Ingress: Augmented Reality Gaming as Cultural Resistance

Situated Play, 2007

This essay will attempt to show that Anglo-American culture research can make a significant contribution to a better understanding of digital games, their production contexts and acquisition processes. A close examination of a game's production context will shed light on structures, processes and ideologies which influence the development of a game on a conscious or unconscious level. The analysis of the game itself can reveal models of society presented in the game, intrinsic identification potentials and creative acquisition potentials. But the way the game is eventually adopted by the player can only be made clear by a close examination of its acquisition and the various forms of reception and enjoyment it induces.

Proceedings of 'PostScreen 2014, Device Medium Concept.' Conference held at the University of Lisbon 28 November 2014. Version 2 of that paper.

Art deployed using the augmented reality medium is doing so from a micropolitics that distances itself from the uses of these same technologies elsewhere, such as in gaming, advertising, or entertainment paradigms. However, the current terms used to describe this type of artwork do not adequately engage the relational and material specificities of the AR medium as it collides with an emergent thread of interventionist, activist and/or narrative art practice. To describe this emergent hybrid situational artwork, this paper proposes the term software assemblage. The augmented reality artworks I will describe as software assemblages, mobilise experimental processes to examine the relational intensities emerging between the AR medium, the ubiquitous devices with which we have become intimate, and our human social assemblages, specifically in this early 21st century capitalist milieu.

Gamevironments, 2022

In this article we consider how much control gamers have over game culture and production, arguing that the monopolistic power of corporations has been challenged in many cases by resistant cultures. In the view of the Frankfurt School’s culture industry, ownership and control of the means of production translates into control over culture. Indeed, the high costs of production and platformisation has extended trends of consolidation and control in the video game industry. However, there is also evidence that this consolidation and control can be resisted by digitally native, active, and organised sub-cultures. Such moments occur, we suggest, in part due to the contingent and digital nature of video games, which allows digitally literate players to utilise tools and communities to resist the cultural control of platform owners. In the face of a general tendency to emphasise the winner-takes-all effects of platform technology, our research suggests that technological literacy and enthusiast communities can play a crucial role in governing game production. Examining the games industry, we show that, generally, cultural production is shaped by concerns around profitability, but under some quite particular conditions, the affordances of versatile digital technology can contribute to more idiosyncratic cultural production. We discuss examples such as the Universal Windows Platform (2019), Minecraft (2011) and Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017) to provide insight into ways that gamers have influence over video game production.

Arte Y Politicas De Identidad, 2013

The new media environment brings digital data to real life through augmented reality technologies giving users a new vision, where the binary world interacts directly with the real one. A new age is upon us with challenges, doubts and mainly new ideas that start to take shape. One of these is whether or not McLuhan's theory of a medium integrating another is still a working paradigm should we testify that augmented reality elements appear inside videogames. This article is composed by an analysis of the third stage of the web and how it expands with augmented reality, the origins and concepts of interface design and how entertainment can be a sandbox of new ideas ending with a chapter on the electric environment of hybrid media, augmentation categories and Rancière's theories over the emancipated spectator. This issue culminates in an object analysis regarding augmented reality inside VR-games, where a videogame analysis is carried out, being followed by a review on the top four best devices. The whole data gathered provides us the framework to analyse McLuhan's theory regarding how virtual technologies' future might be when it comes to virtual outputs inside other virtual media.

2018

This dissertation uses intersectional feminist theory and Autoethnography to develop the concept of "cultural inaccessibility". Cultural inaccessibility is a concept I've created to describe the ways that women are made to feel unwelcome in spaces of game play and games culture, both offline and online. Although there are few formal barriers preventing women from purchasing games, playing games, or acquiring jobs in the games industry, this dissertation explores the formidable cultural barriers which define women as "space invaders" and outsiders in games culture. Women are routinely subjected to gendered harassment while playing games, and in physical spaces of games culture, such as conventions, stores, and tournaments. This harassment and abuse is intensified toward female journalists, developers and academics who choose to speak publicly about sexism within the culture, particularly since the 2014 rise of Gamergate. This dissertation illustrates the parallel development of games culture and women's continued exclusion from it, from the exclusionary sexism of J. R. R. Tolkien's writing to the development of the "Gamer" as a fixed (and stereotypically cis-male) identity in the pages of video game magazines of the 1980s and '90s, to the online "Gamer activism" of today. At the same time, I also explore my own experiences as a female gamer and academic in the 2010s, using projects I have been a part of as a means of reflecting on developments in the broader culture. I first discuss a short machinima (a film made within a video game) that Elise Vist and I created within the 2007 Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Lord of the Rings Online entitled Lady Hobbits. Lady Hobbits becomes an entry point to consider the historical cultural inaccessibility of women's representations in seminal male-dominated media such as The Lord of the Rings. I then discuss the gender and games advocacy group that I co-founded at the University of Waterloo, The Games Institute Janes (GI Janes), and the many gaming events that v we ran, comparing the experience of our gender-integrated and women-only game nights. The challenges I experienced organizing GI Janes fuels my analysis of the cultural inaccessibility of game play for girls and women, as demonstrated by the tangled gender dynamics at play in the eSports community and Super Smash Brothers fandom. Lastly, I discuss my experiences as a staff member, and eventual first female editor-in-chief, of game studies publication First Person Scholar (FPS). This chapter interrogates the cultural inaccessibility of writing and publishing about games for women in the academic field of game studies, and the ways in which game studies' links to gamer identity replicate games culture's troubling sexism. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the more recent connections between games culture, Gamergate, and conservative political groups such as the Alt-right. The conclusion asks how women can study games culture and the politically-motivated violence with which it is has recently been linked if doing so puts us at risk of becoming a target of harassment and abuse. It underscores the importance of future social justice-oriented work in academia and at large. In summary this dissertation moves from examining the historical inaccessibility of representation and participation (chapter 2), to the inaccessibility of game play (chapter 3), to the inaccessibility of participation in the discourse of games culture (chapter 4), before finally moving to a conclusion about Gamergate and politics in 2018 and how cultural inaccessibility has become a problem that is much larger than just games culture (chapter 5).

