All the world's a game: virtual worlds, interactivity convergence (Week 7)

Readings

Alternate Reality Gaming (Ornebring)

Ornebring mentions the concept of a central text and argues that Jenkins is not necessarily accurate with his example of The Matrix having a number of texts, an intention to use various media for the idea of the matrix, and there is no central text.  I agree with Ornebring that convergence culture doesn't necessarily mean that the central text has to take a back seat and not feature.  A text is what it is - it doesn't change because something expands on it, but the narrative is no longer limited to a single text.  What can change is how a consumer perceives a text if they see another part of the narrative before seeing the original or central text (Bonner & Jacobs, 2011). For me a classic example of this is the BBC series of Pride and Prejudice.  Those who see this series before reading the Jane Austen book will likely visualise Mr Darcy as Colin Firth (primary source: me!).  In the case of role playing games coming across a text in a MMORPG/ARG may well influence their ability to engage with an original text.

Economy of popculture

I hadn't really thought about the value of cultural labour until this week and the value that fans add to a product.  Does this influence producers to lean towards transmedia narratives?  If prosumers (producer/consumer) don't want to do it for free they won't do it - or they'll just take it somewhere else that's not governed by the text owner.  I'm not sure that creators of texts can make others engage with it, but they can do what they feel might - there's no guarantee in a commercial world.  The difference with ARGs could be the addictive nature or habit of continually playing these games, but the complementary texts need to be as engaging for the consumer to want to participate in that too.

Playing on the digital commons (Coleman & Dyer-Witheford)

The first key point Coleman and Dyer-Witheford make is regarding the accessibilty to copy and circulate media now has surpassed media text ownership, or the ability to control it.  That's not to say the 'rules' don't exist around copyright - they still do, but, ignoring or lack of awareness of copyright infringement takes place on a massive scale, eg. through fanvids on YouTube.  However, when online communities share creations with a creative commons they flourish.  I had to chuckle when reading about the use of a computer for play. 
I feel the attitude for this is not disimilar to the attitude now about media text ownership and allowing others to use their property for other media creation.  That's not to say that explicit piracy is ok; I don't believe it is.  Copying anything - games, music, dvds - to keep when you don't own the original material or to copy for someone else is theft, in my opinion.  This is where someone is making money from another's intellectual property.  However, taking snippets of a text and creating something new from them for non-commerical use is a slightly different matter and needs to be viewed in the context of whether it adds value, devalues or neutralises the original text.  Of course, this can be subjective.  I suspect that this area or dispute has evolved far too quickly and it will take a long time to equalise, if it ever does.

There's an interesting observation about games always having been exposed to the issue of piracy, whereas the technology to copy music and television has not been around for its life.  Therefore game makers seem to be less proactive about pursuing breaches.  Now, it's almost like a game in itself to crack any built-in anti-copying software on to digital media.

Then there's the digital tinkering - I love that phrase: digital tinkering. This is similar to the fanvid concept where the creative and technically savvy create additional components to the games using game elements.  This is where the creative commons would kick in. User make mods and enhance the game and keep the consumer interested.  By sharing the game producers are getting free, cultural labour.  I think more game makers are recognising the value in this.  It has to give the game longevity.  And creators don't have the luxury of time between sequels now - because they have in the past, doesn't mean that it has to always be that way, and they may just have to get used to it.  I had never heard of machinima before reading this article and I'm afraid that in my online searches I struggled to find anything that I thought was particularly good.  A little like the vidding concept.

