Task # 5 – Fandom and Participatory Culture
Part One
Reading 1 – Fantasy Baseball: The Case for Competitive Fandom
The ready describes competitive fandom as the learning, play and fandom of fantasy sports. These fantasy sports exploded because of something called cultural convergence. Fantasy sports take the statistical output of sport ad the mechanism that allows fans to compete with other fans to more accurately predict the statistical performance of players. The article calls this the “game-upon-a-game feature”. In other words fantasy sports takes real life sports statistics and makes it into a game where players can create teams based on their real life statistics. Fandom becomes competitive when the knowledge acquired in the fan domain is transformed into strategic information to guide play in a new kind of game. This specific article focuses on fantasy baseball and how it is played. Over 10 million people play fantasy baseball and $500 million is spent annually on this obsession.
The article discusses 5 stages of a fantasy sports league:
1. Preparation – Using traditional media to acquire knowledge and prepare to select players in the fantasy league.
2. Player Selection – Players select players through drafts and auctions, depending on salary caps for 25 players. 1/3 pitchers and 2/3 hitters.
3. Daily Roster Management – Players manage their team through daily trades, injured reserve list, waiver or free agent claims.
4. Negotiation – Discuss players, “trash talk” and psychological ploys to acquire valued players
5. Winning and Losing – Winner is determined by who sits on top of the rankings with players and team statistics.
The article discusses the beginning of these types of game with the “Strat-o-matic”. The goes on to state that Competitive Fandom = Fan culture + competitive gaming. There are three aspects of fan culture for fantasy baseball, which include: the dual planes of activity, mash up production, and trans-media complex. Within competitive gaming there are three aspects when relating to fantasy baseball, these include: artificial, rules and quantifiable outcomes.
Fantasy baseball and fantasy sports blur the lines between traditional media and digital media, this means taking the real statistics from television sport and turning it into a game in real-time. Participatory culture is used in this article as the players of fantasy sports having control over what happens within the game and its players create each league and team.
Reading 2 – Computer Game Modding, Intermediality and Participatory Culture
This article discusses how the customer modifications of games or the modding phenomenon links together media production and consumption that clearly goes beyond the simple oppositions of cooptation and resistance. The article discusses how there is recent changes in the new media environment, these include: (1) New tools and Technologies (to archive, annotate, appropriate and recirculate media content) (2) A range of subcultures that promote do-it-yourself media production. And (3) Economic trends encouraging the flow of images, ideas and narrative across multiple media channels.
The article analyzes the forms and meanings of gamer made designs, specifically Mods. Mod is a modification or gamer create content, which blur the boundaries between gamers and game designers. This creates innovation and creative within gamers and game culture, this creative involvement becomes the fundamental feature in any game. Modding and innovation can consist of not only technological changes in the game but game practices aswell. As there is a very big social nature to games classified as Muds or MMORPGs which make helping create and innovate within the game even more appealing to Modders.
The article discusses how Modders “hack” or “patch” games. This is defines as “to write computer programs for enjoyment”. Avant-garde artists can lead to limited view that emphasizes the ironic and distanced appropriation and pays no attention to the affects and passion attached to games. Innovation helped improve the game play throughout the history of games. Modders manipulate and modify the game in many different ways, these include, in world, weapons, characters and manipulating game mechanics.
Within this article participatory culture is defined as being actively involved in the innovation and creation of a game that a person plays and is involved in, although power remains partial and modders are never fully independent to create whatever they which within a game. This article discusses 5 categories in order to explain what happens in the intersections of participatory culture and corporation driven media convergence these categories include conflict, critique, challenge, collaboration and recruitment. In the same way that modder adopt different positions, also the game industry in far from a homogeneous entity.
Reading 3 – Of Mods and Modders – Chasing Down the Value of Fan Based Digital Gaming Modifications
This article discusses how fans are turned in to programmers in context. The article points out the consumers in general were named persons of the year by time magazine because of how fans have such an impact on producing aswell as consuming (prosumer). Mods can range from changes in the physics of the game to a change in the story line from changing conversations throughout the game. Normally add-ons, maps, mods and skins focus on developing realism and historical accuracy. The article also debates if modifications are the cause or effect of gaming success. A large mod typically requires more than 100 hours of work to complete where as a smaller mod typical take 20 – 40 hours to complete. All “prosumers” generally modify games for enjoyment. There are 3 themes in which people will typically decide to become a modder, these include: Artistic endeavor, Allowance for gamers to identify with games which in turn increases level of enjoyment of game play and lastly, the gain experience to acquire a job in the digital gaming industry.
Game companies recruit employees from their hobbyist communities. Digital game fan programmers are important part of a digital games context community. This is because modders are more likely to take creative risks that game companies are not willing to take.
This specific article discusses participatory culture in the context of the actual producer or the gaming industry and how they rely on prosumers and fan modifiers and developer to create a successful game.
The Notion of Participatory Culture
Wikipedia describes participatory culture as one: With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, with strong support for creating and sharing ones creations with others, with some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passing along to novices, where members believe that their contributions matter, and where members feel some degree of social connection with on another.
These articles that discuss mods and prosumers of gaming relates to this course discussion because obviously mods and modders are a larger part of 21st century gaming and most of the popular game that we are analyzing today are developed and innovated by gamers.
Participatory culture fits into the theories we’ve discussed in audience studies such as the agenda setting theory, I think that if through web 2.0 consumers have the ability to produce media content this diminished the agenda setting theory in the fact that the public is creating the media, in which the public agenda will bring about topics and different forms of salience within the media and the media agenda which will then be consumed again by the public. I feel with the new Web 2.0 such as blogging and other forms of digital media in which consumers can help produce and create media content, the face of media and the agendas in which the media ‘follows’ will soon diminish.
Part Two
I found another serious game on games for change (G4C). This game, called ElectroCity, has the same ideas and concepts as EnergyVille. It seems as though ElectroCity is for an older audience becasue there is many more aspects to the game than just creating energy. A player can build cities, rural neighbourhoods or just leave it alone, on top of creating energy for their place. The game takes 4 different areas when scoring you. (1) The security of your city (2) your popularity (3) your population and (4) your environment. Players must make people in there city happy while sustaining energy, environment and the economy. I Like this game more than Energyville because I feel that it is much more interactive and can teach more about sustainability. I feel that children who will be learning about these types of things will be more interested in the game ElectroCity.
Link to ElectroCity: http://www.electrocity.co.nz/Game/
