Coding Play/Crafting Code in the City by Aphra Kerr
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Coding Play/Crafting Code in the City Dr. Aphra Kerr Sociology, NUI Maynooth
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Dr. Aphra Kerr is senior Lecturer and researcher in social studies of technology and media. She also teaches courses on games and play, and culture and everyday life. She has extensive research experience on the production, use and regulation of digital media, especially digital games, SNS (social networking sites) and animation, as well as the changing nature of broadcasting in the digital age. Her current research projects include ‘Cultural Production in the Digital Age’ (NSF funded network) and she is currently writing ‘Global games and transnational work’ (book under contract). For the past ten years she has been involved in running gamedevelopers.ie, a community voluntary website for the games industry in Ireland.
Transcript of Coding Play/Crafting Code in the City by Aphra Kerr
Coding Play/Crafting Code in the City
Dr. Aphra Kerr
Sociology,
NUI Maynooth
Entertainment software – ESA in US
Interactive software – ISFE in Europe
Videogames/Digital Games/Computer games
Creative and Cultural industry
Independent or indie
Discursive Struggles.
‘game development is a creative collaborative process involving numerous disciplines rooted in a particular culture producing creative, artistic and culturally important works. Software is a part of this process, and part of the thing created, but it is not the sum of its parts. This is the video game industry’
O’Donnell, C. 2012 ‘This is not a software industry’ pg 18
Game Development
1. Games as a service – MMOGs, peer to peer, esports
2. Data driven game design & metrics
3. Platformisation/Casualisation of games – apps, mobile, ipad
4. Alternative routes to market – STEAM, Facebook
5. Productivity of players
6. Intense state competition for mobile game companies, tax credits, visas & worker mobility
Trends in Game production
Triple A – Tech & Programming
Independents & Player created content
“[…] the notion of independence needs to be interrogated somewhat if it is to have any purchase. …… the "indy" tag may not signify much more than "wannabe". … In other words, the power of already established publishers may in fact be strengthened by the creation of an industrial diaspora of hopeful independents. …” Dovey and Kennedy, p. 141 (2006)
What is an independent producer?
(nothing) intrinsically emancipatory in the practices of production employed or put forward by independent game designers. (Ruffino, P. 2013)
Alternative ideas about Indie?’
Jonathan Blow, author of Braid, “...part of it is trying not to be professional. A lot of people come into indie games trying to be like a big company. What those game companies do is create highly polished things that serve as large as an audience as possible. … The creation of this highly glossy commercial product is the opposite of making something personal.” Indie Game: The Movie, 1:32 –2:06 (2012)
New practices, old structures?
Cultural individualisation?’ (McRobbie, 2001) ‘insitutionalised individualisation’ of cultural labourBanks (2007) Venture Labour and the individualisation of risk (Neff, G. , 2012) Highly gendered..
Cyberfeminists identified programming as craft activity connected to weaving – Plant, S. , Wajcman, J.
equitable access to tools & knowledge
DIY game making as craft. Women only games workshops Toronto since 2011 – addressing wider absence of women in games industry (Westecott, E. 2012)
+ Jenson, J., Harvey, A., Shepherd, T., Whitson, J.
Programming as craft?
Locating the games industry
Gamedevmap - content
Kerr and Cawley, 2009
2009 - Occupational categories
games
management 104 producers
creative
60
Concept artists
animators
design Level designers
programming 72 Network, tools,
graphics
QA & support 895
198
59
26
42
Community support
Quality Assurance
Localisation
Marketing
Admin
Location
47
5 4 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Fig. 1 - Number of Games companies by county
2012 Games industry in Ireland Jamie McCormick
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
2009 Feb-12 Oct-12
21
75
83
Fig 4. Number of companies operating in the Irish Games Industry
FDI V Indigenous Jobs 2012
647
2697
Indigenous Jobs International Jobs
Job Growth 02-12
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
# Jobs
Types of Indies in Ireland
Type
L1 Newbies Graduates, competition and jam teams
L2 Transfers From other industries and university projects
L3 Spin-outs From FDI closures
Experience
Bowen & Deuze– 2009 ‘‘how indie is it?’’
1) Financially – from publisher, investor (public or private), platform, markets 2) Creatively – from publisher, investor, platform, Players
State strategies
Action plans, Incubators, seed funding
‘pioneering’, ‘dynamic’, ‘innovative’
‘talented highly skilled people with the ability to work across cultures’
The need for an ‘anticipatory, agile and responsive approach’
The Games Sector in Ireland: Ac Action Plan for Growth (2011) Forfas
1: NDRC and Launchpad (accelerator) – equity and pr0totyping
2: New Frontiers (EI + IoT) – business development
Private Strategies
Trade association, publicity & events, RnD & tax breaks,
incubators and skills
3. Games Ireland
Membership Games Ireland membership is drawn from companies at all levels of Ireland’s active and diverse video games industry. There are alternative types of membership a vailable allowing different levels of participation in Games Ireland‘s board and policy meetings, public and networking events and the setting of Games Ireland objectives.
Games Ireland & Games ‘Gigs’
4. Promotion
5. ‘GameSpace’ – game specific incubator
GameSpace
Practice, play and learning
Virtual networking & community
From Independence to Play & Craft
6. DubLudo June 2013 ‘Hey there guys. I
want to let you know about something I am very
passionate about - Play. I love playing and playing games. I love our little dev scene here in Ireland and it’s wonderful to see it grow each year, every event I go to I am wowed by a new team or an idea. But something has been missing from our smorgasbord of gatherings and meetings and that has been play.’
dubLUDO is an event for anyone that makes games that wants to make their games better. Bring your game Get feedback Give feedback FAQ: Q: What is this weird thing? A: We are still figuring that out. Q: Can I come? A: Yes Q: Can I show my game? A: You have to show your game. Q: But my game is not very good. A: That is not a question. Q: Do you have ( technology x, item y )? A: Probably not, you should bring it.
Moves to Facebook..
And to Twitter
7. GameCraft
Chief Organisers
Strategies & Tactics
Public/State Private Indy /newbies
Jobs Technology Playing
F2F Networking Team building Tinkering
Seed capital entrepreneurship Creating
Equity publicity Virtual Networking
Office space skills Co-operating
Innovation grants
RnD grants Jams, meet ups
mentoring
tax
launchpads visas
Hothouses Gamespace
Events, meet ups and jams as a bullwark against creative and educational individualisation
Virtual networking & socialisation V individualised work
Passion versus alienation
Tactics for survival
Passionate
Graduates, young (ish), mostly male, white.
Self or mix of funding - contracts, investment, social welfare, teaching
Working long Hours & Flexible
Self-promoting
Self-training/Learning by doing
Your Indy Worker
‘a very complicated version of (creative) freedom’
Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2010
Investment?
An exit?
A release?
Survival?
A hit?
What is success?
2012 & 2013 releases
Getting a Green light on STEAM?
Play, connect, create and more..
Software is much more than code and games are more than software – more cultural industry than software?
Still a gendered industry and a workforce that lacks diversity
Clustering, seed capital, tax credits and business plans as strategies for accelerating startups
Jams, meet ups and networking as tactics for dealing with precarity, risk and continuous learning.
In sum…