Economy
I also hadn't realised the scale of dollars involved with MMOGs.  The subscription thing seems to be a reasonable way to continue to generate income from a game well after it has been released.  However, in order to encourage users to continue to subscribe they need to be sure they're going to get access to things that they wouldn't be able to otherwise.  But, having a community of users who are collaborating and building friendships means that they discuss aspects of the game they like, don't like, they'd change or like to see.  This can encourage those with the skill or drive to create extensions of the game with Tizania Terranova's term, 'free labour' or the cultural labour I mentioned earlier.  Coleman and Dyer-Witheford do discuss the conflict over ownership, an issue on which I'd like to do some more investigating (and will).  The issue of game publishers stepping into user generated content to moderate elements may be justified in some cases, but the discrimination example where the publisher was overruled also seems justified to me, and the fact that it happened seems a symptom of a society that hasn't got it's head around what's discrimination and racism, and this needs to be challenged.  The online nature of these communities means that groups can get together and mobilise against this sort of behaviour where geographical governance permits, ie the laws of the country where the publisher is registered.  Of course, geographical governance can vary from country to country and what may be accepted in one may not be in another.  So, copyright and ownership seem to have similar underlying issues with governance.

Personal experiences of, and responses to, MMORPGs

I don't have much experience playing MMORPGs but I have watched others play a lot, so I do have some observational knowledge of it rather than emotional experience (I have witnessed emotional - expletive - experience). I had some discussion about online gaming; most had played and there was a little bit of discussion about the addictive nature of online games.  Some students couldn’t understand the appeal and didn’t see it as social at all.  There was also a fair bit of concern about violence in games.  Interestingly, not a lot of discussion on the lack of a R18+ game rating in Australia, which has been in the news recently.  There seemed to be a general agreement about games in moderation.  There was one view that games for educational purposes or that had some sort of intellectual stimulations had merit but otherwise couldn't see the point in playing.  I’d be curious to determine merit of game as escape or just for fun.  Why does it have to feed the brain?  I can understand if a game with limited stimulation is played for hours without a healthy balance of other stimulation.

Following one of the lectures in the first few weeks I looked for the back story of Wil Wheaton (Star Trek phenomonon) and stumbled across, what I think is an excellent, keynote speech he gave at the Penny Arcade Expo in 2007.  He talked about the sense of community that playing these games creates and that his sons have cried when a game's over because: A - they won't be the character anymore and B - they won't be with the friends they've created.  The collaborative nature of these games can teach skills and create a way of interacting with other people that you don't get through other media participation.

David Savat Lecture:  reasons to play: curiosity, digital media significance, cultural significance, existing and emerging possibilities – politically, economically, socially, cultural (Savat, 2011)

Remediation

I have stuck with my original idea of changing a dictionary to a video and I'm starting to realise just how much work is involved in creating something like this.  It really does take commitment and a passion for the subject would surely help.  I've mucked around with a couple of software programs to try and animate the text but have limited knowledge of the Adobe stuff so I've had to resort to power point.  I did a fair bit of digging for ways in which to record the slide show and found some open source software. I've used pictures from Flickr under a creative commons licence, I've used audacity to take a snippet of a song, trim it, loop it while trying to get the transition from the end to the beginning not obvious.  I used microsoft movie maker to layer the visual with the audio, and then again to layer the voice.  And finally published for anyone who has the link to see on YouTube.  All in all it was laborious and one hell of an effort.  but I'm there.

As for the intended audience?  I have no idea.  If it were better executed it would be more for the motion graphic stuff and a creative side, but I'm not that talented (yet).  Perhaps a random browser and fellow students in this case.  While I've published the video to YouTube it's not listed to be found in public searches.  Maybe I should given how many other students have made theirs public.

Bonner, F & Jacobs, J. (2011).  The first encounter: Observations on the chronology of encounter with some adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books.  Convergence, 17(37).  Doi: 10.1177/1354856510383361
Coleman, S. & Dyer-Witheford, N. ( 2007).  Playing on the digital commons:  collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture.  Media, Culture and Society, 29, 934.  doi: 10.1177/0163443707081700.

Ornebring, H. (2007).  Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture.  International Journal of Cultural Studies, 10, 445.   doi: 10.1177/1367877907083079
Savat, D. (2011). 2.5 All the world's a game: virtual worlds, interactivity, convergence. Podcast. Retrieved from Curtin University database
Wheaton, W. (2007).  Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 2007 Keynote: Wil Wheaton.  Retrieved from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4616592653905673144