miike, Japan/UK)
Miike Takashi makes a lot of truly crazy and experimental films and I try to catch as many of them as possible, but to be honest, his films are usually more miss than hit. And then he suddenly gives us 13 Assasins. It’s an epic sumarai film which, aside from a few Miike trademarks like the occasional gore and crazy stuff (hello, explosive cow stampede!), feels like a film in the classic tradition of the samurai film by the likes of Kurosawa. A modern Seven Samurai then, only bloodier.
1. DRIVE (Nicolas Winding Refn, USA)
I’ve been a fan of Nicolas Winding Refn’s work for years (his Valhalle Rising made it to my top 10 last year) but Drive is his most solid, lush and plain cool film yet. In fact, this film lover’s film feels like an instant classic. I came across a review comparing it, among other things, to samurai films, calling it a lovely companion piece to 13 Assasins. A good excuse to see both again.
DiGRA 2011 paper online
The paper I presented at the Think Design Play: DiGRA 2011 Conference is now online in the DiGRA Digital Library.
The abstract and other info can be found here, while the full text is located HERE.
Make sure to also check out the papers written by my colleagues at Utrecht University (overview here)!
Book chapter out!
After a long wait, Online Gaming in Context, a fine collection of texts about online gaming published by Routledge, is finally out. Together with Torill Mortensen, Kristine Jørgensen and Luca Rossi I co-authored a chapter in there called “Framing the Game: Four Game-related Approaches to Goffman’s Frames” (a title which I guess speaks for itself).
I haven’t held the book, which was edited by Gary Crawford, Victoria K. Gosling and Ben Light, in my hands yet, but it looks to be a highly interesting work which I would recommend to all interested in (the study of) online gaming. Here’s the book description – a full table of contents can be found on the Routledge site.
There is little question of the social, cultural and economic importance of video games in the world today, with gaming now rivalling the movie and music sectors as a major leisure industry and pastime. The significance of video games within our everyday lives has certainly been increased and shaped by new technologies and gaming patterns, including the rise of home-based games consoles, advances in mobile telephone technology, the rise in more ‘sociable’ forms of gaming, and of course the advent of the Internet.
This book explores the opportunities, challenges and patterns of gameplay and sociality afforded by the Internet and online gaming. Bringing together a series of original essays from both leading and emerging academics in the field of game studies, many of which employ new empirical work and innovative theoretical approaches to gaming, this book considers key issues crucial to our understanding of online gaming and associated social relations, including: patterns of play, legal and copyright issues, player production, identity construction, gamer communities, communication, patterns of social exclusion and inclusion around religion, gender and disability, and future directions in online gaming.
While the release of a paperback edition will apparently take some more months, the hardback can be bought through the usual channels like amazon.
Paper presentation on pervasive cheating.
I’ll be presenting a paper called “Breaking Reality: Exploring Pervasive Cheating in Foursquare” at Think Design Play, the upcoming Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference. The Think Design Play program can be found here. For those interested, here’s the abstract:
This paper explores the notion of cheating in location-based mobile applications. Using the popular smartphone app Foursquare as main case study, I address the question if and how devious practices impact the boundaries between play and reality as a negotiated space of interaction. After establishing Foursquare as a prime example of the gamification phenomenon and pervasive gaming, both of which require us to rethink notions of game and play, I will argue that cheating in location-based mobile applications challenges not just the boundaries of play, but also of playful identity.
WANTED: participants for Best Scene in Town @ PICNIC 2011
We (the New Media & Digital Culture MA) are looking for enthusiastic Utrecht University students who are willing to represent the university in this year´s Best Scene in Town mobile design challenge @ PICNIC 2011!
From bestsceneintown.com:
“Best Scene in Town’ is a mobile design challenge that explores how we can interact with the city through our mobile phones. In ‘Best Scene in Town’ student teams enter a series of hands-on creative sessions to design, develop and ultimately pilot their mobile concepts for a live audience with the 7scenes platform.”
Mixed student teams from China, U.S.A and The Netherlands explore the rules of how we can interact with locations and people using mobile phones. You do not have to have any technical knowledge to participate. Out-of-the-box thinking and collaboration skills is all that is required!
Please read the challenge page for more info on the how, what, and where of Best Scene in Town @ PICNIC 2011.
If you would like to participate, please let me know at r.glas @ uu.nl before june 17.