[-empyre-] Gaming Subcultures, Vol 72, Issue 25

[Julian Raul Kücklich]

Hi Mathias, good to see you here on empyre!

I like the questions you raise (and the GTA4 anecdote), and I think this 
is a useful way of bringing the notion of gaming subcultures into focus. 
The example of GTA is also pertinent, because it is a game which 
supports different styles of play, and might thus give rise to different 
GTA subcultures. But I also want to make sure we don't label everything 
as a subculture that might not fit our notion of normal / standard play. 
This of course raises the question what elevates a practice to the level 
of a subculture: is it identification with a group, a shared jargon, or 
particular aesthetic codes? I think something like "speedrunning" could 
usefully be labelled a subculture, because speedrunners seem to share a 
set of "values" as well as a history, which contextualizes the everyday 
practice of this subculture's members. On the other hand, something like 
"cheating", which covers a wide range of practices (some of which are 
endorsed by the games industry, as in your example) seems too fuzzy to 
actually define a specific "cheating culture". This differentiation, 
however, might be epistemological rather than ontological: it's simply 
easier to define a narrowly circumscribed subculture, rather than one 
that seems heterogenous and dispersed.

Julian.

dr julian raul kuecklich

http://playability.de


Am 30.11.2010 13:22, schrieb Mathias Fuchs:
> Dear Julian and all,
>
> I am interested in the notion of “gaming subcultures”. This is not to 
> be confused with “subversive gaming” is it?
>
> A Gaming subculture would be a subgrouping within the wider gaming 
> culture that shares some of the values of the cultural whole and 
> opposes others. Let me start with an anecdote:
> “In the university where I work, I run a Games programme and had to 
> face a group of burocrats who monitor the financial viability of the 
> programme. After the meeting one of the seemingly dry critical 
> assessors came to me and said with a twinkle in the eye: I like your 
> programme. I am a Grand Theft Auto player myself. When I go home after 
> work in the office I cruise the streets and shoot a few bankers.”
>
> Do bankers who shoot bankers, or accountants who shoot accountants in 
> their gaming experience belong to a gaming subculture? Is Grand Theft 
> Auto a subcultural game in itself? Do you qualify as “non-mainstream” 
> if you play a mainstream game and follow a set of rules that is 
> implemented in the software of the mainstream game? I would suggest 
> that the possibility of cheating that is built into the game makes 
> cheating part of the game.
>
> To quote gta4.net/cheats “We prefer to think of them as ‘arbitrary 
> gameplay enhancers’, really. All cheats should be entered during 
> normal gameplay. To do this, bring up Niko's cellphone, use the table 
> to find the cheat you want, and enter it using the directional keypad. 
> Once the cheat is entered, a 'Cheat Activated' message will appear.”
> If we follow the logic and terminology of gta4.net the gaming 
> subculture could be understood to be an “arbitrarily enhanced” part of 
> the culture.
>
> Mathias Fuchs