[-empyre-] a definition of gaming subcultures? / playing as performance / games that you can't get out of your newsfeed

[micha cárdenas]

2010/12/3 Gabriel Menotti <gabriel.menotti at gmail.com>:
> “So vis-a-vis established gaming culture, social games are the new
> punk rock: easy to produce, with much more emphasis on "spreadability"
> than gameplay, and reaching out to audiences who would never pay 60
> euros for a AAA console game.” [Julian Kücklich]
>
> I like very much this reading of the situation, as counter-intuitive
> as it may seem. It also shows that the way these games operate
> prevents them from becoming a counter-culture by default. Farmville
> players must comply not only to the game rules, but also with those of
> its platforms of distribution (e.g. Facebook) as well, right?

Hi,

I have to say I'm with Simon on this one. I think that to see
Farmville as punk rock is ridiculous, since it's a huge profit seeking
corporation, with $500,000 in profit already and a projected worth of
billions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/business/25zynga.html?pagewanted=all
http://venturebeat.com/2010/02/18/zynga-farmville-sharespost-mafia-wars/

Though I've never played it, my niece apparently loves it...

I do think that Minecraft could be seen as way more punk rock, though.
It seems to be something fun the developer wanted to do and it seems
pretty pointless in a way similar to some punk bands I think of as
just a pure expression of emotion. Also, the simple aesthetics of just
using blocks is brilliant and allows a whole field of expression to
develop out of a narrow set of constraints, again like punk.  [
http://www.minecraft.net/ ]

But in terms of being oppositional, I think that D. Fox Harell and his
lab are doing brilliant work that brings into question the dominant
paradigms of race, gender and identity in gaming. [
http://icelab.lcc.gatech.edu/ ] A recent interview with him on Kotaku
responded in a huge backlash from gamers who perceived their
subculture as being critiqued, which I think just indicates the
accuracy and relevance of the critique he's making, based on his own
experiences with games like Elder Scrolls, Neverwinter Nights and
Guild Wars. [ http://kotaku.com/5523384/identity-and-online-avatars-a-discussion
]  Certainly  gamers are very eager to jump to the defense of their
own subculture. I find both Chamelonia and Loss Undersea to be two of
my favorite projects of his, both dealing with avatars in transition
and the skill of oppressed people of adaptation, in the spirit of
chela sandoval's methodology of the oppressed, both are very poignant
and clever, as well as the DefineMe: Chimera facebook app.


-- 
micha cárdenas
Associate Director of Art and Technology, Sixth College, UCSD

Co-Author, Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs, Atropos Press, http://is.gd/daO00
Artist/Researcher, UCSD School of Medicine
Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net

blog: http://transreal.org

gpg: http://is.gd/ebWx9