— This paper uses a communication sciences methodological approach (arts-based research 1) in the way it combines speculative thinking, game design and game theory to the interpretation and future use of new gaming devices and software for Virtual Reality game and play experiences. Starting with the following research questions: Is it possible to combine game engines and virtual reality HMD's to enhance presence? Can these peripheral devices sometimes ruin the gaming experience? The aim of this article is to generate and disseminate knowledge in the game design field, in general, and in the use of new devices applied to game and play environments, in particular. INDEX TERMS — Virtual reality, oculus rift, gaming experiences and play installations.

G|A|M|E – n. 3/2014 Issue 3, 2014 – Video game subcultures: Playing at the periphery of mainstream culture Edited by M. B. Carbone & P. Ruffino M. B. Carbone & P. Ruffino – Introduction: games and subcultural theory G. Zhang – The stroller in the virtual city: spatial practice of Hong Kong players in Sleeping Dogs R. Gallagher – From camp to kitsch? A queer eye on console fandom T. Plothe – “I’m a rogue night elf”. Avatars, gaming and The Big Bang Theory I. Márquez – Playing new music with old games: The chiptune subculture G. Menotti – Videorec as gameplay: Recording of playthroughs and video game engagement A. Harvey – Twine’s revolution: Democratization, depoliticization, and the queering of game design H. Tyni & O. Sotamaa – Assembling a game development scene? Uncovering Finland’s largest demo party Cover Art: KINSHASA vs AKIHABARA (Giovanni Fredi – http://kinshasavsakihabara.com) Vol. 2 – Critical notes (non-peer reviewed) M. Fuchs – Nordic game subcultures: between LARPers and avant-garde T. Oliveira, E. Ferreira, L. Carvalho & A. Boechat – Tribute and Resistance: Participation and affective engagement in Brazilian fangame makers and modders’ subcultures R. Sampugnaro, S. Mica, S. Fallica, A. Bonaiuto & M. Mingrino – Participation at the Global Game Jam event: a bridge between consumer and producer worlds in digital entertainment Cover Art: Contradictions (Filippo Minelli – http://www.filippominelli.com/contradictions/)

2018

Service-dominant logic (SDL) provides a well-established lens for understanding services as value co-creation processes. However, also value co-destruction can occur in service processes, but the literature on value co-destruction remains scattered and more studies are called for. We address this research gap with a classification of users’ subjective reasoning for value co-destructive experiences while playing the augmented reality (AR) mobile game Pokémon GO. We conduct laddering interviews with Pokémon GO players to uncover their value co-destruction experiences. Employing clustering analysis, we investigate users’ reasoning for value co-destruction experiences, and argue that value co-destruction may occur due to seven types of reasoning: value contradiction, unmet expectations, technical challenges, personal or social norm conflict, effect of constant mobile use, absence or loss of resources, and insufficient perceived value. The study contributes to research and practice with ...

Journal of Urban Design, 2019

While the benefits of play and discovery in cities have been widely discussed, the impact of augmented reality games such as Pokémon Go, induced urban discovery on different demographics, and their impact on perceptions of public spaces is yet to be studied. This paper examines the perceptions and usage of public spaces by different demographics of augmented reality gamers. The study finds that there are several statistically significant differences between the experiences of men and women, and players of different ages playing Pokémon Go in public spaces in Australia, particularly in their mobility, sense of marginalisation, and sense of place.

This essay will attempt to show that Anglo-American culture research can make a significant contribution to a better understanding of digital games, their production contexts and acquisition processes. A close examination of a game's production context will shed light on structures, processes and ideologies which influence the development of a game on a conscious or unconscious level. The analysis of the game itself can reveal models of society presented in the game, intrinsic identification potentials and creative acquisition potentials. But the way the game is eventually adopted by the player can only be made clear by a close examination of its acquisition and the various forms of reception and enjoyment it induces.