Fans and Videogames: Histories, Fandom, Archives

ISBN-13: 9781138679672 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 242 str.

Melanie Swalwell; Angela Ndalianis; Helen Stuckey

Opis

In order to better understand and theorize video games and game playing, it is necessary to study the activities of gamers themselves. Gamers make literal the theoretical concept that Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva defined four decades ago: they are active creators in generating meaning; they are creators of media texts they share with other fans (mods, walkthroughs, machinima, etc); and they have played a central role in curating and preserving games. This volume brings together essays that explore game fandom from diverse perspectives to offer a broad and holistic understanding of the complex processes at work in the phenomenon of game fandom and its practices. Contributors aim here to historicize game fandom, recognize fan contributions to game history, and critically assess the role of fans in ensuring the persistence of game culture through the development of archives.

Recenzje

"This book is an essential read for those of us who study what people (especially communities) do with games beyond designing and playing them. It will be of interest to anyone working in game history and especially those who study issues of preservation and archives. It should also be useful for fan scholars."- Samuel Tobin, Fitchburg State University,American Journal of Play

O autorze

Melanie Swalwell is an Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow in Screen and Media at Flinders University, Australia. She is co-editor of the anthology, The Pleasures of Computer Games (2008). Melanie is currently completing a monograph Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular Digitality for the MIT Game Histories series. Helen Stuckey is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Flinders University, Australia. Her research explores the curation and collection of videogames. A games curator and historian, she has worked at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and was the Director of the Games Program at RMIT University. Angela Ndalianis is Professor in Screen Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she also directs the Transformative Technologies Research Unit. Her publications include Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment (2004), Science Fiction Experiences (2010), The Horror Sensorium (2012) and The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero (2008).